Player Watch #46: Ben Miller

[tora tora tora]

Missed opportunity if he doesnt get a go this game with astbury out .

Sort of agree. Looks like Chol is back up ruck...
INS: Callum Coleman-Jones,Dion Prestia,Josh Caddy,Mabior Chol,Shai Bolton,Trent Cotchin. Just covering 4 injured/susp players & getting our best mid IN is priority. 6 changes worries me.

But we played with Balta as the tallest defender for a lot of 2020. Grimes, Balta. Broad were the talls when Dave was injured. See how we go today

 

["The Roar Is Back"]

Missed opportunity if he doesnt get a go this game with astbury out .

No match up .

 

[Tiger1974]

He is a very good size for a KPD and the speed agility
The ideal prototype if you were to wish for one.

Just his ability to have the smarts is the issue . Does he have that at AFL level
drafted in the same draft as Balta & CCJ

Bigoa Nyuon
197cm 92kgs ( been mentioned he is now 200cm)
Elite speed
20 years old

Ben Miller
198cm 96kgs
Elite speed
21 years old

Noah Balta
194cm 102kgs (personally i think he is taller, Cant believe only 1cm between Balta and Grimes)
Elite Speed
21 years old


If these boys all come good our KPD stocks look good and if we do actually recruit Blake Schlensog you would have to think its curtains for garthwaite

Watchung the VFL lat week, no way Biggie is 200cm. Well maybe If Chol is 205cm.

 

[Muddiemoose]

Congrats to Ben and his partner who are now expecting

Now let’s get him to 100 games so we can get some of those sweet father son selections

 

[Grrr]

Congrats to Ben and his partner who are now expecting

Now let’s get him to 100 games so we can get some of those sweet father son selections

Or just one.

 

[DeLaCon]

He deserves a chance, hes played good footy in the twos and should play before Astbury whose cooked imho.

 

[Dr Tigris]

The club rates him. But if we play 3 tall forwards he's got a fair job to be the other tall player we pick. Dimma seems to think that there is a limit on how many talls you can play. And I guess that if you have Grimes, Broad as your back up choices it's hard to drop them.

Still I want to see miller play. He's (I hope) too good to be VFL forever.

 

[Grrr]

The club rates him. But if we play 3 tall forwards he's got a fair job to be the other tall player we pick. Dimma seems to think that there is a limit on how many talls you can play. And I guess that if you have Grimes, Broad as your back up choices it's hard to drop them.

Still I want to see miller play. He's (I hope) too good to be VFL forever.

He fits a need. With all the 200cm forwards we are susceptible to the high ball. Balta is too much of a talent to waste being ultra defensive, much better as an intercept marker and playing on the forwards who get right up the ground.

Miller has a great vertical leap, granted I haven't seen him live or even much of him in the last two years, but judging by the little I have seen he seems to punch the ball at the highest point. That has never been a great strength of Astbury, who has been a great backman, but maybe now is the time to give him a crack over Astbury for a few weeks at least.

 

[tiger_tough]

I keep reading that the club rates him but I've never seem him play a really good game in the twos....

 

[Dr Tigris]

He fits a need. With all the 200cm forwards we are susceptible to the high ball. Balta is too much of a talent to waste being ultra defensive, much better as an intercept marker and playing on the forwards who get right up the ground.

Miller has a great vertical leap, granted I haven't seen him live or even much of him in the last two years, but judging by the little I have seen he seems to punch the ball at the highest point. That has never been a great strength of Astbury, who has been a great backman, but maybe now is the time to give him a crack over Astbury for a few weeks at least.

Agree. I think Dave will get the gig back fairly quickly. But playing poor teams is exactly he time to give Miller some games. Dimma, however, has a bigger picture in mind. He wants a certain balance in the team, and if he plays 3 KPFs liek he's said then he wants to play one less tall defender. Which at times could be a problem. I reckon freeing Balta up is not a bad idea. But with Grimes, and Vlas coming back into form and Broad improving maybe the club simply sees too many defenders for the spots available. We need the smaller rebounding guys for our game.

I'd really hate it if somehow we let such a good potential player miss out on an AFL career just because we have too many talls playing.

 

[Grrr]

I keep reading that the club rates him but I've never seem him play a really good game in the twos....

It's been pretty hard over the last few years, and he had an injury riddles 2nd year. The two weeks prior to willy he had good possessions and played really well. 24 possessions in one.

 

[Grrr]

Agree. I think Dave will get the gig back fairly quickly. But playing poor teams is exactly he time to give Miller some games. Dimma, however, has a bigger picture in mind. He wants a certain balance in the team, and if he plays 3 KPFs liek he's said then he wants to play one less tall defender. Which at times could be a problem. I reckon freeing Balta up is not a bad idea. But with Grimes, and Vlas coming back into form and Broad improving maybe the club simply sees too many defenders for the spots available. We need the smaller rebounding guys for our game.

I'd really hate it if somehow we let such a good potential player miss out on an AFL career just because we have too many talls playing.

Against that, if Astbury was fit he would be playing and will come straight back in you'd think. So there is room.

 

[Lord of the Wings]

I keep reading that the club rates him but I've never seem him play a really good game in the twos....

Its his inability to spoil deep in defense under a high ball which is the major concern. Can't play key back if you can't kill those contests.

 

[Grrr]

Its his inability to spoil deep in defense under a high ball which is the major concern. Can't play key back if you can't kill those contests.

I saw plenty of time where he got up and got his fist to the ball, that was when I noticed how good a spring he had. He did miss one bad one that looked pretty ordinary.

 

[Dr Tigris]

Against that, if Astbury was fit he would be playing and will come straight back in you'd think. So there is room.

Yeah. But only in certain ways. Dave is a proven top grade KPD. So I guess DImma will change how he thinks to allow Dave to do his thing.

 

[Grrr]

Yeah. But only in certain ways. Dave is a proven top grade KPD. So I guess DImma will change how he thinks to allow Dave to do his thing.

Yes but the argument is tall for tall. Of course rookie vs veteran goes against him.

 

[SumTingWong]

If he was any good he would have played at least one game with Astbury out.

 

[tropicaltiger]

Not underestimating anything in terms of what they bring leadership/experience wise, but I'd suggest both are in the bottom 6 of the 22 in terms of their importance to the team moving forward.

bottom six is under rated....what astury and houli and george and now cotch and jackR do in their roles is what makes our prime movers break games...most of asburys last 100 games he never gets in our best 6 but many, many times top ten for value has handled the dangerous resting rucks with ease and add the scalps of hawkins, finlayson, tex, hipwood, dixon and co in finals campaigns while others go about their business. working in tandem with a great backline.

 

[Grrr]

bottom six is under rated....what astury and houli and george and now cotch and jackR do in their roles is what makes our prime movers break games...most of asburys last 100 games he never gets in our best 6 but many, many times top ten for value has handled the dangerous resting rucks with ease and add the scalps of hawkins, finlayson, tex, hipwood, dixon and co in finals campaigns while others go about their business. working in tandem with a great backline.

Astbury has been a great player for us, under-rated on this forum I reckon, but he is injured and it would have been nice to see how another key back went. We went in to WD without a backup against Kennedy and were lucky Darling had a mare of a game.

 

[Dr Tigris]

Yes but the argument is tall for tall. Of course rookie vs veteran goes against him.

I know. Tall for tall. We'll see what happens when Dave is back. Balta isn't getting dropped.

If the 3 tall forwrds works, maybe they'll look for another tall back to even the team out. That then squeezes another player out though.

 

[tropicaltiger]

Astbury has been a great player for us, under-rated on this forum I reckon, but he is injured and it would have been nice to see how another key back went. We went in to WD without a backup against Kennedy and were lucky Darling had a mare of a game.

agree.... with grimes shackling darling another tall was needed against wce...unless big Dave is jumping out of his skin, it should be miller time to see what he's got.... big boy bolta can have a spell on a wing, the ruck or on the pine if we get too top heavy down back....bolta needs to be developed as a swingman or big bodied winger. needs to be able to run and jump and freewheel without the burden of being a lockdown.

 

[Bojangles17]

Missed an opportunity to see if this guy has anything to offer at the level , with DA returning the doors just jammed shut again

 

[Vassp]

agree.... with grimes shackling darling another tall was needed against wce...unless big Dave is jumping out of his skin, it should be miller time to see what he's got.... big boy bolta can have a spell on a wing, the ruck or on the pine if we get too top heavy down back....bolta needs to be developed as a swingman or big bodied winger. needs to be able to run and jump and freewheel without the burden of being a lockdown.

I believe this is balta natural position even though he has the hallmarks of a young Rance.
he can run 20 metres and kick it 60 in a heart beat. That would I still terror on the opposition.
only prob is our Big key defender stocks are low.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

I think a player like Matt Taberner gives Miller some realistic hope of making it yet. Taberner for mine is now one of the best few key forwards in the game. In 2020, in his 9th season in the AFL system, he was named in the All Australian squad, one of only 3 key forwards named in the squad. In my opinion he should have been selected in the All Australian team ahead of Charlie Dixon, and possibly even ahead of Tom Hawkins. Putting final selection aside though, his recognition as one of the best three key forwards in the AFL for the season reflects a certain standing in the game for him.

He went to Fremantle as pick 70 in the 2011 AFL Draft. His career has unfolded as follows where you can see quite gradual but steady improvement off a pretty low base:

He unsurprisingly did not play AFL in 2012.

In 2013, his second year in the system, he played 4 AFL matches and struggled to have any real impact.

In 2014, his third year in the system, he played 9 matches and started to impact in some of those, but really struggled in his two finals.

In 2015, his fourth year in the system, he played 15 matches, in most of which he didn’t have much impact, including one final where he really struggled.

****This is about where Miller is in his career right now, Taberner’s 2015, his 4th year. Remembering Miller might have played a lot more AFL to this point had he not been at Richmond.

In 2016, Taberner’s 5th year in the system, he was selected in 17 matches and you can see a much better impact on games, certainly statistically. Not tearing it apart consistently, but about 5 or 6 pretty decent games for a key forward.

In 2017, his 6th season, Taberner missed a lot of games presumably through injury, but his stats look decent in 5 of his 8 matches, and the 3 quieter ones were consecutive before he missed a load of matches, so he may have been carrying something. This is where I think he becomes a consistently good AFL player, in his 6th season.

2018, his 7th season, Taberner again looks strong in most of the matches he played, but only played 9 matches due to injury.

2019, again 9 mainly strong matches before missing the rest of the seaosn due to injury.

2020 he finally got a really good run at it and All Australian squad, very unlucky not to be All Australian imo. His performances in a team with such a turgid game style were outstanding. This is where I think he finally gets to display his strong upside, his 9th season.

2021 with a less turgid game style he played 9 matches prior to injury and got either 2,3, or 4 goals in every match.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Miller is the same height as Taberner, is a similar weight, was similarly taken with a speculative low draft pick, and for all we know, could be tracking roughly similarly at the same stage of his career. Taberner was not near average AFL standard in his position at the stage Miller is at right now. If you judged him the way some are now judging Miller, he would have been cut.

Of course not everyone who is the same size and tracks a little like Taberner will end up being as good as Taberner is now, but that should give hope for players like Ben Miller.

 

[beema limapep]

Get around him lads