Chris Egan

[Armageddon]

Chris Egan should be traded at the end of the year while he still has some currency to the club. Alot of people claim he has great skills but I doubt if I have ever seen a guy's handball skills be more deplorable. As for his kicking skills they arn't much better, particulary when he is put under any sort of pressure. The worst aspect to his game however is lack of intensity at the contest. Come the end of next year he could well be worth nothing to the club and most of last years and probably this years draftees will be in front of him for a game.

*sigh* the kid is 19....

 

[MarkT]

Why didn't we pick up Hurn if we need a grunt mid? Or Nathan Jones?

You’re asking me why we did and didn’t draft players? Maybe the club doesn’t share my opinion, maybe they thought the guys we drafted were clearly better footballers, maybe they thought Lewis would be available or maybe they just F’d again at the draft table or most likely Malthouse wanted Morrison and is a poor judge of a player.

There is no doubt there is a lot of hit and miss with draft but the chances of a miss grow exponentially as you go further up the top 10 or so.

I don't reckon we'd have taken Lewis if he was there at 23, let alone 7 or 10. We've changed our strategy somewhat.

Did we? We took Leon Davis in 1999 and Eagan in 2004. OK Eagan is a bit taller.

We seem to take better footballers and I suspect that is largely due to Hine and more resources devoted to the all important task of best using your draft picks. I have no idea if we woulod have taken Lewis but what we did was swap pick 7 and Nixon who was a dud for Morrison who is another west Coast dud mate of Malthouse and pick 10. You don’t know who will be there at your pick but that’s a stupid move regardless.

Whilst Egan is a peculiar entity, I personally thought that I saw some improvement in him early on this year. This may sound strange, but I thought he was quite committed in the two praccy games I saw, kicking five in one.

He can learn some basics at Willi, but I reckon holding him back too much will have a negative effect. He is an ego driven player, and the main event is what he's after.

He has done nothing so far. His best game would have been v WCE last year which in reality was a late and minor cameo. Who would you play him ahead of? I don’t like to write blokes off in their first 2 years and even after that they can improve but on exposed form he doesn’t get enough of the ball, he sprays his licks and he shirks contests. It also appears he lacks dedication. Seriously, he is a taller Leon Davis. It has taken Leon into his 7th season to actually be worth the spot Malthouse has given him all these years.

I hope Eagan makes it. I don’t think he will though.

 

[MarkT]

The club said that it traded down picks because it knew that the player they wanted to pick would be still around by pick 10! whether they were just bullting i dont know, but that is what was said!

I don’t think they did say that. What I recall was that they said they rated the guys around 7 to 10 pretty similarly and were happy with who they ended up with. They never said they would have taken Eagan at 7 - not that I heard or read anyway.

 

[Vinnie Vegas]

Nobody bar Hawthorn rated Jordan Lewis that highly anyway - He was seen to be a late first/early second round pick.

The fact is that it is INCREDIBLY obvious that we were going to go for pace and skill with that pick. With the season we had, and our midfield looking like molasses, our first pick was always going to be a quick mid/flanker, not a slow, fat-arsed wombat like we'd just delisted in Luke Shackleton.

 

[Paracetamol Merchant]

Patience patience patience.

and then more patience.

Thats what some of you need

Thankfully Mick has it coming out of his ears.

Though he also has an extreme amount of stubborness and he wont trade or delist a pick 10.

 

[derro]

hes a hack said it when they first drafted him and he hasnt let me down.
will never be anything other than a cameo type player in and out of the side until malthouse finally cuts his losses 5 years from now

 

[MarkT]

When he was drafted? How the heck did you know then?

 

[Murray]

i have it on very good authority

Er, no.
You heard a rumour, that doesn't count as "good authority".

 

[Murray]

*sigh* the kid is 19....

Yeah, but that is 4 years older than the poster of that stupid comment.
I bet he wanted to clear Johno after two years too.

 

[brentoncowell]

Chris is a fine talent and i have no doubt in his ability to make it at pieland. He really should be playing ahead of "one game in ten" Davis. So with that spot stolen, who does he come for? I think its good that he is being made to earn his stripes but i would play him all year round because he adds a flair and arrogance to the side, kinda port adelaide-esque

 

[silverphoenix]

Chris is a fine talent and i have no doubt in his ability to make it at pieland. He really should be playing ahead of "one game in ten" Davis. So with that spot stolen, who does he come for? I think its good that he is being made to earn his stripes but i would play him all year round because he adds a flair and arrogance to the side, kinda port adelaide-esque

i think u should change your nickname for davis to "six in seven" cause leon has been very good this year, nearly single handedly stole the game from west coast, was instrumental against port and better than alot of others in the other games. Egan is 19, and isnt playing like a senior player at all.

 

[Jabso]

Where was Swan in year two? H.Shaw in year two?

 

[Munger]

Yeah, but that is 4 years older than the poster of that stupid comment.
I bet he wanted to clear Johno after two years too.

No I did not want to clear Johno after 2 years, as he always played with heart. As for his age being an excuse and a reason to keep him on the list, endless number of draftees are cut after their first 2 years when they too arn't good enough.

 

[Vinnie Vegas]

Where was Swan in year two? H.Shaw in year two?

Heath is probably a bad example - Last year was year two for him, and he played quite a few decent games in a row.

But yeah, Swan is a perfectly good example. Johnno didn't exactly explode onto the scene in his current form either.

 

[Paracetamol Merchant]

Where was Swan in year two? H.Shaw in year two?

exactly.

there's just some people who always want to point the finger somewhere.

 

[MarkT]

Look it really is too early to make a definitive but the reality we have short lists and we must delist/trade 5+ players. We have kept too many players for too long. I can’t see Eagan going at the end of the year but he will be under the pump for the following year cull. What we must do is avoid Ben Kinnear syndrome where we wait for ever to prove what seemed obvious early on. Eagan has to show signs he will get more of the ballad n use it better. If not he has to go to make way for someone else. That’s reality with small lists and half a dozen players being turned over every year. A few Lovitt-Murrays will slip through. I can live with that. We have to work the odds. In particular we have to use top 10 picks on genuine football talent. We have urinated far too many up against the wall. With our ladder positions we should be the premiership favorties and full of top liners with 10 years ahead of them. Instead we are reliant on veterans, a short injury list and waiting for maybe’s to make it into our middle rung.

 

[hotpie]

End of 2007 is the ABSOLUTE earliest time to make a judgement call. He probably needs 2008 as well to establish himself. We have to be patient.

 

[Lonie_from_50]

Chris is a fine talent and i have no doubt in his ability to make it at pieland. He really should be playing ahead of "one game in ten" Davis. So with that spot stolen, who does he come for? I think its good that he is being made to earn his stripes but i would play him all year round because he adds a flair and arrogance to the side, kinda port adelaide-esque

Certainly has good talent, and he does add depth to the side. The thing with Leon, the man who is taking his spot, and Caracella can be added in there, is that Davis is earning his spot each week, and his last two weeks have been impressive. 'The ignitor' is playing some good football. Hopefully Egan can perform at Willy (which he hasn't been, but then again, Brent Hall was knocking the door down ), then he can add that pressure.

As I said, we have depth, but no real pressure from our depth, except for the Pendlebury's and Jason Cloke's, but one is developing, and the other is a Cloke.

 

[Lonie_from_50]

End of 2007 is the ABSOLUTE earliest time to make a judgement call. He probably needs 2008 as well to establish himself. We have to be patient.

We were patient with another first rounder in Danny Roach. He spent alot of time down at Williamstown (2 years), and became the biggest draft clanger in Collingwood's history.

On Egan, IMO he is suited to the AFL more than VFL, but we can't get him in the side. Needs an opening and good to see none there. He has to adapt to VFL more, but keep his AFL skill that is required.

 

[Jabso]

Once you have drafted them, how high you had them in the draft is irrelevant when judging them.
As far as judging the drafting of players you obviously can take into account the draft position. But you can't delist him because he hasn't gone as good as he promised last year or as his #10 pick status suggests.

 

[hotpie]

We were patient with another first rounder in Danny Roach. He spent alot of time down at Williamstown (2 years), and became the biggest draft clanger in Collingwood's history..

And we were impatient with Mal Michael. We let him go to Brisbane because we didnt know how good we was going to turn out to be, and therefore did not pay him what he thought he was worth. It cuts both ways.

If nothing else the mere presence of Egan on the list has put a rocket up Leon Davis's butt, and got him to finally deliver. We gave Davis the patience and Egan will need the same.

 

[MarkT]

Talent wasn’t the issue with Mal. That was more to do with his back and his pay demands. If you believe the talk it was also another character over talent call and his influence on Taz was supposed to be an issue but I don’t know how much there is in that. It didn’t help that Malthouse tried to turn him into a forward, particularly when he had ankle and back problems. Regardless, I though it was a bad call by MM to let him go.

Anyway, it was impatience. He was highly rated as a talented athletic footballer at Collingwood. Not necessarily by Malthouse though which is another issue.

 

[MarkT]

End of 2007 is the ABSOLUTE earliest time to make a judgement call. He probably needs 2008 as well to establish himself. We have to be patient.

It’s a fine line. We have to be patient enough but not too patient. That’s the whole mastery of list management and we get too many calls wrong. Lately I think we have improved. I suspect that has a bit to do with improved talent spotting. The relevant people are better judges of the future of a player. Hine v Judkins appears a no contest.

I reckon we made all the right calls with the last cull. It may have been too shallow but I can see why it was as limited as it was. There is little doubt in my mind though that there is a decent cull to come and then a period of stabilisation where we might actually find it hard to find the names to delist prior to the draft.

Eagan will undoubtedly be there in 2007 but 2007 is when a call has to be made either way. 3 years is enough for experts to judge and get most calls right. A few will always slip through but you have to draft well to have that not hurt you. Personally I’d much rather see larger lists so you can hang onto some players longer and try and develop them into role players for the senior side but that is unlikely while some clubs can’t meet existing costs.

If I had to make a call on Eagan right now I'd say he won't make it. He is still young though. The thing is if you give them all 4 years you are no chance. That's around 20 players under 22 of which history says only a relatively small proportion will be regular senior players. The mathermatics just can't be made to work unless you make some ruthless calls.

 

[hotpie]

Only megaduds get delisted after 2-3 years. Egan aint no Billy Morrison.

 

[Murray]

Roach had a debilitating degenerative Hip injury