Player Watch #44: Cameron Zurhaar The Backman

[R00StaR]

With Duursma picking up and Trembath, Cam has lost his relevance a bit. Two of them is enough. If Zurhaar could get back to his “crash and bash” old self from 2019, there would be more of a place for him. However, we’ve already got 3 other guys up forward who are are tall or playing tall. Cam is fast becoming superfluous to our needs.

Problem is he's more a marking type player and there only so much a forward line can carry. Even Curtis is strong over head but offers plenty at ground level attacking and defensively.

I feel for him a bit, same with Duursma. We kick to Larkey more often than not, then theres Trembath the second option. When exactly would a player be looking for him as a marking option? When he's taken his man out of play, 40m out on the boundary? Get too close and he's lead his man into the contest. We just have a glut of the med marking types and Duursma will always win on talent and Curtis is way more versatile.

 

[Shermanator]

I do not agree. He cost us 5 goals. He tried in the last because he knows he’s on his last legs. Unfortunately, I think enough is enough.

He plays next week and we will continue going round in circles with this cabbage

Needs to be dropped and Spargo in.

Spargo’s footskills and unselfishness alone should give the Captain and the Bath another few easy shots on goal.

It also makes sense for balance having another pocket at the feet of the talls and let BGZ play his role.

 

[7577969923]

• Missed one.
• Sprayed one instead of passing.
• Hip and shoulder to Tall Curtis knocked him off the ball.
• His inside 50 scrubber when he had loose players.
• Screamed at George to pass, george looked at him, he saw Cam Cow was filthy hot and buggered up the kick.

FIVE GOALS!

He's never been a smart or unselfish player, and those are the qualities I think Cam needs to continue to contribute to this team. Duursma is clearly not as physical but is more talented, clean, and efficient. Duursma also seems to have much better game awareness, as exemplified by his blocking for Darling and even at the end backing off to allow Jy to collect the ball running straight at goal. I'm not confident Zuurhar would have done either of those things.

 

[Daniltchenko You Beauty]

He's never been a smart or unselfish player, and those are the qualities I think Cam needs to continue to contribute to this team. Duursma is clearly not as physical but is more talented, clean, and efficient. Duursma also seems to have much better game awareness, as exemplified by his blocking for Darling and even at the end backing off to allow Jy to collect the ball running straight at goal. I'm not confident Zuurhar would have done either of those things.

Yep that's the big difference I noticed on replay. Durs blocking for Darling and even the final goal he allowed Jy to come through. CZ just launches at everything, including one of Durs' earlier marks.

I fear Cam's going to get passed by in this team.

 

[DuckYeah]

I fear Cam's going to get passed by in this team.

He was when we drafted Duursma.

It was a terrible decision to sign him for so long. Not trading him I can understand, in my belief the length of contract at significant coin was an incredibly poor decision

 

[amaz199]

He was when we drafted Duursma.

It was a terrible decision to sign him for so long. Not trading him I can understand, in my belief the length of contract at significant coin was an incredibly poor decision

It wasn't the wrong decision at the time, though.

We needed to keep Zurhaar for as long as we could as our fire-power wasn't ready yet. PC was still showing glimpses and Duursma was constantly injured or struggling with match conditioning. We also hadn't recruited a proper second tall to help Larkey and we still relied heavily on Zurhaar to play as such. Then we got Teakle to free him up as a temporary solution, got Darling, Whitlock then got Trembath. So, I think it was sound list management to extend him (most of that money would be front loaded) and back in the other talls to free up Zurhaar.

There are also some short memories on here as Zurhaar was pretty good last year after a slow start. He might be doing the same thing this year but battling through some niggles.

 

[amaz199]

Every team has a flakey half forward that can put through 3-4 one week then go missing. It's a hard position to play that Duursma now makes it look real easy.

Brisbane is full of these types.

 

[speedy]

Has been passed by Trembath and Zane in the blink of an eye. But we still need 3 marking talls not including Zane. So Darling and Zurhaar fighting for the one spot imo when X comes back.

 

[Fish Sticks]

He has had an ordinary start to the year no doubt, but he hasn’t been terrible IMO & he won’t be dropped (yet)
He has missed a lot of very easy set shots which has made his season look even worse than it is.
He needs to start nailing those opportunities as easy set shot misses can be very costly!
His last quarter was good, like others, he was manic in hunting the ball & man. He needs to do this for 4 quarters every week & the rest will follow.
I have faith he can turn it around. Our forward line is better with an in form Zurharr kicking goals & hurting opponents.

 

[ferball]

He is on track for 35/36 goals for the full year (he has six, same as PC) and only Souv(14), Bath(8) and Duurs(7) are ahead. Next best is JY, JD and Dova on two each.

Last season he was probably on track for about 40, PC for about 40-45 if they'd played all games.

What's cool is the extra 15 goals (17 counting Dova) from Duurs and Bath at this point. Bath had nine last season and Duurs had four. Larkey is on track for 80+. lol

Its probably not as bad a start as we're making out. Last year he only had seven goals after four games.

If (and its a big if) he gets pushed out by Duurs and George then its because they are elite forwards and he's really only a good forward with a couple of traits. That only makes us better and having him as depth is very good depth.

 

[DuckYeah]

We needed to keep Zurhaar for as long as we could as our fire-power wasn't ready yet

We needed his fire power? Well that worked wonders didn’t it?

He was nothing but a joe the goose and a flat track bully last year. Been over this, not doing it again. No effort and im full as a fat womans sock right now.. time for a nap

 

[DuckYeah]

Has been passed by Trembath and Zane in the blink of an eye. But we still need 3 marking talls not including Zane. So Darling and Zurhaar fighting for the one spot imo when X comes back.

I’d take Darling and we know how much I think Darling is finished

 

[archereleven]

He is on track for 35/36 goals for the full year (he has six, same as PC) and only Souv(14), Bath(8) and Duurs(7) are ahead. Next best is JY, JD and Dova on two each.

Last season he was probably on track for about 40, PC for about 40-45 if they'd played all games.

What's cool is the extra 15 goals (17 counting Dova) from Duurs and Bath at this point. Bath had nine last season and Duurs had four. Larkey is on track for 80+. lol

Its probably not as bad a start as we're making out. Last year he only had seven goals after four games.

If (and its a big if) he gets pushed out by Duurs and George then its because they are elite forwards and he's really only a good forward with a couple of traits. That only makes us better and having him as depth is very good depth.

For mine its not really the goal kicking, its the broken chains, the carelessness with ball in hand, the ineffectual tackling and always hitting the turf in contested situations. He let's the team down far to often...

 

[7577969923]

For mine its not really the goal kicking, its the broken chains, the carelessness with ball in hand, the ineffectual tackling and always hitting the turf in contested situations. He let's the team down far to often...

I think the goal-kicking is maybe reflective of the broader problem. He has what looks like a very loose, lazy set-shot technique, but one that could be tightened up and improved greatly with a little bit of focus and work. I also look at him and think he doesn't have the physique you'd expect after eight years in the system. I've never heard anyone claiming he's a great trainer.

His best games are about his personal output and never about making his teammates better. How many times have we seen him burn a teammate to do a U-turn and attempt a snap that ends up as a point at best? He did exactly that to LDU on Friday.

 

[Merlin007]

I'm sorry, but I find the musing about dropping Zurhaar a bit puzzling.

I was critical of him staging against West Coast, but let's be fair dinkum.

To begin with, if his light training loads are anything to go by, he's playing sore - most match committees would take 80% of Zurhaar over 100% of the alternatives most days (Spargo? Seriously?)

Second, (of course) he kicked an important goal, having literally tossed aside his opponent (Duursma is coming on great, but not sure he can do that); Zurhaar is averaging 1.5 a game (better than de Goey)

Third, he's been trained as the spare in defence when we need to hold a lead - go back as far as the trial game against Collingwood, when he charged through the contest to kill the ball (successfully). Some of his efforts against Carlton were similar.

I know it's big footy, but come on, the bloke is one of the first picked, and will be for the immediate future

 

[Reginald0]

The leg dive was magnificent
And kicked straight when it mattered

 

[ferball]

For mine its not really the goal kicking, its the broken chains, the carelessness with ball in hand, the ineffectual tackling and always hitting the turf in contested situations. He let's the team down far to often...

I don't disagree with that.

But I have seen him make some efforts to address the issues I've had with him over the last two years so I'm prepared to give him a bit more rope.

 

[ferball]

I'm sorry, but I find the musing about dropping Zurhaar a bit puzzling.

I was critical of him staging against West Coast, but let's be fair dinkum.

To begin with, if his light training loads are anything to go by, he's playing sore - most match committees would take 80% of Zurhaar over 100% of the alternatives most days (Spargo? Seriously?)

Second, (of course) he kicked an important goal, having literally tossed aside his opponent (Duursma is coming on great, but not sure he can do that); Zurhaar is averaging 1.5 a game (better than de Goey)

Third, he's been trained as the spare in defence when we need to hold a lead - go back as far as the trial game against Collingwood, when he charged through the contest to kill the ball (successfully). Some of his efforts against Carlton were similar.

I know it's big footy, but come on, the bloke is one of the first picked, and will be for the immediate future

This is why we've been down so long tho.

All the criticisms he has copped are based on him not doing the things successful teams need for the 90%+ of a game where a player doesn't have the ball. (95% in his case probably.)

He doing the work to get back in defense this year and its a regular thing every game instead of a rare one-off every few games which shows he's willing to learn and improve and be less selfish but if he goes back into his old habiots our wins might be harder to get.

But Duurs will go past him (so he should - top 5 pick vs rookie) and George kicked four goals in a quarter (could have had five) and made seven tackles in the VFL on the weekend and he barely has any match fitness, even park level fitness. He'll have to improve his off the ball stuff if he wants to keep his spot long term.

 

[DuckYeah]

I'm sorry, but I find the musing about dropping Zurhaar a bit puzzling.

I was critical of him staging against West Coast, but let's be fair dinkum.

To begin with, if his light training loads are anything to go by, he's playing sore - most match committees would take 80% of Zurhaar over 100% of the alternatives most days (Spargo? Seriously?)

Second, (of course) he kicked an important goal, having literally tossed aside his opponent (Duursma is coming on great, but not sure he can do that); Zurhaar is averaging 1.5 a game (better than de Goey)

Third, he's been trained as the spare in defence when we need to hold a lead - go back as far as the trial game against Collingwood, when he charged through the contest to kill the ball (successfully). Some of his efforts against Carlton were similar.

I know it's big footy, but come on, the bloke is one of the first picked, and will be for the immediate future

 

[7577969923]

I'm sorry, but I find the musing about dropping Zurhaar a bit puzzling.

I was critical of him staging against West Coast, but let's be fair dinkum.

To begin with, if his light training loads are anything to go by, he's playing sore - most match committees would take 80% of Zurhaar over 100% of the alternatives most days (Spargo? Seriously?)

Second, (of course) he kicked an important goal, having literally tossed aside his opponent (Duursma is coming on great, but not sure he can do that); Zurhaar is averaging 1.5 a game (better than de Goey)

Third, he's been trained as the spare in defence when we need to hold a lead - go back as far as the trial game against Collingwood, when he charged through the contest to kill the ball (successfully). Some of his efforts against Carlton were similar.

I know it's big footy, but come on, the bloke is one of the first picked, and will be for the immediate future

At the moment, he's at best the fifth player selected in the forward line.

 

[Johnny99]

Got to learn to give it off, first time.

Looks selfish.

He is in the leadership group now.

 

[archereleven]

I don't disagree with that.

But I have seen him make some efforts to address the issues I've had with him over the last two years so I'm prepared to give him a bit more rope.

We've put up with it for the last few years, but his 1st 4 weeks have been putrid from a team 1st perspective imo.

With Zane coming on, George in the wings and a plethora of smalls on the list, he can ill afford extended runs of selfish footy.

 

[Liam Boy]

Now that we've got marking and goalkicking threats up forward that are as good as anyone's, just his physicality isn't really enough anymore and if he tries to be that guy every time he's going to get in the way. I think to reinvent himself he needs to focus on getting as fit as he possibly can and outworking his opponents with hard running. That will make him really hard to match up on; a defender who can beat him in the air will get left behind trying to run with him or easily stepped around when it hits the deck, and a defender who can run with him isn't likely to be able to beat him in the air or in a contested ball situation. That's how he can be an indispensable resource for this forward line, but it's also going to require him to understand that he's not the star of the show anymore.

For what it's worth I think that's what he did in the last quarter against Carlton and the contested mark where he bullied a smaller opponent, as well as the work he did to get back defensively were both instrumental to the win. We need to see more of it and for entire games because his best is way too good to be obsolete.

 

[kool kangas]

If he is still playing with an injury then he should be "managed" this week and rested from both AFL and VFL teams. Then bring him back for the Tigers if he is over his injury. Its to early in the season to have him playing throughout the season carrying an injury.

 

[DuckYeah]

Then bring him back for the Tigers

Hahaha of course. Because others arent allowed to feast on a shit defence. Only Cam Cow is allowed. I’d be trying how it looks without him against weaker opposition and use it for development.

Play him against Brisbane, poke him completely off the plank.