Whether it's true or not does it matter?
He was still poached by West Coast and if you read what i replied to, you will realise WC is not a "Melbourne" club.
But yeah, i noticed you just ignored that.
He’s paying just over a $1. Not much back on $100.
About 40 i think
Gee I hope so. We've lacked genuine star mids for so long. Feels like it's coming together for us though with Phillips and Powell, joining the rising stars of LDU, Simpkin, Thomas..
As talented as JUH, Thilthorpe and McDonald are, you'd have to assume none of them will start their careers the way Rowell did. We're talking about a kid that started his career better than Judd did and that is a huge statement considering the way people view Judd. This is a special kind of talent that comes along once every 10 or 20 years. Don't forget, he came up against the reigning Brownlow Medallist Nat Fyfe in just his fourth ever AFL game and completely dominated to take the 3 Brownlow votes with 20 disposals, 2 goals, 7 clearances and 5 tackles (in reduced quarters!) to Fyfe's 11 disposals, 0 goals, 3 clearances and 3 tackles. Fyfe even tried to make a statement by tackling him within the first 10 seconds of the game and this teenager shrugged off the attempted tackle like it was nothing:
That's usually not how the voters see it though. Jesse Hogan and Nick Riewoldt are the only key forwards to receive the Rising Star award in the last 20 years and virtually every other recipient was either a midfielder or a medium/small forward that would later become a midfielder. On the rare occasion we've seen a defender like Daniel Talia win it but the vast majority of winners have either been current midfielders or future midfielders. The Brownlow is an even more extreme example of this midfield favouritism. You'd probably have to go as far back as 1994 to find the last non-midfielder to win it when then-defender Gavin Wanganeen claimed the Charlie but even then he later became a midfielder and really played the half back flank position like a quick mid in a lot of ways.
Depends on how you choose to view it. Round 1 was played on March 21st and Round 2 was played on June 13th. That's essentially an extra preseason to develop, which makes a huge difference for someone of Rowell's age. It's reasonable to suggest this was a big factor in his increased performance between Round 1 and Round 2.
That's fair. I attended multiple games he played in last year and watched closely what he did on and off the ball. I'm fairly convinced he's just as good as people were suggesting and is the closest thing I've seen to Gary Ablett Jr in his prime around 2012-2014. He seemed to pop up in the right positions at the right times and always found a way to dispose of the ball or finish the play with an accurate i50 entry/kick the goal himself.
Depends on how you choose to look at it I suppose. Between 2012-14 (ages 27-30) Ablett averaged 32.3 disposals, 6.6 clearances, 5.3 tackles and 1.4 goals a game as well as an average of 24.6 Brownlow votes per season over that three year period. In reality he only played two and a half seasons due to his shoulder injury in 2014 and a few other games missed in 2012-13. He finished 2 votes behind the Brownlow winner in 2012, won the Brownlow medal in 2013 and was the screaming favourite to claim another Brownlow in 2014 before his injury. In the end he finished just 4 votes shy of winning the Brownlow in 2014 after missing a third of the season.
You're entitled to your opinion but I think it would be unfair to suggest West Coast's midfield of Luke Shuey, Tim Kelly, Andrew Gaff and Elliot Yeo were witches hats in that game. Gaff had 29 disposals that night, Shuey 25, Kelly 24 and Yeo 21. It's not as if these guys were doing nothing. Adelaide is probably a far better example of what you're talking about but even then the Crouch brothers played in the midfield that night and had 22 disposals so it's not as if there was zero resistance. Then you have Fremantle with the reigning Brownlow medallist Nat Fyfe running through their midfield. Say what you want about the other Fremantle midfielders that day but you can't deny Fyfe's quality and the fact that Rowell completely outplayed him that day.
