Past #5: Ben Jacobs - delisted after 64 NM games/10 NM goals - thanks Benny

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Roo Beauty said:
I was dead wrong about the need for this bloke in our team. If he can continue to accumulate the footy while tagging the oppo’s best mid out of the game that’s a massive plus for us.
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Before being injured BJ was easily top 10 midfielder in the game. Week after week he slaughtered the leagues best.
Keeping the top midfielder to a hand full of possessions while racking up very hand numbers for himself.

I think run with is more apt than tagger as he doesn't seem to run around holding like other tagging players.

Great to see him back and I expect by mid season Ben will have a number of high profile scalps and people will still be saying Ben who?
 

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brettman135 said:
Hopefully can give Oliver an absolute bath next week.
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He's not really a tagger anymore, just an ultra accountable midfielder who almost always beats his man, while still getting lots of the ball, using it well, and presenting a very potent goal threat.

If the cocktopuses that choose the AA have any idea, he'd be in the team right now.
 
Buckley thought Cripps was worth sending Pendlebury to, me too, go Benny, do your thing.
 
roos_fanatic08 said:
I reckon he is better suited to Murphy. Murphy is about the only bloke in their side who actually provides any run and carry.

Plus Cripps turns it over something shocking. Let cunner and Cripps go head to head in the middle and let Jacobs clamp down on Murphy’s run
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Agreed, plus Murphy has a habit of playing well against us when Carlton used to find ways to beat us a few years back.
 
Stick him on Murphy. Gibbs isn't in that Carlton side too, he played pretty well last outing vs us. We have the grunt to match Cripps with Cunners, Ziebs, Dumont etc.
 
MaddAdam said:
He's not really a tagger anymore, just an ultra accountable midfielder who almost always beats his man, while still getting lots of the ball, using it well, and presenting a very potent goal threat.

If the cocktopuses that choose the AA have any idea, he'd be in the team right now.
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He's getting 13 touches a game ... but I agree he has improved his offensive side of the game. Needs to keep improving for us to keep improving though.

Like matching him up on Murphy. Such an overrated footballer. Jacobs will destroy him.
 
Heaps of fun said:
He's getting 13 touches a game ... but I agree he has improved his offensive side of the game. Needs to keep improving for us to keep improving though.

Like matching him up on Murphy. Such an overrated footballer. Jacobs will destroy him.
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That's brought down by Rd1 - a slugfest in ridiculous conditions - which was also his first senior game in 18 months or so.

In the two games he's played on dry land he's got 16 and 18 touches, and given some very good ball players in Seb Ross and Ginger Meggs a doing as part of the bargain. Still only three games into the comeback.

I reckon he'll very rapidly be getting 20 odd touches a game while doing his job, which will mean I am right and you are wrong tra la la la.
 

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I am already looking forward to Jacobs being the only player to keep Mitchell to under 20 touches when we play Hawthorn, which by the way would give us a decent chance to win that game.
 
Event Horizon said:
I am already looking forward to Jacobs being the only player to keep Mitchell to under 20 touches when we play Hawthorn, which by the way would give us a decent chance to win that game.
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Realistically, he just needs to keep Mitchell to 25-30 for it to be a win. Mitchell gets 20 in a single passage of play.
 
There was a moment before North Melbourne’s first-round game that it dawned on Ben Jacobs.

Ryan Clarke had become one of his good mates at Arden Street, but the pair were yet to play together. The same could be said of so many other fellow Roos.

It had been just under two years since the midfielder’s most recent senior appearance for North, but in that time the face of the side has changed dramatically.

Ben Jacobs is finally back in business.

Photo: Paul Jeffers
When Jacobs first learnt he would need foot surgery after a win over Essendon in round eight 2016, he was relieved because while obviously disappointing, it meant he was still a chance to get back for what looked like a serious tilt at the premiership. After all, they were unbeaten, on top of the ladder, and with a highly experienced senior core.

How wrong he was on many fronts.

To start with, the surgery on his broken fifth metatarsal in his right foot didn’t go well.

“We were pretty much trying to put the pieces back from that initial surgery for the last two years,” Jacobs told Fairfax Media this week.

“We didn’t have the screw in far enough. The crack never healed properly.

“In hindsight we would have done it differently, but that’s why hindsight’s so good.”

North made the finals, but did so limping. Their season fell completely away in the second half of the year, culminating in the decision to let go Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo, and a September thrashing at the hands of Adelaide.

Then there was the rebuild of 2017, the aggressive targeting of Dustin Martin and Josh Kelly, the departures of stalwarts Andrew Swallow, Lindsay Thomas and Sam Gibson, and the re-signing of coach Brad Scott.

All the while Jacobs was sidelined, setback after setback. He would have three more rounds of surgery on his foot before finally turning the corner around Christmas last year.

“I thought I was coming back for the finals in 2016 and failed to do that, and then my mindset was like, ‘Oh brilliant, I get to have a full pre-season’, and I never got that, and then it was, ‘At least I can play in the season’, and I never got that either.”


Not that he feared for his career. The club supported Jacobs, and Scott had reassured the ultra-professional former Port Adelaide player that there would be a spot for him on the 2018 list.

Given the uncertainty surrounding so many others at the club, including Aaron Mullett, a player of similar age and experience to Jacobs, the trust and backing of Scott meant a lot to the midfielder. It freed him of worries about his future, and allowed him to focus on his recovery.

Many of those months in the rehab group were spent with Sam Wright, who has also only just returned after a foot issue of his own. The pair would welcome and farewell teammates through rehab, while also working with Australian Ballet physio Sue Mayes.

“We got in there and realised how poor [our calf strength was] compared to the ballerinas," Jacobs said.

"It made us get over that we were working with the ballet. It didn’t take much to see immediate results.”

He visited brother Nick, who was playing college football as a punter in Memphis, marvelling at the passion of the crowd at the team's games.

"It was sick to go watch him. You go to a college game, you've got the same size crowd [as an AFL game] but they're all going for that college and they're all between the age of 20 and 25 pretty much," Jacobs said.

Ben Jacobs gets his hands to the football.

Photo: AAP
Jacobs also “knuckled into” his diploma of leadership and management, although notes that the demands of rehab are far greater than some may think, leaving less time than expected for other pursuits.

Once he got through the club’s first scratch match this year, Jacobs, 26, was confident he’d be right for round one. One of few out-and-out taggers left in the game, he’s started the year well, doing strong jobs on St Kilda’s Seb Ross and Melbourne’s Clayton Oliver in the past fortnight.

There had been self-doubts about whether he’d be able to return to his best, but that confidence is steadily being restored. A first-round pick for the Power in 2010, the one-time Brighton Grammar prodigy never thought he’d end up a tagger, but says there is a place for lockdown players in the game, providing that they play their role within the broader defensive structure, noting that by the time finals roll around, teams generally look to curb the opposition’s best midfielder.

“I’m just enjoying rolling out each week," he said.

“I went from being one of the youngest in the team to two years down the track and I’m one of the senior players.

“It wasn’t meant to be that long obviously. It didn’t go to plan. But I always had faith I was going to get back at some point.”
 
I would hope we have a 2 year contract waiting for him to hit some games minimum this year.
 
Get ready for some nightmares, Tommy.
 
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