Player Watch #26 Riley Collier-Dawkins

Grrr

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When Dimma keeps mentioning Dow, a first year player that is still a skinny unit, and not RCD you'd think he's in a bit of trouble.
Dimma repeatedly mentioned RCD in his press conferences earlier in the season, but harder to get a gig as a mid. Not so much of late. Dow has impressed all who has seen him play so not much to do with RCD.
 
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I will never feel comfortable with selecting a 'project player' as high as 20. I know everyone is a 'project player' in some way unless you're a pick one, but 20 is too much of a stretch. And I must admit after having lived through 'slow burn' Corey Ellis, I am quickly losing confidence here. Fact is of all the deficiencies that a junior player can have that you can address, being a low possession player is probably the hardest to rectify. If you just can't get the thing it doesn't matter how good your tools are.
Corey Ellis is a different story altogether in my eyes

He was a timid kid that had talent and could play but was slow and timid for the role / position he plays and was always up against it.

RCD has height , strength , Pace and leap . Kid has all the tools and can play
What he is missing is his ability to run out games and read the game in the way we play , Currently he just tries to win every ball in the pack

I have hope and belief he still has a good chance to make it but unfortunate for him the VFL season is a wipe out
 
Corey Ellis is a different story altogether in my eyes

He was a timid kid that had talent and could play but was slow and timid for the role / position he plays and was always up against it.

RCD has height , strength , Pace and leap . Kid has all the tools and can play
What he is missing is his ability to run out games and read the game in the way we play , Currently he just tries to win every ball in the pack

I have hope and belief he still has a good chance to make it but unfortunate for him the VFL season is a wipe out
Sick of hearing excuses for this kid. There is only one issue with him.... he doesn't get the ball! We made a mistake in drafting him. He hasn't got a game in period where we've had injuries because he's not up to it.
 
Maybe just have some patience. Some players take longer than others to develop
Richmond and I can afford to give him some extra time. Just think people should not be pumping him up and accept that right now he's not at the level required. The club will make a call and I'm happy to trust them. I have doubts about his ability to improve the number of possessions he gets. I hope I'm wrong....
 

Tygrys

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Reckon being slow is the biggest deficiency, and Ellis was so slow. You can't judge every developing player on someone like Ellis. 2 weeks ago Markov was out the door, given a second chance and now he is doing well. Stack is the lucky he had a good year last year because he would be the next in line if we didn't know better.

Still think simply not being able to get the ball trumps slow. Plus I can think of a lot of players that were physically slow but were very good players eg Diesel Williams, Sam Mitchell. Slow of mind is another matter I guess? Whatever, certainly my expectations of him now are not the same as what they were based on where he was selected in the draft. If it makes it it'll be a bonus but I'm not holding my breath about it.
 

mad_tiggy911

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Let’s face it he’s a spud who can’t find the footy. It’s ok to admit we made a mistake. We haven’t made too many recently.
 

Grrr

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Sick of hearing excuses for this kid. There is only one issue with him.... he doesn't get the ball! We made a mistake in drafting him. He hasn't got a game in period where we've had injuries because he's not up to it.
Explain how exactly he is meant to get more possessions in scratch matches? We are sharing these scratch matches with other sides, so he has played forward at times. It's not like we can dictate where players are going to play. There are no excuses because nobody much is playing other than second rate scratch matches, and neither of us know how he is going because we get bugger all information.
 

Grrr

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Still think simply not being able to get the ball trumps slow. Plus I can think of a lot of players that were physically slow but were very good players eg Diesel Williams, Sam Mitchell. Slow of mind is another matter I guess? Whatever, certainly my expectations of him now are not the same as what they were based on where he was selected in the draft. If it makes it it'll be a bonus but I'm not holding my breath about it.
For a first year player playing inside mid at VFL level he did really well and by the end of the season he was knocking on the door. He and Pickett were our best 2 finals players I thought. Not a bad effort up against some really seasoned players in the heat of finals for an 18-19 year old.
 
RCD has the tools to be elite. What he lacks is smarts in using those tools and physical development. His style of game requires him to be stronger than others. And as a skinny kid he isn't stronger than AFL players. He's already bulked up a heap. Give him 2 more years and he'll be a monster and smash through where he currently gets stopped. He is also going to be taught how to play and use his strengths. If he's got smarts and can learn, he will improve dramatically over time. Whether he'll ever reach his potential I don't know. But he is the sort of guy that will (MHO) suddenly realise what he can do and start to produce genuinely excited games.
 
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Richmond and I can afford to give him some extra time. Just think people should not be pumping him up and accept that right now he's not at the level required. The club will make a call and I'm happy to trust them. I have doubts about his ability to improve the number of possessions he gets. I hope I'm wrong....
People just have to accept.He slipped for a reason.Clubs are not that stupid(exception Bloos).People who think he's going to be the next Bont or Cripps can forget it.
 
Explain how exactly he is meant to get more possessions in scratch matches? We are sharing these scratch matches with other sides, so he has played forward at times. It's not like we can dictate where players are going to play. There are no excuses because nobody much is playing other than second rate scratch matches, and neither of us know how he is going because we get bugger all information.
I am not trying to say he should be getting more possession in scratch matches this year. I understand the difficulties all our young players face in trying to prove themselves. Just that if he was up to the standard required he'd be played. People need to stop promoting him as a gun. It's not the case. He's not the next Bont or Cripps. His history in junior and VFL football thus far show him to be a player that gets low possession and this will need to be rectified before he's likely to get games.
 

YeOldTiger

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RCD has the tools to be elite. What he lacks is smarts in using those tools and physical development. His style of game requires him to be stronger than others. And as a skinny kid he isn't stronger than AFL players. He's already bulked up a heap. Give him 2 more years and he'll be a monster and smash through where he currently gets stopped. He is also going to be taught how to play and use his strengths. If he's got smarts and can learn, he will improve dramatically over time. Whether he'll ever reach his potential I don't know. But he is the sort of guy that will (MHO) suddenly realise what he can do and start to produce genuinely excited games.
Yep, that's what a development player is. By definition they take time. Or we could delist him cos he's a "spud" and let another team reap the rewards. Patience people. We have the luxury right now of fully developing our players...(Covid list reductions aside).
 
I am not trying to say he should be getting more possession in scratch matches this year. I understand the difficulties all our young players face in trying to prove themselves. Just that if he was up to the standard required he'd be played. People need to stop promoting him as a gun. It's not the case. He's not the next Bont or Cripps. His history in junior and VFL football thus far show him to be a player that gets low possession and this will need to be rectified before he's likely to get games.

Agree. It's my hope he does start to get the ball more and impact. This year might accelerate his physical development. But he needs to play against men to learn how to impact the game - defensively and offensively. We'll see next year. There will be a lot of young guys across the AFL basically left in limbo in 2020.
 

Grrr

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People just have to accept.He slipped for a reason.Clubs are not that stupid(exception Bloos).People who think he's going to be the next Bont or Cripps can forget it.
I don't think he has slipped, just that he has no real way to showcase what he has other than on the training track and in some scratch matches. He is a combative mid and scratch matches don't showcase that. Dimma has said on many occassions that he would like to get games into him. But with Bolton taking up the spot left by Prestia, and wanting to get games into Stack in the middle and Ross because he did so well last year, he is behind naturally them. How many young players can you put in a midfield pack at once, especially with Cotch sometimes missing. Jack Graham was dropped and very much playing for his season so of course he get's as many chances as he needs to show if he can cut it.
I don't think anyone can really judge him until next season, or they give him a shot in the next few weeks.
 
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I don't think he has slipped, just that he has no real way to showcase what he has other than on the training track and in some scratch matches. He is a combative mid and scratch matches don't showcase that. Dimma has said on many occassions that he would like to get games into him. But with Bolton taking up the spot left by Prestia, and wanting to get games into Stack in the middle and Ross because he did so well last year, he is behind naturally them. How many young players can you put in a midfield pack at once, especially with Cotch sometimes missing. Jack Graham was dropped and very much playing for his season so of course he get's as many chances as he needs to show if he can cut it.
I don't think anyone can really judge him until next season, or they give him a shot in the next few weeks.
X Clarke sounded less than enthusiastic about RCD a few weeks ago tells me he isn't progressing as well as expected even taking into account current situation.
 
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They weren't his words, just what some had read into them, neither has Stack or Ross.
Pretty sure it was his words.While i agree Ross & Stack haven't set the world on fire your not going to throw a debutant into the fire if he's not performing any better.
 

Charlie Pannam

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Xav said that he wanted him to crash packs and win contested ball and he’s done that in patches.
Perhaps slightly disappointed in his output from those comments.
Hard to glean much re development this year, just about a write off unless playing AFL
 

Grrr

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Xav said that he wanted him to crash packs and win contested ball and he’s done that in patches.
Perhaps slightly disappointed in his output from those comments.
Hard to glean much re development this year, just about a write off unless playing AFL
Also mentioned earlier in the interview that RCD was good before later saying he was going okay up forward. No development coach is going to say a player isn't progressing as expected in public, that is just what some are reading into it. And he might not be, but it is a weird year, and he is not on his own, so impossible to say really. It's not like they are going to delist him, so it is all speculation one way or another until next year probably.
 
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