Daniel Cross

[Dog Town]

There are a lot of people who confuse things about Cross. Great-handballer, tackler, nice mark, tries hard, gets lots of possessions - you confuse this with the job he is supposed to be doing, that he isn't doing and that is winning the ball at stoppages, ).

Actually he is extremely good at winning the ball at stoppages.

I can see there is no turning you C.E and your entitled to your opinion so I wont push you.Atleast your putting an opinion out there.

 

[Gilbo_Fan]

crossy is a massive improver under rocket, just needs to improve his kicking.

Interestingly in one newspaper article recently it talked about how Cross had paired himself up with Lindsay Gilbee so they could both help each other on areas of their game they needed to work on. So it shouldn't be long before he is blasting lasers from his feet like Gilbo.

 

[Derek Zoolander]

Actually he is extremely good at winning the ball at stoppages.

I can see there is no turning you C.E and your entitled to your opinion so I wont push you.Atleast your putting an opinion out there.

It's one thing to put your opinion out there, it's another to close your mind to those who are trying to show you where your view maybe skewed or misguided.

If you put out a view that is grossly incorrect, you are always going to encounter a certain amount of backlash about it.

Not all points put forward can simply be dismissed as opinion, therefore correct. There are stats that indicate that points that you make yourself regarding stoppages that show that CE is simply wrong.

I understand your easing off though, as he is not going to be swayed, which is just unfortunate, as he is closing his eyes to a player that is going to run possibly the best midfield we've had in yours or mine time of watching this side.

 

[stefoid]

Cross has a lot of potential for improvement. For one thing he has obviously been working on his kicking, which has improved a lot from the start of the season.

For a second thing, he is still skinny because he is still growing. Put another 8-10 kilos on him, and he will be smashing guys out of the way.

Lastly, he just hasnt played that many senior games. hes got a lot to learn.

Question: who gets a clearance stat? Is it the guy who scoops a handball out of the scrimage to someone or is it the guy who has positioned himself to receive the handball/looseball and run into space?

cross is playing the former role and cooney is playing the latter. thats where their strengths lie, and a midfield needs players to do both. It would be nice if you had 3 perfect onballers who could play equally well in either role, but who has that?

FYI: cross had 7 contested possies and 5 loose for 3 clearances. Mitchel had 6, 2 & 4 respectively.

Hodge had 1, 11 & 13. In other words, hodge like cooney, plays a predator role. rather than get down there and win a conetsted ball, he will hover near the contest and swoop on a loose ball, or wait for a hb receive and then run off with it.

The next question is why would you play cross on hodge? wouldnt he be better suited to play on mitchel? Maybe for the same reason we played harris on williams all day. Its obvious we had control of the game, and both of our players will have learned something about how to top that style of opponents.

I think people constantly undervalue those players that make a contest as opposed to those that feed off the contest. We shouldnt be paying too much attention to handball receives and uncontested marks because we play a possesion style game and the whole teams figures in those areas is inflated by our gameplan. But hard/loose ball gets arent inflated by our game plan and its the players who are generating big numbers in those stats who are the most important to the team.

 

[Dog Town]

It's one thing to put your opinion out there, it's another to close your mind to those who are trying to show you where your view maybe skewed or misguided.

If you put out a view that is grossly incorrect, you are always going to encounter a certain amount of backlash about it.

Not all points put forward can simply be dismissed as opinion, therefore correct. There are stats that indicate that points that you make yourself regarding stoppages that show that CE is simply wrong.

I understand your easing off though, as he is not going to be swayed, which is just unfortunate, as he is closing his eyes to a player that is going to run possibly the best midfield we've had in yours or mine time of watching this side.

Dont get me wrong I am as frustrated with it as anyone.We have been crying out for a guy like Cross to come through for years.I just thought when he is not responding to what I see as plain logic then there is no point having ten posters trying to turn him.Nine is plenty

 

[littlenails]

To CE

 

[Dog Town]

Cross has a lot of potential for improvement. For one thing he has obviously been working on his kicking, which has improved a lot from the start of the season.

For a second thing, he is still skinny because he is still growing. Put another 8-10 kilos on him, and he will be smashing guys out of the way.

Lastly, he just hasnt played that many senior games. hes got a lot to learn.

Question: who gets a clearance stat? Is it the guy who scoops a handball out of the scrimage to someone or is it the guy who has positioned himself to receive the handball/looseball and run into space?

cross is playing the former role and cooney is playing the latter. thats where their strengths lie, and a midfield needs players to do both. It would be nice if you had 3 perfect onballers who could play equally well in either role, but who has that?

FYI: cross had 7 contested possies and 5 loose for 3 clearances. Mitchel had 6, 2 & 4 respectively.

Hodge had 1, 11 & 13. In other words, hodge like cooney, plays a predator role. rather than get down there and win a conetsted ball, he will hover near the contest and swoop on a loose ball, or wait for a hb receive and then run off with it.

The next question is why would you play cross on hodge? wouldnt he be better suited to play on mitchel? Maybe for the same reason we played harris on williams all day. Its obvious we had control of the game, and both of our players will have learned something about how to top that style of opponents.

I think people constantly undervalue those players that make a contest as opposed to those that feed off the contest. We shouldnt be paying too much attention to handball receives and uncontested marks because we play a possesion style game and the whole teams figures in those areas is inflated by our gameplan. But hard/loose ball gets arent inflated by our game plan and its the players who are generating big numbers in those stats who are the most important to the team.

Great post and agreed with all of it.

The other thing with the clearances is that yesterday the ball was very hot early and a few times we had chains of handpasses to get out of tight situations.If Cross isnt the original guy winning the ball for us in those situations he is invariably the scond guy in the chain who recieves a red hot handball and then has to get it into space.This cannot be under estimated.

Alot of people dont realise just how badly we measure up in some stats.Cross,West and Cooney keep us competitive in alot of areas that we struggle in.

 

[C.E.Lovett]

Quote:
Actually he is extremely good at winning the ball at stoppages.

I can see there is no turning you C.E and your entitled to your opinion so I wont push you.Atleast your putting an opinion out there.


There were around 60 stoppages yesterday. Cross won one of them, it was in the third quarter. He kicked the ball from the centre directly to a Hawthorn player.

Cross was K-I-L-L-E-D. You guys gave him votes based upon his general ground play.

Also, on the subject of "Lies, lies and damn statistics" where is that recent post that Sporty Spice made about Grant vs Brown a few weeks ago. If Brown hadn't of kicked so many points instead of goals we would have lost that game. Grant almost single-handedly lost the game for us. He had to be taken off Brown. You gave Grant votes? Open your eyes and your minds!!

Thankyou Scooter for your apology. I don't think that you are stupid, you just have a different opinion - even though it is wrong!

Scooter - you should be happy that you and you brow-beating mates have made me raise my opinion of Cross from "A waste of space" to "Will do until we get somebody good."

Quote:
We pretty much broke even in the clearances even though Everit had 33 hit outs 13 of which went directly to his players.That is an outstanding effort from West,Cross and Cooney combined.

Another in the category of "Lies, lies and damn statistics." We did not break even in the clearances, we were MURDERED! Cross got one of them as described above.

Now tell me where I am wrong about what I have written.
Did Cross get Killed in the clearances or not?
Is it his job to clear the ball from the ruck?
How well did he do his job on Saturday?
Can anybody ever see Cross being in the class of Buckley, Judd, Cousins, Sam Mitchell, Voss, Bell, Brent and Robert Harvey, Shannon Grant, Hazelby, Riccuito and West? All of these players can run and cut 'em up.

Unfortunately I have an advantage over many of you. I actually watched the game and saw with my own eyes the solitary clearance that Cross got.

After all this thread was started because I didn't give any votes to Cross for round 11 who I thought played a woeful game. I thought that McMahon was a standout player for number 1.

Mr Sporty Spice, is that picture of Strawman meant to be of me or you?

You want to scare away people from this site who have a different opinion than yourself by personally abusing them and trying to humiliate them. I see people come into this site from time to time and I try to stick up for them.

Does anybody else have any more personal abuse?

 

[stefoid]

cross was credited with 3 clearances. The one you saw that went to an opponent wouldnt be credited as a clearance, but a clanger.

3 clearances is in the 'not bad' category. 5 is pretty good. 8+ is awesome.

as for his other stats, he got 7 hard balls which is just below 'awesome' category, and 5 loose. the lad clearly gets his own ball, and he doesnt waste it that much either.

he is one of the reasons we are doing much better this year, and people are wondering what a comparison with the super stars of the competition such as the judds and buckleys is supposed to proove.

Im not sure how long he was playing on hodge for, but youre right in that it would have been nice if he could have restricted hodge more and still won the hard balls. hodge was clearly not trying to restrict crossy, but just loitering with intent, so stopping him would have taken crossy out of the congestion and followign hodge around the perimiter. Would that have been a win situation for us? We could have played a cross as a dedicated stopper on hodge, but we didnt and we won easy. youll have to ask eade about cross's role and why.

another thing. a lot of the reason for our midfield dominance was our pressure on the opposition. cross had 10 attempted tackles, hodge had 4.

 

[Dog Town]

There were around 60 stoppages yesterday. Cross won one of them, it was in the third quarter. He kicked the ball from the centre directly to a Hawthorn player.

Cross was K-I-L-L-E-D. You guys gave him votes based upon his general ground play.

I didnt want to re-enter this but I will respond to your direct quotes.

Cross had 6 clearances out of our 30 according to champion data so he had 5 more than you counted.

Also just because he doesnt get credited with the clearance it doesn't mean he had nothing to do with it.

Quote:


Quote:
We pretty much broke even in the clearances even though Everit had 33 hit outs 13 of which went directly to his players.That is an outstanding effort from West,Cross and Cooney combined.

Another in the category of "Lies, lies and damn statistics." We did not break even in the clearances, we were MURDERED! Cross got one of them as described above.

?

Hawthorn had 34 clearances to our 30 and we were even at 3 quarter time.They got the last 3 of the game from memory.To me that is basically breaking even.The hawks have been hurting sides out of the middle and yesterday the they had no impact in the centre and probably had one goal directly from centre clearances and it was after a free when all our players stopped.In what way were we murdered?

Now tell me where I am wrong about what I have written.

Ok

.

.
Did Cross get Killed in the clearances or not?
?

No he had the third most on the ground.

Can anybody ever see Cross being in the class of Buckley, Judd, Cousins, Sam Mitchell, Voss, Bell, Brent and Robert Harvey, Shannon Grant, Hazelby, Riccuito and West? All of these players can run and cut 'em up.

Well he is having more influence on games than atleast 4 of them ATM and has a hell of alot of improvement left.Of course that is extremely subjective so there is no point starting another argument over that but you have listed 13 players out of 100+ midfielders in the comp.Of course there is little chance that he is going to end up in the class of Voss,Buckley,Roo or Judd but that doesn't mean that he isn't an excellent footballer.

After all this thread was started because I didn't give any votes to Cross for round 11 who I thought played a woeful game. I thought that McMahon was a standout player for number 1.

?

Thats why I thought it was a good idea changing the thread.I dont think anyone should have there votes influenced.Well and truly entitled to give votes to whoever you want.I also thought Mcmahon played very well.

You want to scare away people from this site who have a different opinion than yourself by personally abusing them and trying to humiliate them.

Definetly not.The site would be empty if it wasnt for people having differing opinions.

 

[C.E.Lovett]

Sorry young fella. That's just nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

I watched the game. I have it on replay.

Cross got one ball out of the centre, that was in the last quarter where he kicked it to an hawthorn guy. Hawthorn just took the ball away time and time again.

What have I got to do - describe them all.

 

[GoAds]

Until Daniel Cross remotely looks like kicking a goal from 40m pretty much directly in front of goal on a set shot like on Sunday he will have his detractors.
Unfortunately for crossy he would be in the worst 10 kicks in the league, up there with Gaspar. he definately needs to improve in this area, gilbs... take him under your wing, .......please!

 

[Derek Zoolander]

Sorry young fella. That's just nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

I watched the game. I have it on replay.

Cross got one ball out of the centre, that was in the last quarter where he kicked it to an hawthorn guy. Hawthorn just took the ball away time and time again.

What have I got to do - describe them all.

The Scarecrow was a subtle dig at your constant requests for people to "open their minds" only for you to come in closed minded again. It was subtle. Take it anyway you want.

Then what happened was someone pointed out, with FACTS, that you were wrong. That's right F-A-C-T-S and you still don't want to listen.

Therefore, the only thing i've managed to get out of this thread is, you are right, and the rest, and there's a lot, are wrong.

 

[C.E.Lovett]

You have just fallen into your own mess.

The F-A-C-T-S (that I dispute I say he got ONE clearance, and that went straight to a Hawtorn player.) say that Cross got 6 out of about 60 clearances. Can anybody remember Cross getting a quality clearance?

If the FACTS are correct then they are very poor indeed. They show that Cross got CREAMED!!

Weren't you peeved by the fact that Hawthorn seemed to take the ball out of the centre time and time again. And their centres ran through our lines. Straight up to their full-forward, ball on his chest. Is Cross ever going to be capable of doing this? - Nope.

You guys didn't see this? This is where the game can be won or lost, no mucking around kicking the ball back and forth, handballing about. Straight from the centre to the goal. That's class!

Also what about my question on his potential. Anybody game to answer it? Is he going to be as good as Harvey, Judd, Hodge etc or is he just filling in until somebody good comes along.

 

[Derek Zoolander]

So what you're saying is, out of all the midfielders on the field, say... 6 at any one time for arguements sake (we play with at least 7 through out the day, Hawks probably the same) that Cross got 10% of the clearances.

10%. Lets see. 6 midfielders at any one time, 60 clearances, that means for all those midfielders to be pulling their weight, they'd have to get... I don't know, 10% of the clearance.

Wait a minute. That's exactly what Cross got. 10% of the clearance. That means... What does that mean... It means, by your reasoning (unless you believe Cross is the only midfielder on the ground) he was holding his own.

According to you, he got CREAMED. According to my calculations, you're wrong. Massively wrong.

As for your last question, i believe that was been well and truely answered.

 

[scooter600x]

Also what about my question on his potential. Anybody game to answer it? Is he going to be as good as Harvey, Judd, Hodge etc or is he just filling in until somebody good comes along.

Harvey and del Santo have Hayes and Ball get it to them
Judd has Fletcher
Hodge has Mitchell

Cooney has Cross and West

Different style, different strengths, different roles

 

[doggies]

crossy is an absoloute gun.
underrated by everyone not assosiated with the doggies - but aren't all of our gun players...
he is always knocking on the coaches, trainers, and fitness-guys doors to find out what else he can do to improve his game. the hardest worker at the bulldogs.
keep up the great work crossy.

 

[doggies]

Until Daniel Cross remotely looks like kicking a goal from 40m pretty much directly in front of goal on a set shot like on Sunday he will have his detractors.
Unfortunately for crossy he would be in the worst 10 kicks in the league, up there with Gaspar. he definately needs to improve in this area, gilbs... take him under your wing, .......please!

his ball drop is too high, and doesnt watch it on to his boot close enough.

 

[Borgsta]

thats it I want West and Cross to get a niggling injury and both be out for 1 week and only 1 week, so that people will begin to see what getting SMASHED in the middle actually means!

 

[Pembleton]

If Brown hadn't of kicked so many points instead of goals we would have lost that game.

Brown did not kick one point in our game vs the Lions. NOT A SINGLE ONE. By all means claim that you have the game on tape and therefore know better than the official AFL stats, but it will only make you look more silly than you already do.

He did receive two lucky free kicks that resulted in goals, and kicked another after marking when he seemed to have infringed against Grant.

To all of you Cross-eyed self-delusioned people, read and learn. Here is some education for you.

I really hope this was said tongue in cheek, because it is a little worrying that you could really be the arrogant ******** that this comment makes you appear to be.

Now onto the criticisms of Cross. I have heard this sort of stuff about Scott West from morons in the crowd so often.

"He's no Voss/Buckley (insert whoever you like)".

This is essentially what the arguments being made about Crossy here seem to be. He doesn't fit C.E Lovett's idealised version of what a centreman should be. If he can't storm out of a clearance situation and drill a long goal or perfect pass to a forward, he has no value other than a stop gap until we find someone that can. Ofcourse the "stars" that these people choose to list, really don't storm out of congested situations and ram the ball down a forwards throat nearly as often as seems to be imagined, although lets not worry about that, i'll just grant the obvious and admit that Crossy is not in that type of class. What i will do is analyse exactly what type of class C.E Lovett is comparing Cross to in an attempt to show us that Crossy is not much.

Can anybody ever see Cross being in the class of Buckley, Judd, Cousins, Sam Mitchell, Voss, Bell, Brent and Robert Harvey, Shannon Grant, Hazelby, Riccuito and West? All of these players can run and cut 'em up.

That group has 6 Brownlows between them. I won't go to the trouble of working out how many best and fairests, but i think a conservative guess would be that they average about 3 per player. There is also some Rising Star awards in there. Hardly seems a fair batch of players to be comparing someone to, unless your only argument is that Cross will not win a Brownlow or a swag of best and fairests.

However some of that list may not be as clearly ahead of Crossy as is being claimed anyway. Does Brent Harvey really stand up any better to the rest in that group than Cross does? Sure his run and kicking is great, but how much hard ball does he win? Shannon Grant does not escape that criticism either, so someone who puts a high value on contested possessions will put these guys BEHIND Cross. That would be taking the opposite extreme to C.E Lovett, and would be equally silly. The smart way to look at it would be not to weight quality of ball usage by foot OR ability to win contested possessions to the extreme in either categories favour. Balance is what a team needs.

Haselby Bell and West are hardly the sort of players that "run and cut up" an opposition. Not sure how these guys escape the same sort of criticisms being levelled at Cross. None of them are ball carriers or very damaging by foot. All three are accumulators that grind their way through a match. It is fair to argue that they are all better than Cross at present (though Cross has been better than Haselby this season to date), but not that they are the sort of player that Cross can simply not ever be.

The overwhelming majority (including our experienced and well credentialed coaching staff) are clever enough to understand that having someone who can farm the ball for the likes of Cooney and Griffin for the next decade are really valuable, even if they won't be in the highlights too often for long running goals. I am sure they also like that in Cross they see someone who by his sheer gut running manages to find space and thus often thwart the oppositions attempts to stop our progress up the field. Rejecting the clearance and/or contested possession stats is a nice way to overcome this version of what Cross offers the team, although by the same logic one could deny pretty much anything. The flaw in it is plain to see.

When we had Romero Wynd Libba and West as our main guys in the guts, we used to rule clearances. None of these guys could "run and cut up" an opposition, but all four were extremely good at winning contested possesions, and we won more regularly over the 4 year period this set up was in place than any other such period in our histroy. Yes, a Voss etc would have been great to slot in there, and hopefully the likes of Cooney and Griffin can reach those heights, but it does not follow that it is NECCESSARY to be in that class in order to be anything more than a "stop gap".

 

[desipura]

A thread from 12 months ago...

A friend of CE?

Its time you got over it! Do you know him personally?
He has proven he has more strings to his bow, well done you were right!

 

[Derek Zoolander]

Its time you got over it! Do you know him personally?
He has proven he has more strings to his bow, well done you were right!

That's the danger of writing players off so early in their careers and then claiming that you'll back your record over mine, it'll come back to bit you on the arse.

It's all a bit of fun. I've certainly enjoyed watching his career take off, and i'm sure you have to. It's nice to be proven wrong in these sorts of situations.

 

[whythelongface]

Pembleton that was an extremely good post. I hope some people take these observations on board and realise what a good player Cross really is.

 

[X_box_X]

Quote:
There were around 60 stoppages yesterday. Cross won one of them, it was in the third quarter. He kicked the ball from the centre directly to a Hawthorn player.

Your opinion is not just stupid, it's bizarre. Bizarre that you yourself is actually the one who is Cross-eyed and not willing to admit for one second that you're wrong. You don't need to kick the ball to win a clearance. Most players like Scott West, Simon Black and the soon-to-be-superstar Daniel Cross win most of their clearances through handballs. Also, you don't need to clear the ball out of the centre bounce to win a clearance. A clearance comes from any stoppage, including boundary throw-ins and ball-ups.

 

[MrChristo]

Haven't watched the full game yet...Waiting for the replay today.

But my view all season has been that Cross is a genuine superstar in the making. Has been very, VERY good all year...not only in the balls that he is winning, but allowing other players to free up as a result.

I was a bit suprised watching On The Couch last night when they suggested the Gio might have been leading our B&F, because I honestly think Cross would be right up there.

(And I really hope he wins it, 'casue I bought his Origin game day jumper from the Auction site )