Player Watch Jake Stringer, AFL'S biggest flop?

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He'd probably be a great player in a dominant team, where others could do all the dirty work and he could be the pure cream on top.
He struggled at times in 2016 at the Dogs when we were flying (actually got dropped) and was pretty awful in the finals series other than one game.

Stringer just doesn’t have the mental aptitude, discipline and consistency to be a top player other than a few moments each week.
 

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He’s awesome when fully fit. That’s just quite rare. He’s injury prone.

He attracts the spotlight and people love jumping on him, it’s generally when he’s not fit, such as last night… he was first-up from injury and looked it. With a clear run at it over four weeks he’ll be playing good footy. But you won’t hear anything about that.
 
He’s awesome when fully fit. That’s just quite rare. He’s injury prone.

He attracts the spotlight and people love jumping on him, it’s generally when he’s not fit, such as last night… he was first-up from injury and looked it. With a clear run at it over four weeks he’ll be playing good footy. But you won’t hear anything about that.
That's because he seems to be unfit a hell of a lot, every time he has any sort of injury or time away from the club, he comes back unfit.

We all know he is a huge talent, so of course he is going to play some good footy, but he is getting on in age now, so for me it's getting damn close to wasted career.
 
He’s awesome when fully fit. That’s just quite rare. He’s injury prone.

He attracts the spotlight and people love jumping on him, it’s generally when he’s not fit, such as last night… he was first-up from injury and looked it. With a clear run at it over four weeks he’ll be playing good footy. But you won’t hear anything about that.

Always going to attract comment when he rolls up to games and looks a few kilos overweight. Whether or not that's fair is another thing, but it is visible so he cops it when he doesn't perform. Also he was awesome when he needed to be to get a big contract.
 

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Talent wise he could have been and should have been a superstar. But he never will be.

He’s not a “flop” because he’s a good player who still plays the occasional bit of amazing footy. But he’s a mental midget and a massive waste of rare talent
 
Stringer was pretty dominant in 2021. Could say better than any saints player of that year.

Anyway, I thought you Saint fans get excited about not winning premierships and not amounting to much over 150 years?
In 2021 he had a handful of big games against bottom 8 teams in the back half of the year and then disappeared in the 2nd half of the final. Wasn’t considered AA squad worthy. Hardly dominant.

He never returns from injury well, so last night was no surprise. He’s probably got one more soft tissue to overcome this year before peaking in Round 22 and slotting a bag of 4.7 against North.
 
Has become par for the course that he's either out or not conditioned in rd 1, and takes 2-3 afl games to get going, plays like a world beater, then gets injured before the cycle is repeated later in the season.

We've had one decent season from him. Much like the dogs did. Was stiff not to get AA in '21 but missed a chunk. When he played, was top 3 in the comp. Merrett and parish owe a couple of AA jackets to him.

At this stage, id be lining him in the vfl until he is 110% ready for AFL.
We're already carrying one passenger in Heppell that we can't afford. Add a 2nd in Weideman, and how you can justify a 3rd in stringer because "talent" is beyond me

Selections cost us 4pts last night
 
He’s awesome when fully fit. That’s just quite rare. He’s injury prone.

He attracts the spotlight and people love jumping on him, it’s generally when he’s not fit, such as last night… he was first-up from injury and looked it. With a clear run at it over four weeks he’ll be playing good footy. But you won’t hear anything about that.

I think as a general we all tend to forget that the injury he had before he was drafted was the kind that never really gets back to 100% and does have limitations on training etc
 
Has become par for the course that he's either out or not conditioned in rd 1, and takes 2-3 afl games to get going, plays like a world beater, then gets injured before the cycle is repeated later in the season.

We've had one decent season from him. Much like the dogs did. Was stiff not to get AA in '21 but missed a chunk. When he played, was top 3 in the comp. Merrett and parish owe a couple of AA jackets to him.

At this stage, id be lining him in the vfl until he is 110% ready for AFL.
We're already carrying one passenger in Heppell that we can't afford. Add a 2nd in Weideman, and how you can justify a 3rd in stringer because "talent" is beyond me

Selections cost us 4pts last night

Another fine piece of recruiting :rolleyes:
 
That's because he seems to be unfit a hell of a lot, every time he has any sort of injury or time away from the club, he comes back unfit.

We all know he is a huge talent, so of course he is going to play some good footy, but he is getting on in age now, so for me it's getting damn close to wasted career.
Preparation is key to injury prevention and it's not something he appears to do well. He breaks down, comes back unfit, breaks down again.

It's a vicious cycle that he's never been able to shake. From the outside looking in it seems at least in part due to his refusal to do the hard work when it matters.
 
That's because he seems to be unfit a hell of a lot, every time he has any sort of injury or time away from the club, he comes back unfit.

We all know he is a huge talent, so of course he is going to play some good footy, but he is getting on in age now, so for me it's getting damn close to wasted career.

Well yeah, every time he has an injury he comes back unfit, that’s generally how it works.

He certainly had poor habits, when he got to the club he was in very poor shape both physically and mentally, and it took him a good year or two to overcome that and improve. He’s past that now and is much improved in that area… if you listen to him and the club talk about how much his training habits have changed, you certainly see the difference when he has a decent run at it.

But unfortunately he is genuinely injury prone. Every time he’s playing some good footy he gets cut down by injury, has weeks off, and then like any player takes a week or two to return to proper match fitness. It hasn’t helped with Essendon rushing him back (they didn’t do it this time, thankfully).

He gets targeted for that mainly due to Kane Cornes doing his clickbait stuff and targeting him, knowing people already dislike him and it’s a free hit.

Yes he has a lot of talent, but it takes a lot more than that including a good slice of luck. I think the penny dropped for him mentally some time ago now, and he’s been doing all the right things since. He’s not the megastar he looked like briefly but for what he cost us and the contract he’s on, he’s not really an issue imo.
 
Well yeah, every time he has an injury he comes back unfit, that’s generally how it works.

He certainly had poor habits, when he got to the club he was in very poor shape both physically and mentally, and it took him a good year or two to overcome that and improve. He’s past that now and is much improved in that area… if you listen to him and the club talk about how much his training habits have changed, you certainly see the difference when he has a decent run at it.

But unfortunately he is genuinely injury prone. Every time he’s playing some good footy he gets cut down by injury, has weeks off, and then like any player takes a week or two to return to proper match fitness. It hasn’t helped with Essendon rushing him back (they didn’t do it this time, thankfully).

He gets targeted for that mainly due to Kane Cornes doing his clickbait stuff and targeting him, knowing people already dislike him and it’s a free hit.

Yes he has a lot of talent, but it takes a lot more than that including a good slice of luck. I think the penny dropped for him mentally some time ago now, and he’s been doing all the right things since. He’s not the megastar he looked like briefly but for what he cost us and the contract he’s on, he’s not really an issue imo.
My god, you say it's not really an issue, but here you are defending him, he is lazy, he gets injured all the time because of that laziness.

It's both his fault and the clubs fault for playing him unfit.
 

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