Review 10 - Jaeger O'Meara (2019)

[Hawks851]

make him captain now !!

 

[tommyk72]

Well that spiraled our of control unexpectedly quickly.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

Overall I think I would rate JOM's year as solid to good but a long way off a stellar year such as Titch had in 2018 or Worps had this year.

But I agree with a lot of other posters in that he will definitely benefit from the return of Mitchell next year and the addition of Wingard as a full time mid.

I feel he will do his best work as a piece of a larger midfield rotation rather than as "The main man" in the middle.

 

[Hodgey09]

Apologies if this isn't the most appropriate thread, but am curious to hear the thoughts of other posters a few years down the line now on Jaegar, what we gave up to get him across and how we see his performance so far in the context of what we traded.

 

[user33]

Off-field I think he’s captain material but sadly on field he’s very average.

Has played maybe 5 or less very good games since coming to Hawthorn? I can’t remember precisely what we paid for him but he hasn’t lived up to expectations, no where near the player we thought he’d be.

Would love to see him tried on the wing as his disposal in the guts is some of the worst I’ve seen from a Hawthorn player.

 

[Hodgey09]

Off-field I think he’s captain material but sadly on field he’s very average.

Has played maybe 5 or less very good games since coming to Hawthorn? I can’t remember precisely what we paid for him but he hasn’t lived up to expectations, no where near the player we thought he’d be.

Would love to see him tried on the wing as his disposal in the guts is some of the worst I’ve seen from a Hawthorn player.

Fair assessment.

Definitely agree that he's captain material and he'd be a PR dream for our media/comms team to promote, but share your frustrations with the on-field performances.

The disposal in close is poor, the kicking penetration not great either and his attempts at don't argues put us under pressure a lot more than they help us.

I just wonder how we can get the 4-quarter Jaegar when he had about 40 odd on Carlton and literally beat them by himself far more often. That bloke was worth every penny.

He has played some brilliant quarters, but seems to have a tendency (unsure if knee related) to fade quite significantly after dominant patches.

It's probably a harsh assessment on a bloke whose a very serviceable midfielder we'd be much poorer without, but you have to measure him against what he cost and according to a poster in the post-game thread (apologies to said poster, can't remember your username) it was the picks used for Hunter Clark, Ben Long and Josh Battle.

Obviously hindsight is always 20/20 looking back on drafts but some of the players we could've potentially grabbed like Tom Stewart, Brandon Parfitt, Aaron Naughton, Jack Higgins, Bayley Fritsch etc would be bloody nice to have also.

Anyway, just keen for a bit of balanced discussion on this one!

 

[JaegarTime]

I think (And I’ll cop some flack for this) he’s been our best mid this year. Has looked like he’s trying his heart out when Worpel and Mitchell have struggled.
The game when he returned this year he was outstanding. His kicking, fend offs and general cleanliness with ball were elite. I wish we could have more of that.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Was hoping to get an A grade mid for a decade when we traded for him, but it seems we've ended up with a B grade mid, tries his guts out though and probably been our best mid alongside Smith this season.

 

[Gene Simmons]

Personally, I think JOM suits an established midfield group where he can just coast along without being under the microscope - definitely isn't the midfield beast we thought he would be that you can build your entire midfield around.

Summarized perfectly in earlier posts, we took a gamble on getting an elite A grade ball winner but end up with a B grader at best. Can't win them all.

 

[HawthornHawk]

Apologies if this isn't the most appropriate thread, but am curious to hear the thoughts of other posters a few years down the line now on Jaegar, what we gave up to get him across and how we see his performance so far in the context of what we traded.

Honestly we could have put together a quarter of our best 22 for what we gave up.

Love Jaeger but this was a massive mistake in hindsight.

 

[Cyril says]

Looked tired/sore last night.

We needed an additional A-grader to make this strategy stick. The lack of depth has worn JOM, Mitch and Chad down IMHO.

 

[Milkshaker]

I have certainly mixed up expectation with his capabilities. With all the hoo ha I was expecting a generational player. He is still taping that knee after an injury that is notoriously difficult to come back from. Imo he has lost his burst pace which allowed him to steady in delivery. Its brought him way back to the pack.

Yeah he tries hard but his positive influence on games is negligible. We overpaid without a doubt.

 

[SA HAWK]

Took a huge risk on a guy who hadn’t played for 2 years and had a career threatening injury.

Hasn’t paid off.

Pre injury looked like being a future top 10 player in the comp.

 

[The Spirit of Cricket]

yeah i mean you win some you lose some, probably not worth what we gave up but all it takes is one good performance in a final and it's suddenly all worth it. every few games he looks like he's the damaging, line-breaking mid we wanted to recruit but when he's not at that level and getting caught htb and not making space he doesn't get enough of the ball to make up for it

hasn't been a bad deal, but hasn't been a win either, kinda in the same positions as the wingard trade for mind. at the time it made sense, he looked like he was going to be a cogs/boak/prime-cotchin operator. there have been far, far worse trade losses, just ask adelaide about bryce gibbs

 

[SA HAWK]

yeah i mean you win some you lose some, probably not worth what we gave up but all it takes is one good performance in a final and it's suddenly all worth it. every few games he looks like he's the damaging, line-breaking mid we wanted to recruit but when he's not at that level and getting caught htb and not making space he doesn't get enough of the ball to make up for it

hasn't been a bad deal, but hasn't been a win either, kinda in the same positions as the wingard trade for mind. at the time it made sense, he looked like he was going to be a cogs/boak/prime-cotchin operator. there have been far, far worse trade losses, just ask adelaide about bryce gibbs

At least with Wingard we knew what we were getting.

O’Meara hadn’t played for 2 years.

Gibbs deal would be one of the worst ever.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

He tries to do too much, and I can’t blame him.
He needs more support next to him, pushing through contest and stoppages and then he’d look a different player.

 

[Suntory Boss Coffee]

Move Chad to middle full time and i think JOM looks better.

 

[Burtman]

I’ve heard abit about him only being able to complete about 70% of the training loads, anyone know more on this? I’d almost rather him push his body to the limit and get 14 good games out of him than play 22 games but only 5 are considered good games. Our midfield gets belted week in week out, and if one of our starting 3 is off it puts us miles behind the 8 ball

 

[HawkVan]

No denying that he gives his all, and as others have said, he just isn't what we had hoped for. A B-grade mid, with the occasional elite game. We gave up a lot.

My biggest issue with him is that he must be on record pace for being caught holding the ball and failed don't argues of any player to 100 games. This probably highlights best he has never got that explosive speed back and tries to bully his way from the contest. Really unsuccessfully.

This issue is compounded when you put him next to Worpel who just bangs around the corner in hope. Add in Mitchell who isn't really damaging by foot, and our starting midfield has zero damage week in week out.

None of these guys hit up forwards like you'd want to see.

 

[A Cut Above]

Close to the most expensive trade in history for a B-grade midfielder with terrifying injury history.

He's also 26 which puts a timer on our next flag window, if he isn't playing his best footy when we're challenging again it'll be an even bigger bust.

 

[Suntory Boss Coffee]

Been doing some insta stalking. Is JOM single?

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Move Chad to middle full time and i think JOM looks better.

He definitely needs something like that.

team him up with another midfielder who moves through the contest with him and he doesn’t need to bullock his way through and get away a pressured kick.

 

[Billyc]

This will sound harsh because I agree with all of the comments on his work ethic and character, but he is the most disappointing player on the list.

We needed him to be exactly what we now lack so badly: a pure class midfielder with explosive speed and classy skills. Instead he is similar to Liam Shiels or Brad Sewell at their peak which is fine but not what we hoped for and not what we need in a midfield with Mitchell and Worpel also (plus an ageing Shiels). They are a quartet of medium-sized, medium-paced accumulators.

At 26 and now several years since his knee problems he is not going to suddenly become that explosive and damaging player we hoped he would be. Whereas I expect Mitchell to get back to a much higher level next year (he is returning from a very serious injury) and at 21 I expect Worpel to improve, I don't see a lot of improvement in O'Meara. He is professional enough that he is giving all that he can - he is just not very damaging.

He can win the footy (though not in huge numbers like Mitchell) but he uses it poorly by foot and has a terrible habit of trying to fend off and break tackles and getting caught holding the ball.

His stats this year are damning:

#2 in comp for clangers
#2 for free kicks against
#49 for contested possessions
#58 for total possessions
#241 for score involvements

Where as most of the other players in the top 10 for clangers are also in the top 10 for contested possessions and for total possessions (and the clangers are a product of their high disposal counts), the same is not true of O'Meara.

The stats say he wins an average amount of footy for a midfielder, not a lot of contested footy but is not damaging and makes mistakes when he does get it.

In my view he needs to be given a new role outside of the midfield (or a defensive role) and we need to entirely reshape the way our midfield is operating. At the moment we are like the crows persisting with Sloane and the Crouch boys. It is ineffective.

Unpopular opinion: but unless they can add new strings to their bow before the remainder of the year, at season's end I think we should trade one of O'Meara, Mitchell and Worpel. And it should not be the youngest one. They do not work together but would be of value to another club with a different midfield mix.

 

[JaegarTime]

Once again, watch his return game this year from injury. That is the player we need. He needs to be there to release to. A bigger body around the stoppages like Howe (for example) creates space and allows the hunter to extract the ball to the receiver.
I get people’s frustrations as he doesn’t have those kind of games regularly but I think it’s more a setup and ruck issue.

 

[Easy Slips Catch]

He butchers the footy. Won't run to lay a tackle. Cant burst out of traffic. We got bent over on this one.