Player Watch #1: Nick Vlastuin

[TJTIGER]

The reason he doesn’t is because Richmond didn’t play a high possession style during our successful period. Whereas Stewart was getting 20 uncontested touches a game and 10 uncontested marks from defensive chippity chip chip.

It’s a disgrace the selectors were looking at disposals and SC points for defenders and not actual defending and intercepting, of which Vlastuin is one of the best half a dozen in the last decade.

Absolute superstar player who’d have 6 x AA if Richmond did more chipping around the backline.

AA are ok but I'd rather share 3 Premierships with my team mates. How about you?
I suspect Nick would prefer the Premierships to but I'm just guessing TBH....

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

Nick is like the Tiger Of Old of the 70's.
Wouldn't be out of place standing next to Saint Francis.

 

[Tiger V]

one of the most underrated players in the AFL

 

[Grrr]

Nick is like the Tiger Of Old of the 70's.
Wouldn't be out of place standing next to Saint Francis.

Would probably have them in that order, from what I have seen.
Bourke,
Vlastuin,
Keane,
Bowden,
Newman,
Houli
??

 

[energyquant]

Balanced. Great intercept marking defender. Always calm with ball in hand. Bit of mongrel about him. Viking blood. A Richmond legend.

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

Would probably have them in that order, from what I have seen.
Bourke,
Vlastuin,
Keane,
Bowden,
Newman,
Houli
??

Yep.
Hard too separate Vlas & Keane

 

[Tenacious T]

Putting my 2 cents worth about this great man....
No AA's, no B&F's but good enough for 3 FLAGS and that's all that matters.
Never seen this bloke shirk physical contact & his ability to take grabs running with his back to the play is unmatched.

Absolute respect Tigs.......

 

[smasha]

Onya Tigga.

Congrats on a wonderful journey and milestone with the greatest team on Earth,the big one Richmond Tigers!

Let's roar him home to Victory.

Tails raised.

 

[voorhees]

fantastic achievement to reach #250.
Our defence needs him now more then ever.
Would love to see him join our other soldiers in the #300 club.

 

[Tenacious T]

Floss will win his first ever B&F this year…….long overdue

 

[Dr Tigris]

Champion.

love him.

 

[Vince Spadea]

17 intercepts today. A genuine chance at AA from a bottom 4 team or miss out again?

 

[Punt Road Feral]

17 intercepts today. A genuine chance at AA from a bottom 4 team or miss out again?

He will miss out but who cares.

He has 3 premiership medals and is rated so highly internally and that’s all that matters to a player.

 

[Daka]

Should be an AA lock we need to advocate for him, right the wrongs of previous robberies.

 

[DickieKnee]

17 intercepts today. A genuine chance at AA from a bottom 4 team or miss out again?

Mind boggling how he hasn't been AA in our premiership years.

 

[voorhees]

was a great leadership game by vlas.
man has a calming presence on field

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Mind boggling how he hasn't been AA in our premiership years.

Hardly mind boggling Dickie.

If Vlastuin played for Geelong and 5 x AA Tom Stewart played for Richmond then Vlastuin would be 5 x AA and it would be mind boggling Stewart had never been selected in the team.

That is the whole answer right there.

 

[DickieKnee]

Hardly mind boggling Dickie.

If Vlastuin played for Geelong and 5 x AA Tom Stewart played for Richmond then Vlastuin would be 5 x AA and it would be mind boggling Stewart had never been selected in the team.

That is the whole answer right there.

Agree. A few weeks ago on ABC radio I heard Cameron Ling talking about how it's criminal Vlas doesn't have an AA, another commentator could have been Lids) said well you're on the selection committee, how come he has no AA?

 

[Dr Tigris]

17 intercepts today. A genuine chance at AA from a bottom 4 team or miss out again?

He'll miss of course.

Have to console himself on 3 premierships and the knowledge he is a super star.

If he does get AA I'd be so stoked though.

 

[Timothy Luncheon]

Hardly mind boggling Dickie.

If Vlastuin played for Geelong and 5 x AA Tom Stewart played for Richmond then Vlastuin would be 5 x AA and it would be mind boggling Stewart had never been selected in the team.

That is the whole answer right there.

Stewart played well enough to probably get a spot in 3 of those years, but how tf did he get AA in 2018 and 2019 over Vlastuin. Stats and player rating were way worse for example

 

[rfctigerarmy]

Will make the squad and miss out again, just to make the masses happy.

 

[richoplzbreed]

Afl website has a list of 65 players to select your AA team from......... No Vlastuin only Taranto to select. It's a f@#ken joke of a team anyway. Poor bloke has been paid unders his whole career so we could afford Riewoldt, Rance, Cotchin, Martin, Deledio etc..... Club should extend him with a golden parachute final contract to compensate him for a brilliant career.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Stewart played well enough to probably get a spot in 3 of those years, but how tf did he get AA in 2018 and 2019 over Vlastuin. Stats and player rating were way worse for example

2019 is beyond laughable. Tom Stewart himself would be embarrassed to have been selected in those circumstances.

In 2019 Stewart was not in the top 496 players in the AFL based on average player rating. He was the 160th highest rated defender in the AFL based on average player ratings. He was the 109th highest rated general defender according to average player ratings.

Yet the AA selectors say he is a top 6 defenders in the comp and among the top 4 general defenders. Two Richmond players got picked and 4 Geelong players. They could not find a position for a Richmond player who was:

• easily the highest rated mid-forward
• the 4th highest rated player overall

who averaged:

• 26 disposals
• 7.3 score involvements(AFL #3)
• 11 contested possessions
• 4.3 clearances
• 2.4 centre clerances
• 1.4 goals & 1 goal assist(Cats specialist small forward Stengle got selected for similar scoring output but of course didn't spend over 50% of his time in the midfield as one of the leading midfielders.)
• won 42% of his offensive 1 v 1's which is as high or higher than any player bar him has averaged in their career ever, so extremely high.
• and who was widely acknowledged as the best and most valuable player in the AFL at this time.

His name was Dustin Martin of course. Could have broken one of his legs and asked him to play back pocket he would have done better than Stewart that year.

Of course we look on the 2019 AA selection panel and whose name do we see...? You guessed it, one S Hocking esquire.

If the AFL was fair dinkum they would re-do that year, it was laughable. Not to mention several others around it. During our 4 dynasty years we somehow deigned to achieve 9 AA selections v Cats 11. We smashed them in every final so no doubt our team was better. But we also won 10 more home and away matches than they did in this period.

In our flag years 2017-19-20 and including 2018 where we dominated the home and away season, Edwards, Houli, Grimes were the only players we had achieve career 1 time AA selection. Cats 2 Grand Final years in isolation 2020 & 2022 they find 3 ****ing spuds Stengle Blicavs Guthrie who we are supposed to believe are suddenly AA standard.

 

[kozi]

Agree. A few weeks ago on ABC radio I heard Cameron Ling talking about how it's criminal Vlas doesn't have an AA, another commentator could have been Lids) said well you're on the selection committee, how come he has no AA?

So basically ling just outed himself as a criminal

 

[DickieKnee]

They could not find a position for a Richmond player who was:

• easily the highest rated mid-forward
• the 4th highest rated player overall

Yeah I think that was the year they selected Dangerflog over Dusty as a HF.