Player Watch #41 Patrick Snell

[Swansujelly]

surely he gets the nod this week. Kyle can make way for Mills, so Pelicans spot is vacant..surely..

 

[Jeffers]

Hamling not on the injury list so he will probably get the nod over Snell this week....

 

[Kiama Chris]

Hamling not on the injury list so he will probably get the nod over Snell this week....

Depends. If we keep Kyle in, probably. If Kyle goes back to reserves, that creates a possibility.

 

[caesar88]

For me personally, my queries around Snell are coming less from a place of frustration and disappointment, and more from a place of confusion.

I've seen a lot of "he'll get his chance", and "his time will come." To that I ask - when? How?

Snell hasn't been selected when key defender talls (McCartin, Melican) were out, or when third talls/hybrids who can play small (Rampe) were out, or when mediums and rebounding types (Mills, Serong) were out. In all of these scenarios he didn't even make senior emergency status.

We've shown this year with the likes of Cootee & Kyle that if we like a player in the VFL, we'll fast-track them and reward them with an AFL. But again, not Snell.

So it feels like he's sort of in this exclusion zone, a long, long way down the pecking order.

It's not uncommon for every team to have one or two players on your list every year who feel a mile away from senior selection and almost destined to play out their contracts in the VFL before being delisted and never heard from again.

What is uncommon is for one of those players to be a 194cm defender with great athleticism, a strong balance between defence & offence, and impressive consistency in the VFL after multiple years of biding his time. That sort of player to me feels like someone who should not be so far outside the AFL selection equation.

So, yeah. I'm not pissed off like others and I do think the recurring discourse around him has the potential to deify him beyond his actual abilities. But it is just baffling to me that it feels like there's such a strong disconnect between the player I'm watching in the VFL and what his standing at the club obviously is.

 

[JackHiscoxWasFast]

By all means give him a go but I think we need to temper our expectations.

More wraps on this poor fella than The Mummy.

 

[S120]

I have a hard time seeing him miss this week. We’ve held three talls all year in defence so it’s gonna be Hamling or Snell and it makes absolutely no sense for it to be Hamling. If we’re coming up against a tall forward group like the Dogs at their best - Darcy, Naughton, and Croft - sure, Hamling makes sense. Or if we’re playing a cutthroat final, don’t hang a kid out to dry on debut necessarily. But a mid year game at home against a mid table team, without a hugely scary group of tall forwards, with plenty of experience in defence to help him (McCartin, Mills, Blakey, Wicks) it would be such a wasted opportunity to go with Hamling.

Incidentally, I think if Snell plays they’ll drop Kyle. They won’t pick two very inexperienced guys in defence at the same time. If Snell doesn’t play, I think Kyle will retain his spot.