Opinion KEN HINKLEY - planning for the future + Blooding our Young talent?

[FishingRick04]

Are you gods gift to football? No. Neither am I. We can be critical without being derogatory

Butcher has been grossly out of form and obviously the coaches aren't wanting to run another tall forward.

 

[El_Scorcho]

I don't necessarily disagree (although I reserve the right to be derogatory, on the unsaved podcast last week I called Shaun McKernan a quadruple amputee), but it's pretty clear Schulzenfest was just highlighting the glaring differences between the potential of Butcher and Gray, athletically and as footballers.

 

[Schulzenfest]

Are you gods gift to football? No. Neither am I. We can be critical without being derogatory

Butcher has been grossly out of form and obviously the coaches aren't wanting to run another tall forward.

It's too late for Butcher now. That ship has sailed. But last year when he was high up in the Ken Farmer medal race? Or early this year, when we dropped him for Redden, he went back and kicked 4 in the SANFL that week, and then we dropped Redden but decided we'd be better off bringing in Kane Mitchell than another tall? That's when we should have backed him in.

Sam Gray has played three times as many games as Butcher over the last two years. Kane Mitchell has played four times as many games. The 197cm super athletic contested marker has twice been cast off into the SANFL to rot for the year as soon as he has one bad game at AFL level (and he wasn't even particularly bad against Freo in Round 1 this year), but the 175cm flankers with poor skills have been given 'last chance' after 'last chance' after 'last chance' no matter how many times they have terrible games at AFL level because they can go back and put up decent stats in the state league. It doesn't make any sense.

Butch is capable of a big game on his day too. Remember his 5 goal game against the Crows in the NAB? If you give anyone enough chances, they'll have the occasional game where they look like an AFL footballer. We've given those chances to the wrong guys over the last two years.

 

[El_Scorcho]

It's too late for Butcher now. That ship has sailed. But last year when he was high up in the Ken Farmer medal race? Or early this year, when we dropped him for Redden, he went back and kicked 4 in the SANFL that week, and then we dropped Redden but decided we'd be better off bringing in Kane Mitchell than another tall? That's when we should have backed him in.

Sam Gray has played three times as many games as Butcher over the last two years. Kane Mitchell has played four times as many games. The 197cm super athletic contested marker has twice been cast off into the SANFL to rot for the year as soon as he has one bad game, but the 175cm flankers with poor skills have been given 'last chance' after 'last chance' after 'last chance' no matter how many times they have terrible games at AFL level because they can put up decent stats in the state league. It doesn't make any sense.

^

Paul Stewart just played more consecutive games than Butcher ever has in his entire career while averaging 11 touches, 3 marks and 0.3 goals across those weeks. Can anyone remember him doing anything in those 6 games at all?

Can anyone make a valid argument as to why Stewart was the right choice? We were missing Ryder, who we are playing as a key position forward.

PS. If you use the "rewarding SANFL form" argument, there is literally no hope that you will ever understand football and you should probably accept and embrace that fact.

 

[Janus]

^

Paul Stewart just played more consecutive games than Butcher ever has in his entire career while averaging 11 touches, 3 marks and 0.3 goals across those weeks. Can anyone remember him doing anything in those 6 games at all?

Can anyone make a valid argument as to why Stewart was the right choice? We were missing Ryder, who we are playing as a key position forward.

PS. If you use the "rewarding SANFL form" argument, there is literally no hope that you will ever understand football and you should probably accept and embrace that fact.

*puts up hand* Because Ken wanted his midfield to learn how to move the ball out of congestion with speed and not just bomb it to our tall forwards which they had been doing whenever they got into trouble, so he played Stewart as another roaming HF to facilitate that?

 

[El_Scorcho]

*puts up hand* Because Ken wanted his midfield to learn how to move the ball out of congestion with speed and not just bomb it to our tall forwards which they had been doing whenever they got into trouble, so he played Stewart as another roaming HF to facilitate that?

Reasonable on the face of it, but IMO we've found more targets on the lead in the last 2 weeks since he got dropped than we did in the previous 6 weeks when Stewart was in the side. Mainly because St Kilda and Essendon can't defend, but still.

Couldn't we have just instructed our players to lower their eyes and punished them when they didn't, and picked an actual leading forward instead of a midfielder/halfback?

 

[BIG MATTY WHITE]

It is, but you don't win flags by playing Care Bears.

Sam Gray has played what, 2 AFL standard games out of 12? Both in big wins against young opposition.

Is there any good reason why those 12 games (and the 6 that went to Paul Stewart this year, and the 16 games that have gone to Kane Mitchell in the past 2 seasons) couldn't have gone to Butcher for an enormous potential payoff for very little risk?

The Paul Stewart games are the ones that s**t me the most. We picked him as a marking forward based on his form as a midfielder and half back. He did nothing for 6 weeks. It was a massive waste.

Forget sam gray v butch...

you hit the nail on the head with pstew v butch...

a freaking waste of time and pure negligence

 

[Schulzenfest]

It's not just an argument that applies to Butch either. Ah Chee has potential coming out of his arse AND good SANFL form, but he's played one full game this year to Gray's 5 and Mitchell's 6. As soon as he had a couple of bad quarters against the Crows, he was subbed off and hasn't been heard from since. Amon to a lesser extent hasn't been quite as good as Arch, but he's also only played one full game. The guys with no upside get chance after chance after chance while the guys who have the potential to be high quality AFL players languish in the twos or in sub vests.

We're not getting close to winning the flag this year. Every game we put into Gray, Mitchell or Stewart rather than on someone with upside was a game wasted. And that's coming from someone who rates Stewart.

 

[AdsGoNads]

It is, but you don't win flags by playing Care Bears.

Sam Gray has played what, 2 AFL standard games out of 12? Both in big wins against young opposition.

Is there any good reason why those 12 games (and the 6 that went to Paul Stewart this year, and the 16 games that have gone to Kane Mitchell in the past 2 seasons) couldn't have gone to Butcher for an enormous potential payoff for very little risk?

The Paul Stewart games are the ones that s**t me the most. We picked him as a marking forward based on his form as a midfielder and half back. He did nothing for 6 weeks. It was a massive waste.

The argument for John Butcher is gaining traction again..

 

[RossFC]

Can anyone make a valid argument as to why Stewart was the right choice? We were missing Ryder, who we are playing as a key position forward.

PS. If you use the "rewarding SANFL form" argument, there is literally no hope that you will ever understand football and you should probably accept and embrace that fact.

Even when I brought up Stewart last month, I said he deserved his chance, But not as a forward. That is the coaches wrong decision to play him as a quasi forward. He was one of our best players in the pre-season in defence and clearly our best SANFL player early in the year playing defence/midfield.

The way I see this year if we were needing a tall forward option...
1st half of the year: Butcher comes in (Very unlucky to be dropped after Freo game)
2nd half of the year: Mitch Harvey (Now 11th in the Ken Farmer medal (played a game or 2 less than most of top 10 as well due to fixuring/rested 1 game) as the new main target after Butcher was moved to defence)