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Senior 9. Patrick Cripps

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I've been disappointed with Graham's start to the year. His NAB campaign was looking very promising, and I thought he might be in there helping Cripps extract it. Needs to lift!
I don't think he is playing an inside mid role.
 
I don't think he is playing an inside mid role.
The question is, why not? Doesn't have the pace to be an outside mid, although he does have the foot skills. Is handy around goals and can push into the middle to play a high half forward role, but I thought that's what Wright and Kerridge were going to be. Graham seems to be more effective when played as an inside mid next to Cripps, with resting stints forward. He could be taking pressure of Cripps and still getting us nearly a goal a game. Whereas Kerridge and Wright have shown more promise around the goals, but are capable of relieving in the middle when our regulars rest forward.
Call me crazy, but I think we should have Cripps, Graham and Curnow doing the grunt work and feeding it out to the likes of Murphy, Gibbs, Boek and Thomas, with Kerridge and Wright playing around the forward 50 arc.
 
I don't think he is playing an inside mid role.
What role does he play then? He's not quick enough to be outside and his disposal isn't always the best to be a link up man. I'd think inside mid was his best bet.
 

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The question is, why not? ....
Call me crazy, but I think we should have Cripps, Graham and Curnow doing the grunt work and feeding it out to the likes of Murphy, Gibbs, Boek and Thomas, with Kerridge and Wright playing around the forward 50 arc.

What is crazy about what you say ? - seems pretty obvious to me.
 
What role does he play then? He's not quick enough to be outside and his disposal isn't always the best to be a link up man. I'd think inside mid was his best bet.
I think he should too. It just seems to me he doesn't line up at centre bounces as much as others. I could be wrong though, but I thought he was coming off the square more and hanging 'outside' at stoppages around the ground. I think that's the direction he's been given in order to get him kicking the ball forward as he is a good decision maker (though probably not playing to his standard at the moment).
 
I don't think he has another role he can play at AFL level...
I don't think he would be bad as a small forward for 70% of the game. Pace lets him down there though. Seems like the idea is for him to hang off the pack, particularly with stoppages forward. He's been getting shots on goal but hasn't converted lately unfortunately.
 
Gun midfielders going forward and being dangerous is an awesome thing, and increasingly relevant in the brave new world of rotation caps, etc. So the Fyfes, Martins, Dangerfields, Parkers of the world get MORE awesome because of their forward chops. Those guys have differentiators and unique abilities that enable them to be regularly dangerous when forward.

Clearly (to keep things thread-relevant), we want to see if Cripps can use his formidable size forward and find mismatches against smaller midfielders following him down there, and I hope and suspect he'll be able to do some of that. He's not fast and doesn't necessarily have "tricks", but by sheer awesome size and power he should be a tricky match-up when drifting forward.

With respect to Nick Graham and any of our other blue-collar pluggers... I desperately WANT them to be something, but wanting it might not make it so. I reckon Graham needs to be a coal-face ball-winner - and that's it - because nothing I've seen from him says he has size, pace, overhead ability, clean finishing or forward chops in general to stand out as a mostly-forward guy. I'm sure he's got something to offer, but the list of average-to-small guys without pace getting paid to play as a forward in the AFL is short, especially those who don't convert.
 
Not bad for a guy hobbling around and awkwardly over-running ground balls at the moment.

Though I'm not too surprised how he keeps working into games given a couple years ago he tried to play on with a broken leg (!) in the VFL.
 

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What I've noticed this year so far in our 4 game sample package, is that cripps had stayed every game slow but had worked his way into the game with dominant 3rd qrts.

#premiershipquarter
#carltonspiritliveson
 
So many players would have just been mentally beaten after such a poor first few quarters, he gave away a few frees in a row but the champ he is he didnt drop his head just kept playing to his strengths and eventually it paid off, absolute resilience i love it.
 

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#1 in the competition for Contested Possessions (16 per game)
#1 in the competition for Clearances (8.8 per game)

Dare I say, this kid will be the greatest player to don the Navy Blue ever!
Those stats are just plain outrageous, he's still a kid. A man child yes, but a kid. And he's already signed up to the end of 2019, showing he loves us as much as we love him. Very lucky to have him.
 
Those stats are just plain outrageous, he's still a kid. A man child yes, but a kid. And he's already signed up to the end of 2019, showing he loves us as much as we love him. Very lucky to have him.
He had the best bloke in the business helping out last season in Juddy!
This kid is going to be a superstar of the game, a player that gets bum's on seats!
Well done Crippa!
 
Well done Patrick
Don't get to see the Blues play much here in the West but you made this Blue Bagger happy
It's difficult at the game to see who is the guy in the pack with 1-2 blokes on his back
Appreciate the efforts and love the aggression - this is a leader of our club, was going to say future leader, but I reckon this kid is already showing the other kids how to go about the work
 
I actually miss a lot of his work he is usually so buried underneath other players. He's the starter motor invisible under the hood somewhere.
 

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