Toast Esava

[Seeds]

What excuse do you wish to make for Ratugolea's poor return in our round 13 match against Adelaide?

He was selected to play as a second tall forward & relieve Stanley in the ruck, but his return that afternoon was 9 disposals, 2 marks, 1 behind & 4 hitouts playing primarily forward

The game was at 1:05pm, 18c and clear blue skies, Stanley was playing as the #1 ruck and ultimately they shifted Blicavs into the ruck due to the limited impact Ratugolea was having

I gave credit to Ratugolea for his bright start as he had like 4/5 disposals in the first 5/10 minutes. He was then virtually invisible until the last quarter, other than when he was in our goal square and easily pushed aside by an Adelaide opponent

Stanley playing as our #1 ruck chipped in with 2 goals, while Blicavs also kicked his first goal of the season

The reality is that Ratugolea has had plenty of opportunities this year to impact games and more often than not he's come up short, and there doesn't seem to be any clear progression from last year

Not giving up on him long term, but not sold on him being the answer this year

Sav is not a ruck. I wouldnt play him there. He spent most of the game playing ruck And only small periods foward. All our fowards were terrible thst day because they had shocking slow entries from our mids. Rohan not 1 mark inside fifty and only 5 touches. imagine how we would talk about sav if he played like rohan that day. Hawkins worst game for 2 months. Sav took 2 marks inside fifty despite only filling in Down there. Wasnt good but no one was.

 

[My Tilly]

completely disagree. He is an ordinary ruck. but has the potential to be one of the best marking fowards in the game. when on his contested grabbing is unreal. 7 marks last night all overhead and all 1 grabs. his ability to run and jump and take marks overhead complements a push and shove chest marker like hawkins very well.

Spot on.
That is why the Jenkins + Hawkins setup is no different to Taylor + Hawkins or Henderson + Hawkins.
Jenkins has no athleticism anymore and Hawkins has not been able to jump since 2012.

We need an athletic tall to bring the ball to ground or jump at every long ball down the line.

I don't think playing one tall of Hawkins and Dangerfield resting froward is going to work in the finals. Finals becomes taxing (even with short quarters) and we are going to need another KPF.

 

[Seeds]

Its really really weird that in a game where we lost all over the field we are focusing so much on one players goal kicking conversion when he kicked 2 goals from 3 set shots. None of them gimmes from 15 metres out either.


its completely bizarre to be honest. Why?

 

[cats_09]

Sav is not a ruck. I wouldnt play him there. He spent most of the game playing ruck And only small periods foward. All our fowards were terrible thst day because they had shocking slow entries from our mids. Rohan not 1 mark inside fifty and only 5 touches. imagine how we would talk about sav if he played like rohan that day. Hawkins worst game for 2 months. Sav took 2 marks inside fifty despite only filling in Down there. Wasnt good but no one was.

Not sure we're even talking about the same game

Ratugolea played predominantly forward against the Crows, he rarely went into the ruck after quarter time, such was the impact he wasn't having when in there - it ended up being Stanley & Blicavs in the ruck. Ratugolea played forward and had barely any impact when up there - virtually unsighted after quarter time: 5 disposals in the first quarter, 0 in the second, 3 in the 3rd & 1 in the last

And Hawkins was actually pretty good that day: 4 marks all inside 50, 3 goals & 3 behinds, 3 tackles. Happy to take that from Hawkins every week, especially if that's deemed a bad game

 

[Pollywaffle]

Poor old Sav.
Could be a superstar in the making or one of Geelong's all too familiar slow baked duds
Still like watching him play. Does that count?

 

[Landgraft]

His issue earlier in the year was he wasn't taking the marks consistently.

Playing the way he did against Richmond I will gladly have him best 22 no further questions. He offers a sorely needed point of difference, and is an excellent ruck relief/second key forward. Still don't love playing him as our main ruck.

 

[thecatattack]

Lmao, some of you are so quick to throw a 22yr old big man who has shown crazy potential into the bin.

Have some god damn patience, it won't kill you.

 

[Seeds]

extreme cognitive errors happening in evaluating savs game last night.

"sav should be dropped because fowards need to kick goals". This is in a game where he was our leading goal scorer despite only being permanent foward for 1 qtr.

"sav gets in the way of hawkins". In the first 3 qtrs hawkins couldnt get near it because he was triple teamed. 0 foward fifty marks. When sav finally went to the foward line did he make it worse for hawkins and somehow force his inside fifty marks to go negative? Nope. Hawkins got two inside fifty marks. One where he was one out and another where he managed to get completely free with no one on him.

"savs balls dont wobble correctly through the goals" well yep dont need to even respond to that one.

"sav did nothing for the first three qtrs". Well thats not true he took 4 1 clinker hands in front grabs from long down the field kicks. absolutely critical when richmond is applying extreme foward defensive pressure. 2 of them contested marks. he didnt get any marks inside foward fifty because he was barely down there. Geelong took 1 mark inside fifty in the first 3qtrs. Who kicked it inside 50? Sav.

ps how would you think rohans game wouod look if we only assessed his worst 3 qtrs?

"dont need sav as rohan can effectively free up hawkins in marking contests". One. Since when is need a requirement to reject a player rather then just Analysing whether he improves the side relative to the alternative which is 5 tall defenders instead of 4? Two. Rohan 0 contested marks in last 3 games. Sav 3 in 1 qtr as foward. Rohan is not the aerial threat some think he is.

i dont think ive seen a geelong player clunk 7 clean out in the face marks like that in ages. Can anyone else think of the last time? It Just boggles the mind that very few are appreciating the skill of overhead marking. Its ironic too given we know that it was a player who was clinking overhead marks that almost singlehandedly stopped richmond in a prelim 2 years ago.

 

[Spearman]

Looks like Esava benefited from the scratch matches, at least with the marking aspect of his game. When one thing starts to click, the others will follow as confidence grows like two years ago before he got injured. Anything can happen if he plays again this season. That's the hope and worry.

 

[crocsta]

When kicking for goal he should hand off the ball to a player running past e.g. Duncan, 2E.

Even kick it sideways/backwards to a teammate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[you pick one]

When kicking for goal he should hand off the ball to a player running past e.g. Duncan, 2E.

Even kick it sideways/backwards to a teammate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We have enough doing that thank you.

 

[FredLeDeux]

We have enough doing that thank you.

Not the other night we didn't.
Far too many blokes suckered into just hoofing it downfield like the Under 10s.

 

[The rabbi]

 

[David the Cat]

He's taking strides forward no doubt, but still a work in progress. He's going to be a handful for opposition teams once he hones his skills and becomes more consistent.

Another plus is the coach loves him, so he will get the opportunities he deserves.

and....such good hands.

 

[Down at K Park]

He's taking strides forward no doubt, but still a work in progress. He's going to be a handful for opposition teams once he hones his skills and becomes more consistent.

Another plus is the coach loves him, so he will get the opportunities he deserves.

and....such good hands.

If he gets his kicking right he will be much more valuable.

 

[Seeds]

If he gets his kicking right he will be much more valuable.

He kicked 2 goals from 3 set shots. All his field kicking hit their targets. yeah it was terrible.

 

[Seeds]

He's taking strides forward no doubt, but still a work in progress. He's going to be a handful for opposition teams once he hones his skills and becomes more consistent.

Another plus is the coach loves him, so he will get the opportunities he deserves.

and....such good hands.

He is a handful right now.

 

[Seeds]

Not the other night we didn't.
Far too many blokes suckered into just hoofing it downfield like the Under 10s.

Stop with this ridiculous narrative. It doesnt fit with reality. we were chip kicking it far more then usual on friday night.

 

[FredLeDeux]

Stop with this ridiculous narrative. It doesnt fit with reality. we were chip kicking it far more then usual on friday night.

Utter bawls.

 

[PzBlinky]

I was 100% in favour of dropping him after that horrible WC outing - he was fumbly, turned it over, and the couple of shots (or was it just 1?) was no good.

But... he was far from our worst on Friday. Did as well as could be expected in the ruck, and was our only viable marking target with Hawkins blanketed. The only "WTF" moment was that inexplicable pause in kicking when we had Jarvis and Hawk by themselves in the forward 50.

The big question is: can he bring this sort of game in a final?

 

[Seeds]

When kicking for goal he should hand off the ball to a player running past e.g. Duncan, 2E.

Even kick it sideways/backwards to a teammate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He kicked 2 goals from 3 set shots ffs.


have we all been influenced by russian sublimal messaging on our social media? What the hell is going on with all these posts?

 

[Down at K Park]

He kicked 2 goals from 3 set shots. All his field kicking hit their targets. yeah it was terrible.

And all the other games where he continually butchers set shots?

Or do you just ignore them, as if it doesn’t continually happen?

 

[bulletproof]

It will say a lot about mindset of Scott and coaches whether they play Esava. He is a player they have no control over what he is going to do. He is a wildcard.

Scott is a control freak, he views games as chessboard that can be controlled

But finals are not like that. They are often chaos.

I said it last year and it didn’t happen (Hawk suspension hurt) but Esava is the guy who could Mason Cox the Tigers in a final. It has been done before by an inferior player, they have a weakness, you just have to bold enough to take the risk.

 

[fpm84]

The big question is: can he bring this sort of game in a final?

He already has.

12 possessions, 5 marks, 3.0 against WCE in last year's semi final.

 

[Turbocat]

We should spare some resources and get someone to take him through his kicking for goal technique. He has all the tools but his kicking isn't up to scratch.

100%. Id advocate a farmer approach of having a ball in his hands all the time , all the stuff a kid would do..kick to kick etc. but his setshot routine looks like its about as original as aldi cornflakes ... there are some beautiful kicks at the club , put him in room with one of them.

It will say a lot about mindset of Scott and coaches whether they play Esava. He is a player they have no control over what he is going to do. He is a wildcard.

Scott is a control freak, he views games as chessboard that can be controlled

But finals are not like that. They are often chaos.

I said it last year and it didn’t happen (Hawk suspension hurt) but Esava is the guy who could Mason Cox the Tigers in a final. It has been done before by an inferior player, they have a weakness, you just have to bold enough to take the risk.

There have been numerous examples of that type of dynamite game/player that just blew up the opposition doing something freakish. The thing about Cox is within a cert distance he is a reliable setshot.. but there are others examples... the classic is probably the much used adage .."long bombs to snake".. Phil Baker was an ordinary kick but on a certain day a heck of a mark.

The chessboard example for CS is probably apt. I suspect finals footy tends to devolve into a plate of spaghetti and meatballs rather than the manicured plate of couture french food.. so finals as a chess game .. not going to work too often, maybe speed chess as seen in films like searching for Bobby fisher .. but certainly not a controlled environment.... so maybe one needs a wildcard player for a wild card type game.