Opinion Fremantle's terrible development of youth.

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fnerd

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 23, 2009
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Ed is a great runner, gets himself into fantastic positions then tries to pass off with a dinky little kick, often to someone in a worse position. Ed, mate, if you are running at goal and are at or near the 50, just take a few more steps, settle and HAVE A ******* SHOT!!!
110%
Yeah it’s not like if his s**t little inside 50 kick comes off and we have shot in goal it’s going to be any more accurate the way the teams kicking at goal.

To make matters even more frustrating Ed’s bit like Crowley in that he’s a better kick at goal than field kicking.

As you say him entering the 50 and looking like he doesn’t know what to do is perhaps one of the few genuine examples of perhaps Ross not backing his player in to play to their natural instincts.
I too, reckon (ed definitely), would just rather take the shot
 

Johnny Dalmas

Getting Old and Grumpy
Oct 16, 2015
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I am completely at a loss as to why we don't tell guys like Langdon, Hill, Tucker - all of our wingers and mids to take a shot when they are in range. For me Ed has just got a complete mental block when it comes to decision making inside 50, to the point where two weeks in a row he has changed his mind mid-kick and just dropped the ball.

Ed is a great runner, gets himself into fantastic positions then tries to pass off with a dinky little kick, often to someone in a worse position. Ed, mate, if you are running at goal and are at or near the 50, just take a few more steps, settle and HAVE A ******* SHOT!!!

What are we really risking? That we become inaccurate if we shoot from a less than perfect position? :rolleyes:
In the early 2010s Stephen Hill used to regularly take pings from 50. But in the last few years he always looks to pass first.

A good inside 50 is most often a deep inside 50. But sometimes you want to see a player just take the shot.
 

Belnakor

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Apr 10, 2005
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In the early 2010s Stephen Hill used to regularly take pings from 50. But in the last few years he always looks to pass first.

A good inside 50 is most often a deep inside 50. But sometimes you want to see a player just take the shot.

i feel like we have been told to not take shots outside 50, probably relates to the % chance of a point + the new kick out rule = a negative taking a shot from that distance.
 

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Belnakor

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Ah fair enough on Duursma. We picked Sturt over him anyway. I think Lobb will be a really good player for us, but the opportunity cost was high -- I would have loved Jordy Clark in our team for the next ten years.

And Apeness is more unfortunate than anything. He suffered some collision injuries with us that couldn't, of course, be predicted at draft time. Without those injuries he had the talent and intent to be a good long term player for us.

More important than some of the high-end picks are those missed rookie opportunities. Kelly, Stack, Ryan, both McGoverns would all be walk-up B22 for us; were all known to us; and all missed by us. Yes there were missed by every other team as well. But I didn't care about _their_ recruiters. I care about ours.

Apeness was a bad pick from the beginning. Drafting someone who has done an ACL, particularly with a first round pick is straight up reckless.

McGovern is the most overrated player in the AFL. When he is out the Eagles dont' suffer because he plays a role that allows him to look a million bucks. Someone else could easily slot into that role and look just as good.
 

trentjac

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Jan 30, 2015
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More important than some of the high-end picks are those missed rookie opportunities. Kelly, Stack, Ryan, both McGoverns would all be walk-up B22 for us; were all known to us; and all missed by us. Yes there were missed by every other team as well. But I didn't care about _their_ recruiters. I care about ours.
To be fair, we have done pretty well with our Rookie Picks over the years (Grover, Hayden, Sandi, Duffield, Crowley, DeBoer, Barlow, Tabs etc).
Its our first round selections which have hurt the most
 

trentjac

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Jan 30, 2015
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Apeness was a bad pick from the beginning. Drafting someone who has done an ACL, particularly with a first round pick is straight up reckless.

McGovern is the most overrated player in the AFL. When he is out the Eagles dont' suffer because he plays a role that allows him to look a million bucks. Someone else could easily slot into that role and look just as good.
disagree with this post plenty. McGovern reads the play better than almost anyone in the AFL
 

fnerd

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 23, 2009
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Yeah that’s madness.
Gov is sn absolute jet . A true footballer. Very smart and skills to match.
Without doubt our biggest recruitment blunder so far and that’s saying something
 

BigRang

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Mar 11, 2011
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Apeness was a bad pick from the beginning. Drafting someone who has done an ACL, particularly with a first round pick is straight up reckless.

McGovern is the most overrated player in the AFL. When he is out the Eagles dont' suffer because he plays a role that allows him to look a million bucks. Someone else could easily slot into that role and look just as good.

Ah yeah nah it’s a no from me I’m afraid. Same as you can lead a dog to water but can’t make him drink, and same as you can’t teach Sandi to kick a 50mtr worm burner on the run onto a leading forward’s chesticles like Lewy Jetta can, you can’t teach any old footy player to read the play the way big Jeza McGovern can. Some things you just can’t teach.
He does have the sloppiest rig in the AFL by a country mile though. But he’s allowed, because he obviously has a genius footy IQ. Don’t have to be super fit if you already know where to run.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
 

Purpellian Anchor

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Oct 14, 2011
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Wonder why that Alice Cooper song is ringing in my head -"We are the Department of Youth"...we need the power...

Another football department in the club probably would'nt hurt.
 
Nov 7, 2018
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Apeness was a bad pick from the beginning. Drafting someone who has done an ACL, particularly with a first round pick is straight up reckless.

McGovern is the most overrated player in the AFL. When he is out the Eagles dont' suffer because he plays a role that allows him to look a million bucks. Someone else could easily slot into that role and look just as good.
Wow, I hate the blue and yellow as much as anyone, but McGovern is an elite mark, elite reader of the play and is a very good decision maker and user by foot...hasn't had as good a year this year as previous, mainly because teams are deliberately changing game styles to cut him out of it...the fact that is happening demonstrates how good he is!
 

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Sep 22, 2011
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we also chose Logue over Sam Powell Pepper too
SPP is meh for mine. Goes in like a bull, but is slow and limited disposal. Wines is the same now, limited skill set. Logue is the better upside pick. Pearce comes back, logue can go inside the middle or as a De Gooey type hybrid
 
Nov 30, 2018
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Apeness was a bad pick from the beginning. Drafting someone who has done an ACL, particularly with a first round pick is straight up reckless.

McGovern is the most overrated player in the AFL. When he is out the Eagles dont' suffer because he plays a role that allows him to look a million bucks. Someone else could easily slot into that role and look just as good.
If you watch McGovern live his ability to move into position as soon as the ball leaves the boot is fascinating . I've never seen anyone read the ball as well as he does. It's like he lives two seconds in the future.

Having said that we've got a pretty good one ourselves in Luke Ryan.
 

FD2646

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Sep 11, 2008
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Apeness was a bad pick from the beginning. Drafting someone who has done an ACL, particularly with a first round pick is straight up reckless.

McGovern is the most overrated player in the AFL. When he is out the Eagles dont' suffer because he plays a role that allows him to look a million bucks.

Agree Apeness was always slowish, lacked agility and struggled to kick 50m however Joel selwood and Chris Judd has significant injuries (knee and shoulder respectively). I wouldn't write off all juniors because of injury.

McGovern is a gun. Sad he is 10 times the player his father was.
 

PurpleEyes

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Jul 2, 2013
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If you watch McGovern live his ability to move into position as soon as the ball leaves the boot is fascinating . I've never seen anyone read the ball as well as he does. It's like he lives two seconds in the future.

Having said that we've got a pretty good one ourselves in Luke Ryan.

I found the Gerard Neesham Bleeding Purple podcast fascinating when he was talking about how he instructed his defenders to try to win the marking contest rather than go the spoil ... an unusual instruction for that era, but is now the norm.
You can see players like McGovern have that hunger to win every ball that comes inside their defensive 50.

I cringe when I see Freo defenders too busy watching their man when there is an inside 50 on the way, instead of trying to get to where the ball is going to win the contested ball. I know Zac Dawson had his knockers, but the number of times I saw him risk leaving his man to get to the contest impressed me ... if only he could have marked and kicked like McGovern to complement his golden fist.
Which also reminds me, (off track sorry) of a funny stat I have often heard. Apparently Zac Dawson had one of the highest kicking efficiencies in the league, by virtue of the fact that he very rarely kicked it. A good example of why skill levels are sometimes hard to quantify when there is generally only a 5-6% difference (about 68-74%) in disposal efficiency between all teams in the comp.
 

theGav56

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Oct 11, 2004
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Well I'm not a sports scientist and I don't have the knowledge to do a literature review on the topic. But then I don't have too ... this is big footy :p

But what I do know is that early in his career Cyril Rioli had a series of hamstring injuries. And the Hawks determined that these injuries were caused by his running technique. In other words: Rioli had a skill problem.

They let him recover from his latest hammy, and put him on a special program to work on his running technique (ie, a specialist program to maximise whatever running skill he had). Only after the end of the remedial program did he return to footy.

I'm sure it was something he had to work on for the rest of his career. I'm sure Rioli isn't as good a runner as, say, Sheridan or Masten. But the Hawks didn't just shrug their shoulders and say "we can't change his running skill, so we'll just have to put up with it"
Obviously Hawthorn have done better than us in many areas and that is evidenced by their success. But we have changed what players do in terms of their running (Bennell) and have failed to upgrade the same players weakness and let him go (Menegola).

I had hoped for a big improvement from the relationship/facilities at Cockburn. I had hoped that as well as the best available facilities it would help us attract the best available S&C team, but we are clearly a long way from where we need to be.
 

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