Is Jamie Cripps the most under rated Eagle ever?

Remove this Banner Ad

Altum Volantes

Altum Volantes

92 - 94 - 06 - 18
Veteran 10k Posts
Aug 4, 2003
23,132
23,808
WA
AFL Club
West Coast
Well, is he?

I don’t mean ‘heee-hawwww Vic Bias!’, I mean, seriously the guy has been ultra consistent for years, has continually done his job and worked his arse off.

He gets minimal attention in a broader sense (outside of the club) but also very little acknowledgment from his own supporters.

We’ve had under appreciated players from a league standing (many of them! Usually our excellent defenders like Brennan, Waters, MacKenzie, Sheppard) - but these are usually fan favourites at the same time, a status that Jamie Cripps hasn’t really ever enjoyed.

He now often gets lumped in with older guys that are no longer performing to their usual standard by the ‘PLAY THE KIDS!!1’ Nuffies but he’s coming off a very solid 2022 and showed yesterday he’s still a capable contributor having an impact on the result.

Thoughts.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

I think he is rated about right

Cripps does some good things and runs hard, but, he is one of the most fumbley professional footballers I have ever seen in my life. He erodes a lot of his "good will" by making crucial skill errors at inopportune times
 
He's incredibly underrated, because he's more of a workhorse than a rolled gold tricky small forward. What a steal he was for the club to nick off St Kilda.

During lockdown, I watched a lot of old Eagles games and decided we absolutely do not hear enough about Brett Heady given how ******* good he was in seemingly every game I saw.
 
HoneyBadger35 said:
He's incredibly underrated, because he's more of a workhorse than a rolled gold tricky small forward. What a steal he was for the club to nick off St Kilda.

During lockdown, I watched a lot of old Eagles games and decided we absolutely do not hear enough about Brett Heady given how ******* good he was in seemingly every game I saw.
Click to expand...

Heady was also a gun in the early derby games… he would have been an absolute star in the era
 
Have a mate who is friends with Heady's daughter (an athlete herself, I believe she's training for the Paralympics, she has cerebral palsy) and he said Brett Heady is great guy as well as a great footballer.

And Jamie Cripps is so underrated his thread has been taken over by Brett Heady.
 
He's definitely been a consistent performer over the years. Though he does have periods where he looks like someone trying to pick up a wet bar of soap and does the odd selfish shot on goal which gets no where near it. Those things are what the majority remember so he hasn't been held in high regard.

After our elite smalls like Lecras and Phil Matera he would be in that second tier.
 
Ambrose Burnside said:
Have a mate who is friends with Heady's daughter (an athlete herself, I believe she's training for the Paralympics, she has cerebral palsy) and he said Brett Heady is great guy as well as a great footballer.

And Jamie Cripps is so underrated his thread has been taken over by Brett Heady.
Click to expand...
Can we change the title please? Brett Heady Appreciation Thread should do it.
 
I also had a soft spot for guys like Michael Braun growing up. Like Sheppard, he was a guy that was never our best player but always one of the first picked because you knew he was going to rock up and play his role every week.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

I'm mixed on Cripps.

On the one hand he will have a shot from anywhere within 50. On the other he goes at about 61% so why not?

We saw the best of him yesterday. The relentless chasing is a great standard to set for developing players plus kicking a few. But then there are the bad days which is partly because of the positron he plays but also the missed chances with fumbles that just kills momentum.
 
navi_ said:
strong over reaction to our first win of the year
Click to expand...

Not so much - I’ve been defending him all summer because he was in our top 3 in the back end of the season last year.

Please do offer further insight considering this thread is in respect to his entire career and contribution to the club, not his game yesterday.
 
Altum Volantes said:
Not so much - I’ve been defending him all summer because he was in our top 3 in the back end of the season last year.

Please do offer further insight considering this thread is in respect to his entire career and contribution to the club, not his game yesterday.
Click to expand...
Sorry I haven't kept up with your own efforts to defend him on i'm assuming this board?

I think he's pretty well rated and respected both internally by the club (always cited as an elite trainer and how important he is as a defensive runner) and by fans in general, Recall a puff piece in maybe the west about his back half of 2018 and how elite he was in that time.

For a pick 24 he obviously had talent and has done well to marry that up with his work ethic to produce a respectable career.

The knocks on his game such his groundballs or decision making are well deserved imo given hes a small and that stuff should be his bread and butter, he however compensates for it because of his athletic profile.

Sheppard and Mackenzie clear quite easily for mine. both played at all Australian quality for a good stretch but I don't think Cripps has been anywhere near that (not that its the be all end all metric).
 
navi_ said:
Sorry I haven't kept up with your own efforts to defend him on i'm assuming this board?

I think he's pretty well rated and respected both internally by the club (always cited as an elite trainer and how important he is as a defensive runner) and by fans in general, Recall a puff piece in maybe the west about his back half of 2018 and how elite he was in that time.

For a pick 24 he obviously had talent and has done well to marry that up with his work ethic to produce a respectable career.

The knocks on his game such his groundballs or decision making are well deserved imo given hes a small and that stuff should be his bread and butter, he however compensates for it because of his athletic profile.

Sheppard and Mackenzie clear quite easily for mine. both played at all Australian quality for a good stretch but I don't think Cripps has been anywhere near that (not that its the be all end all metric).
Click to expand...

Fair enough - I’d argue that both MacKenzie and Shep were very highly rated, especially by Eagles supporters. Not too many bad words said about either beyond their formative years. Everybody rated them.

Jamie Cripps has never really enjoyed that status - I guess the argument would be whether he deserves it or not - I’d say he’s under rated, which I guess this thread kinda shows. 😅
 
I think that Chris Lewis, Brett Heady and especially Phil Matera are all significantly better players and also horribly under-rated. As were Shep and MacKenzie mentioned by navi.

BUT...
to me he does qualify as the absolute best value for money discard pickup from another club we have got. Ever.

He is a guy who was not wanted by a rubbish club and not many of us held much hope for him. We have got the absolute best we could hope from him but he is inconsistent (clean one day, fumbly beyond belief the next; kicks 3 or 4 and looks like a top small forward one day and is unsighted for a month after etc.), selfish and a long way short of the elite small forwards of the competition.

Under-rated? Yes.
Most under-rated? No.
 
Very underrated and has unfairly been made a whipping boy. He's been very consistent since he joined us.

People who say Sheppard is more underrated/underappreciated are kidding themselves. Let's not forget he was pretty average until Simmo came along.
 
Shep and Emac for me. Feel so sorry for both but for Emac was so unlucky. For a period he was the best FB in the comp and missed a few AA’s. Does his ACL and was never the same after but also the game moved past his style of play
 
He's surely one of the first picked in terms of being a team player, kicks big goals for us as well and gets the ball moving, creates space with gut running and provides an option.

I personally love that he will have a ping at goal off one step, everyone else seems to want to create space and have a clean shot at it, which rarely eventuates.

Cripps has a lot of strengths, I think other players would love having him in the team.
 
Brett Jones is up there for me, without perhaps the volume of work the others have.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

BeornJ
Resource Eagles Player Ratings 2024
Replies
10
Views
744
BeornJ
BeornJ
KERRPOW
  • Poll
List Mgmt. Should The Eagles Request A Priority Assistance Package at The End of This Year?
12 13 14 15 16
Replies
394
Views
15K
Jumpoff Joey
Jumpoff Joey
Obeanie1
Prediction Eagles Team 2026
Replies
23
Views
2K
stallon
stallon
Miguel Sanchez
2nds West Coast Eagles WAFL Watch 2024
52 53 54 55 56
Replies
1K
Views
63K
ghostbat12
ghostbat12
R
  • Poll
Prediction Will WCE Ever Three Peat?
2
Replies
40
Views
2K
PerthBoy86
PerthBoy86
R
  • Locked
  • Poll
Is Bailey Williams the biggest spud to don an Eagles guernsey
Replies
11
Views
826
Keys
Keys
E
Eagles draft performance over recent years
2 3
Replies
69
Views
5K
BK Eaglesfan
B

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top