Player Watch 32 Travis Cloke

[Kirby]

You have to watch him live at the ground to appreciate why he is not doing much or offering much.

He is clearly too heavy for the modern game and moves like a glacier. As someone mentioned earlier he needs to drop some serious weight and gain some mobility back. At least 6/7 kgs I reckon. He simply does not cover the ground he needs to and gives no second efforts. You need to be able to run up towards the ball then double back towards goal the way the game is played now.

He's not running and creating space for others around him. He's not leading hard and creating options. He runs 10 metres, props, points to some spot on the ground where he wants the ball to be kicked and then just stands there and wrestles (and gets beaten despite his size).

Watching the game live you can see why he got dropped previously and why he will be lucky to stay in the side for next week (he will btw, but it is only through injury to others).

 

[ThexderX]

Not prepared to write him off just yet, but like most of us I'm really worried about his ability to turn the ship around.

Noticed that he went to ground (unnecessarily, and not due to the wet) a couple of times today, which is a bit of a red flag for me.

Good call. Going to ground easy is one of the best signs to look for in a player being not up to it...we were always taught if you go to ground you're not up for the contest.

 

[ppoiter]

Didn't see the game but find it weird the consensus seems to be to get rid of him. Unless we trade in another key forward we need him, even if his output will never be what it was

 

[Ugene41]

Id be happy with a second round pick. Also, I would rather take a chance with a kid from GWS or GC who can't get a look-in but obviously has some potential. Look what the saints did with Bruce. Is Cloke going to get much better? I don't think so.

For every Josh Bruce, there's a Kristian Jaksch, Tim Golds and Sam Frost. Even the Tom Boyd trade, GWS has gotten way more out of Griffen and Caleb Marchbank than WB have out of Boyd.

Bruce was traded for a pick 48. If we wanted a Bruce type from GWS we can easily conjure a third round pick from trading one of our excessive NQR half back flankers like an Oxley/Sinclair. We don't need to trade a Cloke to do it. As much as the Adams for Shaw trade was a win/win, we didn't need to trade Shaw to have gotten the trade done. Imagine if we had backed Shaw in, and traded out pick 10 that year (Freeman) for Adams, how much better our list would look right now.

(ignoring injuries, and Elliott's back worries me)

And that's exactly the problem. We can't ignore injuries. We have absolutely no depth in KPP forwards. I'd rather back Cloke in to be a solid contributor (like Podsiadly, Mooney were for Geelong in their later years, Brown was for Brisbane and like Petrie, Riewoldt, Pavlich are for their respective sides) than rely on just White and Gault as depth. Cloke's stats compares relatively favourably to all of these guys in the last few years whilst playing in a crap side.

Take Brown for example, in his last 4 seasons he averaged around 2 goals a game which is basically what Cloke has been averaging. Yet I don't think anyone from Brisbane or their fans were pushing for him to be traded. He was a champion of the club and whilst he obviously wasn't reaching the heights he was earlier in his career, he was still seen as a crucial contributor to the side.

We need to start backing in our champion veterans rather than jumping on them as soon as their performances start slowing down. We did that with Swan, doing that with Cloke and to show you the ridiculousness of it all we started doing that with Pendlebury after some slow performances from him this year.

 

[MarkT2]

I thought Cloke was OK. He tackled and had a hand in a few of our goals. He was a long way from our worst player and miles ahead of Cox's last 2 weeks. Cox is having a predicable lull now that the opposition are putting work into him. Why we kept kicking to him when he was against 2 or 3 has me beat. There were times we should have gone to Cloke and didn't.

 

[loki04]

I thought Cloke was OK. He tackled and had a hand in a few of our goals. He was a long way from our worst player and miles ahead of Cox's last 2 weeks. Cox is having a predicable lull now that the opposition are putting work into him. Why we kept kicking to him when he was against 2 or 3 has me beat. There were times we should have gone to Cloke and didn't.

What did you think of Cloke pulling out of the leading marking contest and even turning away from contact late in the game?

Was cringe worthy and why he should be in the VFL until he regains the confidence and cliche as it is "Love" for the contest again, Cox would not of done that and actually had a half decent game for how the ball was coming in.

His head space is clearly not right, Cloke 3 years ago would of smashed through that player and marked that ball.

 

[MarkT2]

Cloke won't come good in the 2s and right now he's still our best available tall forward. He'll get his confidence back if we actually pay him some respect and use him properly. I was disappointed with Buckley's post game comments.

 

[BEEG]

There is something going on with the playing list. Nobody kicks to Cloke. I counted five times when cloke was one out with his opponent and the players streaming forward with the ball, looked then decided not to go to him.

Where is the support? He set up the first goal of the game with a good tackle and handball to Pendlebury.... not one player got over to Cloke to say well done.... Well apologies to Jesse White he was the only one who did but I think I'd put that down to them being friends! Terrible form from Pendlebury especially as a leader. I guarantee had that of been a hodge or a Maxwell they'd be over to cloke saying your goal. Just seems nobody is backing Cloke to turn his form around.... Clearly the off field bull$hit that happened at the start of the year has offended everyone at the club.

I get smashed around here from time to time by a couple of posters most are pretty good.

I did share the info that a lot of the players and officials wont happy with Cloke due to how he handled the naked photo saga and were filthy on his work rate.

 

[Mounty23]

I'm a poster on Hotrods (it's been down for 5 days so I registered here, is still down) and one poster said the playing group apart from Goldsack & Toovey hate him. He and Pendlebury were criticised in a recent leading team meeting. Pendles was criticised for be a tame and weak captain and Cloke was criticised by the entire team for being selfish and emotional checked out when he signed his contract.

 

[Dogs_Playing_Poker]

Why do we invest in this leading teams bull$hit if they players can't handle the negative feedback? Just pi$$ it off!

 

[wicksy]

I thought Cloke was OK. He tackled and had a hand in a few of our goals. He was a long way from our worst player and miles ahead of Cox's last 2 weeks. Cox is having a predicable lull now that the opposition are putting work into him. Why we kept kicking to him when he was against 2 or 3 has me beat. There were times we should have gone to Cloke and didn't.

You're joking right?
Has a crack at everything that goes near him and kicked 2 goals.
Had we had a crumber worth his own salt, they'd have kicked 10 off the mammoth efforts Cox was putting in.

 

[wicksy]

I'm a poster on Hotrods (it's been down for 5 days so I registered here, is still down) and one poster said the playing group apart from Goldsack & Toovey hate him. He and Pendlebury were criticised in a recent leading team meeting. Pendles was criticised for be a tame and weak captain and Cloke was criticised by the entire team for being selfish and emotional checked out when he signed his contract.

Sounds legit

 

[BEEG]

I'm a poster on Hotrods (it's been down for 5 days so I registered here, is still down) and one poster said the playing group apart from Goldsack & Toovey hate him. He and Pendlebury were criticised in a recent leading team meeting. Pendles was criticised for be a tame and weak captain and Cloke was criticised by the entire team for being selfish and emotional checked out when he signed his contract.

Did nothing but moped around the club for a month as the Mrs had left him and the engagement was called off.

 

[wicksy]

Did nothing but moped around the club for a month as the Mrs had left him and the engagement was called off.

Did your I.T guy tell you this?

Check out Bec's IG....
https://www.instagram.com/beccypanozza/?hl=en

Photo of her and Trav taken 1w ago.... He looks pretty upset.

 

[CFC2010]

Did your I.T guy tell you this?

Check out Bec's IG....
https://www.instagram.com/beccypanozza/?hl=en

Photo of her and Trav taken 1w ago.... He looks pretty upset.

In his defense wicksy he did say Cloke was moping around after the nude pic article came out........he didn't say Cloke and Rebeccah aren't happy now.

Does it really matter if the I.T guy told him? We get it you don't believe his sources or his information.

 

[loki04]

I'm a poster on Hotrods (it's been down for 5 days so I registered here, is still down) and one poster said the playing group apart from Goldsack & Toovey hate him. He and Pendlebury were criticised in a recent leading team meeting. Pendles was criticised for be a tame and weak captain and Cloke was criticised by the entire team for being selfish and emotional checked out when he signed his contract.

Welcome to the board.

 

[Gone Critical]

Did your I.T guy tell you this?

Check out Bec's IG....
https://www.instagram.com/beccypanozza/?hl=en

Photo of her and Trav taken 1w ago.... He looks pretty upset.

Further to that Trav and his girlfriend came into a place where my son works and he and his girlfriend ended up having a few drinks with them and spending half the night with them. That was around March.

I asked him how they seemed. He didnt know anything about the photo stuff and just said they were fine, happy talking about their wedding plans etc. I told him about the photo stuff and he said he didnt notice any problems with them.

 

[Mounty23]

Did nothing but moped around the club for a month as the Mrs had left him and the engagement was called off.

I don't know his martial status but I feel it has been poor coaching all round with Cloke. He is too heavy for the game now, he needs to lose weight to be relevant and strip his playing weight like Riewoldt did. His problems started occurring when he was instructed to try to out wrestle his opponent and he would draw two defenders. The coaching group need to get him to lose weight and start using his aerobic strengths up the ground like Rooey.

 

[BEEG]

I don't know his martial status but I feel it has been poor coaching all round with Cloke. He is too heavy for the game now, he needs to lose weight to be relevant and strip his playing weight like Riewoldt did. His problems started occurring when he was instructed to try to out wrestle his opponent and he would draw two defenders. The coaching group need to get him to lose weight and start using his aerobic strengths up the ground like Rooey.

He dropped like 7 kgs in the off season

Needs a fresh start and to go to a team with another key forward.

Richmond is perfect.

 

[The Dawes]

You have to watch him live at the ground to appreciate why he is not doing much or offering much.

He is clearly too heavy for the modern game and moves like a glacier. As someone mentioned earlier he needs to drop some serious weight and gain some mobility back. At least 6/7 kgs I reckon. He simply does not cover the ground he needs to and gives no second efforts. You need to be able to run up towards the ball then double back towards goal the way the game is played now.

He's not running and creating space for others around him. He's not leading hard and creating options. He runs 10 metres, props, points to some spot on the ground where he wants the ball to be kicked and then just stands there and wrestles (and gets beaten despite his size).

Watching the game live you can see why he got dropped previously and why he will be lucky to stay in the side for next week (he will btw, but it is only through injury to others).

you make a really good point re his weight and lack of mobility.

It used to be a strength of his to get to contests up and down the ground, but now he's virtually a stay at home forward.... and not a very good one at that.

Dermott Brereton was saying similar things during the coverage.

 

[CLUBMEDhurst]

Hope he can drop 10kg in the off season.

So does Damien Hardwick

 

[CLUBMEDhurst]

Did your I.T guy tell you this?

Check out Bec's IG....
https://www.instagram.com/beccypanozza/?hl=en

Photo of her and Trav taken 1w ago.... He looks pretty upset.

Looks good in pink knickers (so does Bec)

 

[loki04]

He dropped like 7 kgs in the off season

Needs a fresh start and to go to a team with another key forward.

Richmond is perfect.

Yeah, he did but he hasn't readjusted his mind set for gut running like he used too.

Still wants to play suburban style footy that he has become accustomed too over the last 3 seasons.

 

[Gone Critical]

I have to say as 1 of Clokes defenders he was very average on Saturday. Completely lacking confidence to impose himself on the contest.

 

[NT.Thunder]

I have to say as 1 of Clokes defenders he was very average on Saturday. Completely lacking confidence to impose himself on the contest.

That "flinch" moment when the ball came into the goal square was a telling moment for me. A few years ago he would've smashed that pack to get to the ball and likely marked it but times change.