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Player Watch Joel Cochran

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While Joel faded a little in the second half of last night's vfl game, I'm impressed with his skill-set, CFC has a lot to work with this player. One of the most pleasing aspects of his game for me is that he is a one touch player, he picks up the lose ball below his knees effortlessly for a 195 cm player.
This made me think of Jared Brennan for the first time in years
 

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This made me think of Jared Brennan for the first time in years
Excellent prospect. Cochran is a superb athlete who looks like he can play footy too. I was expecting the footy side of things to be dodgy to begin with considering that the Swans past on him. But i suspect it might be that they wanted a genuine KPD - whereas he looks more like Birchall than Brian Lake.
 
Excellent prospect. Cochran is a superb athlete who looks like he can play footy too. I was expecting the footy side of things to be dodgy to begin with considering that the Swans past on him. But i suspect it might be that they wanted a genuine KPD - whereas he looks more like Birchall than Brian Lake.
I think if he has scope to even be a Jeremy Howe type who's best suited for mediums but can play tall in a pinch, that would be great. He's not much of an aerialist at present, but hopefully he can work on that and get more confident with that.
 
I think if he has scope to even be a Jeremy Howe type who's best suited for mediums but can play tall in a pinch, that would be great. He's not much of an aerialist at present, but hopefully he can work on that and get more confident with that.
Howe is a freak in the air and was from the day he entered the AFL - he's not going to be a Jeremy Howe type. But looks to have the tools to develop into a bloke who can compete defensively against a range of opponnents and then run off and give rebound.
 
Howe is a freak in the air and was from the day he entered the AFL - he's not going to be a Jeremy Howe type.
That would seem to be woeful interpretation of what I was suggesting when I said "best suited for mediums but can play tall in a pinch"
But looks to have the tools to develop into a bloke who can compete defensively against a range of opponnents and then run off and give rebound.
That's literally what I was suggesting.

He's 5cm taller than Howe - Howe is disproportionately good in the air for a player of his height, but Cochrane doesn't need to be disproportionately good, he just needs to be passable for a guy his size.
 
That would seem to be woeful interpretation of what I was suggesting when I said "best suited for mediums but can play tall in a pinch"

That's literally what I was suggesting.

He's 5cm taller than Howe - Howe is disproportionately good in the air for a player of his height, but Cochrane doesn't need to be disproportionately good, he just needs to be passable for a guy his size.
Howey is a freak - we rarely see players with his aerial ability.
It's not a fair comparison really, but Cochran has his own high quality traits.
 
Howey is a freak - we rarely see players with his aerial ability.
It's not a fair comparison really, but Cochran has his own high quality traits.
Again, it's got nothing to do with a comparison of their aerial ability.

Howe is a mid-sized defender who can play on talls as well. Cochrane is a tall defender without necessarily being a key defender, so he might equally be suited to playing on medium forwards like Howe, but capable of playing on the occasional tall.

They don't get there for the same reasons, but they may very likely have the same types of opponents and role within the team despite different physical attributes, much in the same way that Caleb Serong/Tom Liberatore/Tom Green/Patrick Cripps play basically the same role despite having different physical attributes.
 
That's literally what I was suggesting.

He's 5cm taller than Howe - Howe is disproportionately good in the air for a player of his height, but Cochrane doesn't need to be disproportionately good, he just needs to be passable for a guy his size.

It's not literally the same.

Regardless of height, Cochrane is extremely unlikely to develop into someone as good in the air as Howe. Height is just one of the factors - you're not taking hangers as consistently as Howe has over the journey unless your timing, judgement of the ball flight and the opponents body position is off the charts.

Unlike Howe, Cochrane looks like someone whose strength is likely to be rebound - and ultimately it's strengths that make a player a particular type and define thier role.
 
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It's not literally the same.

Regardless of height, Cochrane is extremely unlikely to develop into someone as good in the air as Howe. Height is just one of the factors - you're not taking hangers as consistently as Howe has over the journey unless your timing, judgement of the ball flight and the opponents body position is off the charts.

Unlike Howe, Cochrane looks like someone whose strength is likely to be rebound - and ultimately it's strengths that make a player a particular type and define thier role.
The density is astounding.

He doesn't need to play in exactly the same way as Howe to be able to cover a similar range of opponents, and therefore occupy a similar role within the team.

Ned Long has largely filled the role that Tom Mitchell previously filled in the team. Are they the same size? Do they play the same way?
 

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The density is astounding.

He doesn't need to play in exactly the same way as Howe to be able to cover a similar range of opponents, and therefore occupy a similar role within the team.

Ned Long has largely filled the role that Tom Mitchell previously filled in the team. Are they the same size? Do they play the same way?

Before you assume density, you might want to find out if we're talking about the same thing. In our defence, who you can match up on isn't your role. We play a defence where blokes roll up to pressure the ball carrier, and cover for each other, so their match up changes all the time. And we tend to have the initial match up as much on the field position of the opponent as who the player is - because we want to control the positioning of our defenders rather than the opposition controlling it.

With the exception of Daicos and Frampton, the other defenders can all match up one on one on a large range of blokes and need to be able to. But in a pack situation, there are certain blokes who generally fly whilst others will stay down to defend at ground level or position to receive and rebound - that's the part of it that I mean by type or role, which is different to who you can match up on in a one on one. It's just not a one on one game anymore in a heap of situations.
 
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Before you assume density, you might want to find out if we're talking about the same thing. In our defence, who you can match up on isn't your role. We play a defence where blokes roll up to pressure the ball carrier, and cover for each other, so their match up changes all the time. And we tend to have the initial match up as much on the field position of the opponent as who the player is - because we want to control the positioning of our defenders rather than the opposition controlling it.

With the exception of Daicos and Frampton, the other defenders can all match up one on one on a large range of blokes and need to be able to. But in a pack situation, there are certain blokes who generally fly whilst others will stay down to defend at ground level or position to receive and rebound - that's the part of it that I mean by type or role, which is different to who you can match up on in a one on one.
It's probably too early to predict how Cochran will play. ATM, he's playing basically HBF. He's going really well in the role he's playing now. Haven't seen much one on one stuff from him but he's reading the play really well. Unfortunately, we'll never get anyone close to what Howe is able to do. If we can develop him as the second or 3rd tall, I'd be happy with that. At 195cm and good ground ball and running skills, he'll be invaluable to us.
 
It's probably too early to predict how Cochran will play. ATM, he's playing basically HBF. He's going really well in the role he's playing now. Haven't seen much one on one stuff from him but he's reading the play really well. Unfortunately, we'll never get anyone close to what Howe is able to do. If we can develop him as the second or 3rd tall, I'd be happy with that. At 195cm and good ground ball and running skills, he'll be invaluable to us.
I’m hoping he can become our version of the lizard.
 
It's not literally the same.

Regardless of height, Cochrane is extremely unlikely to develop into someone as good in the air as Howe. Height is just one of the factors - you're not taking hangers as consistently as Howe has over the journey unless your timing, judgement of the ball flight and the opponents body position is off the charts.

Unlike Howe, Cochrane looks like someone whose strength is likely to be rebound - and ultimately it's strengths that make a player a particular type and define thier role.
I am old enough to remember Jen and others saying Jakob Ryan was a Howe type defender
 

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It's not literally the same.

Regardless of height, Cochrane is extremely unlikely to develop into someone as good in the air as Howe. Height is just one of the factors - you're not taking hangers as consistently as Howe has over the journey unless your timing, judgement of the ball flight and the opponents body position is off the charts.

Unlike Howe, Cochrane looks like someone whose strength is likely to be rebound - and ultimately it's strengths that make a player a particular type and define thier role.
To be fair, VV has said a few times that he isn't comparing him to Howe. He is just saying he hopes Cochran can cover mediums well and talls at a pinch - a trait that he would share with Howe.
 
To be fair, VV has said a few times that he isn't comparing him to Howe. He is just saying he hopes Cochran can cover mediums well and talls at a pinch - a trait that he would share with Howe.

Re-read it.

He was talking about a Jeremy Howe type and him playing the same role.

Then got abusive because he views match up as role or type, whereas I don't view them the same.
 
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Re-read it.

He was talking about a Jeremy Howe type and him playing the same role.

Then got abusive because he views match up as role or type, whereas I don't.
A role player would be part of the structures, whereas a match up wouldn't necessarily be part of the structures. Other players like wingers and high half forwards would take up the slack in the structures. That's a lot of structures talk but I agree with you
 
A role player would be part of the structures, whereas a match up wouldn't necessarily be part of the structures. Other players like wingers and high half forwards would take up the slack in the structures. That's a lot of structures talk but I agree with you
It's all semantics I suppose, but I view match up, role and type as distinctly different. Nick Daicos and Long might get the same match up - but their role will often be quite different - and even if they were given the same role, they're still a very different type of player.
 

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Player Watch Joel Cochran

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