Player Watch #2 Jacob Hopper

[Cdog71]

Feel a bit for this bloke, hit his peak as a 17/18 yr old I reckon. Just larger than most of the mids in his draft year and now the game is moving away from these types.

 

[spky1234]

Balta & Hopper remaining contracts combine to 11 more years of salary.

Horrendous list management. Balta's & Hopper's agents deserve a gold star for the contracts they got their clients. Completely screwed us. Don't know what the club was thinking. Hopper had serious injury concerns before we traded for him, was coming off 12 months off over his knees.

Balta is fine - had a stinker today tho.

Hopper Jesus Christ. Can't remember the last time seeing a player on screen has pissed me off so much. He's just a pointless player, and is virtually a net negative. And knowing that he cost us Dan Curtin and some lmao.

Extraordinarily lucky that McAullife, Cumming, Smillie and Hotton are all injured otherwise he wouldn't get gifted games.

Surely Taranto, Ross, Lalor, McAullife, Prestia and Seth/Rioli is enough to just kick him out of the team.

 

[Le RickyBobby]

Feel a bit for this bloke, hit his peak as a 17/18 yr old I reckon. Just larger than most of the mids in his draft year and now the game is moving away from these types.

You feel for this guy do ya? Hes on 800-900k to walk from contest to contest. What a pathetic excuse.

 

[prodigy]

Balta is fine - had a stinker today tho.

Hopper Jesus Christ. Can't remember the last time seeing a player on screen has pissed me off so much. He's just a pointless player, and is virtually a net negative. And knowing that he cost us Dan Curtin and some lmao.

Extraordinarily lucky that McAullife, Cumming, Smillie and Hotton are all injured otherwise he wouldn't get gifted games.

Surely Taranto, Ross, Lalor, McAullife, Prestia and Seth/Rioli is enough to just kick him out of the team.

McAuliffe had an illness, not injured.

 

[RJK Tiger]

Balta is fine - had a stinker today tho.

Hopper Jesus Christ. Can't remember the last time seeing a player on screen has pissed me off so much. He's just a pointless player, and is virtually a net negative. And knowing that he cost us Dan Curtin and some lmao.

Extraordinarily lucky that McAullife, Cumming, Smillie and Hotton are all injured otherwise he wouldn't get gifted games.

Surely Taranto, Ross, Lalor, McAullife, Prestia and Seth/Rioli is enough to just kick him out of the team.

After 2020, my excitement level for Balta was off the charts. I thought with Balta & Baker down back, Bolton, Chol taking on a more regular role - the club had a Geelong-like future where the window of opportunity would stay open for another decade.

I was wrong.

Balta has gone to absolute shit. "Fine" when your on a multi-million 7 year contract is not even close to being good enough.

King kicked 7 today & we have Miller, Balta & Brown playing back there to make sure stuff like that doesn't happen. 7 in 2026 is like 12 in 1998. The tall backs were woeful today - they were a level or 3 below King.

 

[RJK Tiger]

You feel for this guy do ya? Hes on 800-900k to walk from contest to contest. What a pathetic excuse.

And got himself arrested less than 2 months after that contract for assault.

He should have came into this year fitter than ever and ready to redeem himself. He looks every bit like Bolton, Baker, Graham did before they left. Done & collecting their money until they can move on or retire.

More than a few of us were worried when we lost Young as Miller seemed to play a lot better alongside him than Noah. I think the season is off to a similar concern. Feel like Miller is back to being ordinary at best also.

Noah looks like he is literally thinking of 2020 when he is playing the game. Does not seem present at all & hasnt for a while.

 

[Rich01]

The right example needs to be set. Two performances like that in a row can't be tolerated. I don't care what contract you have or how old you are.

He needs a wake up call and that can only come by being forced to drive out to Holm Park reserve in Beaconsfield next week at the crack of dawn and kick the dew off the field against Coburg.

I'll be legitimately annoyed if he is on the plane to WA. I don't think he even deserves to be an emergency as he needs to play footy to earn his spot in the team.

Agree but won’t happen.
His opponent ran off him with ease and some of his disposals were an absolute liability.

If he plays VFL what would he have to do to make it back? It’s not like he can get quicker or play another position.

Too slow to be a tagger. Can’t play off a flank. A tricky one.

 

[Le RickyBobby]

Agree but won’t happen.
His opponent ran off him with ease and some of his disposals were an absolute liability.

If he plays VFL what would he have to do to make it back? It’s not like he can get quicker or play another position.

Too slow to be a tagger. Can’t play off a flank. A tricky one.

Its bit tricky at all. Hes not up to the level so he plays the level below.

Just drop him. Its very simple.

 

[prodigy]

Agree but won’t happen.
His opponent ran off him with ease and some of his disposals were an absolute liability.

If he plays VFL what would he have to do to make it back? It’s not like he can get quicker or play another position.

Too slow to be a tagger. Can’t play off a flank. A tricky one.

I just want to see him play with intensity and show that he wants to put in a proper shift to help the team.
He needs to feel like there are real consequences to playing like crap.

There's still a place for him as a second string midfielder but it doesn't feel like he wants to fight for it.

 

[Dr Tigris]

He got his hands on it - great.

had little impact -

reckon we would do better playing a more dynamic guy in the middle.

 

[Cdog71]

You feel for this guy do ya? Hes on 800-900k to walk from contest to contest. What a pathetic excuse.

We gotta pay our salary cap, it’s gotta go somewhere.
You’re right it’s a big step down from some of his games last season, I can’t remember the last time I was hoping a player was injured….he looks a long way off it at the moment but he was consistently in the top ten for the BnF at GWS after his first year he was a good inside mid the game is moving away from that now and he looks like he’s been told.

 

[Rich01]

I just want to see him play with intensity and show that he wants to put in a proper shift to help the team.
He needs to feel like there are real consequences to playing like crap.

There's still a place for him as a second string midfielder but it doesn't feel like he wants to fight for it.

If the problem was intensity and intent then I’d be with it.

But he just looks so slow both in run and in decision making.

I’m not sure how you come back from that.

 

[Le RickyBobby]

We gotta pay our salary cap, it’s gotta go somewhere.
You’re right it’s a big step down from some of his games last season, I can’t remember the last time I was hoping a player was injured….he looks a long way off it at the moment but he was consistently in the top ten for the BnF at GWS after his first year he was a good inside mid the game is moving away from that now and he looks like he’s been told.

Again ridiculous comment he was signed in 2022? Its now 2026.

Buy him out of the contract, open up a list spot and roll the dice on a kid.

 

[prodigy]

 

[Charlie Pannam]

Kingy is correct the game has gone past him. You don’t see this type of midfielder going early in the draft anymore, clubs just don’t rate the pure inside mid anymore.

 

[Daka]

I can't believe we traded for him when we already had Taranto on the hook, has to be dumbest things our list mangement has done, oh wait giving Balta a massive deal is probably on par...

 

[prodigy]

I can't believe we traded for him when we already had Taranto on the hook, has to be dumbest thing our list mangement has done, oh wait giving Balta a massive deal is probably on par...

Its easy to say in hindsight.
I'm not as worried about Balta as others are, he will have more good games than bad games.

Hopper though, it's grim.

 

[Charlie Pannam]

I can't believe we traded for him when we already had Taranto on the hook, has to be dumbest things our list mangement has done, oh wait giving Balta a massive deal is probably on par...

Signing Samson Ryan midway through 24 season for another 3 years, after he’d shown diddly-squat trumps all that imo

 

[Boston tiger]

Dimma’s last couple of years at the club weren’t real flash. Found love and a couple of pretty basic midfielders from GWS.

 

[kozi]

Polish him up and dangle him in front of aints and norf

 

[lizard man]

Yze will sit down with him and watch the tape with him ….. will have a tough love conversation to raise his standards and get him back on track

 

[RJK Tiger]

I can't believe we traded for him when we already had Taranto on the hook, has to be dumbest things our list mangement has done, oh wait giving Balta a massive deal is probably on par...

Taranto was always the biggest gem. At the time i thought Hopper was the cheaper option - but how it worked out we ended up giving up the highest pick for him. If they had not done that deal, the situation is a lot better in 2026. It was desperate

 

[RJK Tiger]

Yze will sit down with him and watch the tape with him ….. will have a tough love conversation to raise his standards and get him back on track

 

[RJK Tiger]

Polish him up and dangle him in front of aints and norf

In all seriousness, if we could MKUltra them into doing that - what would you accept as a deal, absolute minimum

 

[Karp3_dm]

Yze will sit down with him and watch the tape with him ….. will have a tough love conversation to raise his standards and get him back on track