Review Keeffe - A selection quandary

[blaze036]

Bring in Moore then?

Moore is probably closer to a 2017 proposition

 

[mike123]

We can't afford to have a premiership defender playing reserves if Keeffe is going to play like this. Drop.

 

[Ketchup]

If Jenkins takes you to the cleaners it's pretty much cya later.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

We have too many quality players in the VFL at the moment. One bad game and you may find yourelf dropped. This may happen to Keeffe as we have a premiership defender in the seconds waiting to come back in.

That said I might be tempted to drop Witts instead and play Keeffe as the second ruck and a forward option, just to see how he goes. Problem with that thery is that we play West Coast next week so maybe not a good time to experiement. Or maybe it is.

 

[loki04]

This



Hmmm, I'm not sure it's lack of effort. I wonder if perhaps it's the opposite: he tries too hard?

When his head drops he gets reactive and even caught ball watching when he is in range to impact the contest.he gives up the ghost like I said.

 

[Old Spice]

I think he needs a rest but given we are playing WC I am worried we will be exploited by the resting ruck. I think Bucks can say you had a stinker, draw a line under it and show us what you've got this weekend.

In either case Brown should be a shoe in.

 

[dubber]

I am going to go against the popular opinion here & back him to keep his spot. Yes, Jenkins got hold him for a period but i thought our mids were not helping out as much as they have been & our forwards were poor in locking the ball forward.
He was not the reason we lost, they had 60 inside 50s. As a comparison Carlton had 40 the week before the bye, bombers had 45 on Anzac day. Point being the supply to Crows forward was aplenty so obviously there was going to be some leaks.

 

[4#Didak#4]

I think we can forgive one bad game. At some point playing inexperienced defenders was going to bite us. The Crows setup really well and they got found out. The last 4 weeks we have seen them beat some pretty dysfunctional forward lines in Carl,Ess,Rich & even Nth.

The Crows played smart especially Podsiadly who took Maxwell away from supporting Keefe. Keefe got caught one on one too much with Jenkins and was out bustled. Keefe still lacks that core upper body strength which will come with time. The monsters will always out muscle him. Height wise Keefe seemed the logical fit for Jenkins. I would have liked to see a reshuffle earlier with Frost going to Jenkins as Jenkins athleticism was impressive.

I thought we did make a bad selection error in not including a fit Brown. Brown had 3 very suitable macth ups in Jenkins, Pods & Walker. I was keen to play all three of Frost, Brown & Keefe and try and make Maxwell the loose man. Anyway not to be. I think it does show that with 3 genuine forwards teams can expose our defense. Thinking ahead to teams like the Hawks and now Sydney who are going to be hard to match up on.

Keefe is definitely not a forward and looked out of his depth up forward. The sooner Reid comes back the better. He will imporve our forward strcture and when things are going bad like last night he can swing back. I think Reid is just about the difference between us being a good team and a contender.

The only other thing I will say about Keefe is he may have got ahead of himself a little. I think he is trying to take his game to the next level which is great, but he musn't neglect the basics.

 

[Pera]

He'd be stiff to get dropped after one bad game but that was a shocker last night. Before last night he had conceded only one goal to his direct opponent but with Brown waiting in the wings, he has to be dropped.

And Brown has such a good record on blokes like Kennedy, Roughead, Tippett etc. Hes the guy I wanna bank on by the time finals come round.

 

[4#Didak#4]

I am going to go against the popular opinion here & back him to keep his spot. Yes, Jenkins got hold him for a period but i thought our mids were not helping out as much as they have been & our forwards were poor in locking the ball forward.
He was not the reason we lost, they had 60 inside 50s. As a comparison Carlton had 40 the week before the bye, bombers had 45 on Anzac day. Point being the supply to Crows forward was aplenty so obviously there was going to be some leaks.

Absolutely agree with this. Not only was the ball coming in a lot it was coming in quickly mostly off the back of turnovers across our half forward line. Those turnovers meant our defense couldn't setup it was always a scramble.

Our ball retention was terrible. However give some credit to Adelaide. They did their homework. They basically dropped their forwards back across our half forward line - but not deep forward like most do, they left Trav one on one with Talia. That broke up how we like to run & carry the ball in so we can get the deep kick in. When we tried to go through them we turned it over. When we tried to kick it over them it went in too shallow and was easy to defend. They did this really well in the third, we paniced and started kicking in hope.

Bucks has coached really well in that he has used Cloke getting swamped by defenders to our advantage getting our mids and guys like Elliot pushing up and kicking goals due to the space Trav creates by attracting defenders. The Crows went the other way they concentrated on the goal kciking mids & Elliot and just sucked all their usual space away. This dried up our scoring and also created all that rebounding offense that we got scored against.

 

[kelvarnsen]

Keeffe has played 27 games! Relax!

I'm concerned about caff, toovey, clokey, goldy, blair, ball and sidebottom!

Broomhead, Karnezis, JT, Kenno, Adams and Kmart are ready!!!

 

[DaVe86]

Yeah, with that many inside 50's, we did really well to keep them to the score we did. Credit to our defence.

On the flip side, it is hard to be too critical of our forwards when the ball just wasn't up there. My main criticism is that they didn't lock the ball in well enough.

In the first half, we were not getting many inside 50's but has good scoring efficiency when we went in. In the 2nd half, we just broke down altogether.

 

[DaVe86]

Keeffe has played 27 games! Relax!

I'm concerned about caff, toovey, clokey, goldy, blair, ball and sidebottom!

Broomhead, Karnezis, JT, Kenno, Adams and Kmart are ready!!!

I don't see the concern...I think all those names you listed above (apart from maybe Cloke), have been in great form so far this year.

In the first quarter, Channel 7 were posing the question whether Caff is the best tagger in the game. Toovey is a few games back from a knee reco and has been solid, Goldsack has been integral to our forward pressure all year, Ball has been solid and Sidebottom was probably runne rup to Pendlebury in our best and fairest leading into this game.

Blair is on the edge at the moment. He gives a lot but I just think there is so much more talented players we need to get exposure into, and Blair is the one whose spot may come under fire.

Cloke is just out of form. No need to get alarmed just yet.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Keeffe has played 27 games! Relax!

I'm concerned about caff, toovey, clokey, goldy, blair, ball and sidebottom!

Broomhead, Karnezis, JT, Kenno, Adams and Kmart are ready!!!

Blair was good last night. Agree about the rest though....they are on notice!! (except Caff, nobody else would have done any better on Dangerfield)

 

[dingoboy]

Caff had a stinker..his diosposal was terrible

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Caff had a stinker..his diosposal was terrible

Yep doesnt mean youd drop him though.

 

[didaksrightfoot]

I hate saying this after a young player has had a rubbish game ...

... but I will anyway ...

I don't rate Keeffe, never have. Yeah, there have been many games when he has pleasantly surprised me ...

But here's my issue: he's far too much of a confidence player. If he stuffs up - and all players do at some stage - he gets frustrated and loses his composure. It happens far too easily. And he'll play poorly for the rest of the game and we may as well be a man down.

And it's when things are going badly that we need players to hold themselves together and work hard to get us back.

Sure, he's a young player and he can learn. But last night's "losing his bundle" was no different to his behaviour in games 1 ... 7 when he was a debutant getting frustrated in the forward line.

I hope he sorts it out. I just can't see him having a career of any length with us unless he does.

I agree with a fair bit of this.

I have said all season that of our bigs Keefe is the one who should be at the bottom of the pecking order.
He has shown potential, and should end up being at minimum a 150-odd game player, and is a useful guy to have in the rotation - I just dont think he is good enough to be garaunteed a spot in the 22 when we have Brown, Reid and Frost who can play as KP Defenders.
He also hasn't shown an ability to be a 2nd ruck that we could very much use.

As others have said, he is very much a confidence player, and can drop his head if a few things go against him. I also think that currently he doesn't use his height-advantage well enough in contests. If he is able to fill out his frame a bit more, he should be able to monster most full forwards.

I would say that after that performance, and with the depth we have, he should be dropped to the VFL and given a couple of weeks to regain his confidence as a full back (OR - spend some time focusing on ruckwork... because if he can become 2nd ruck/3rd KPD then he could be very useful to this team)

 

[kelvarnsen]

Cloke is just out of form. No need to get alarmed just yet.

I'm concerned about clokey's mental state. When he dropped that easy mark at the start I knew he was going to have a bad game.

 

[Rusty22]

i had no idea who jenkins was, smashed keefe.
Brown has done nothing wrong, he comes in.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

i had no idea who jenkins was, smashed keefe.
Brown has done nothing wrong, he comes in.

This is an important point. Its not as if Brown was dropped to the VFL. Injury put him there and only good form from the incumbents in the senior side has kept him out.

 

[Tommy Magpie]

I think we have an interesting decision to make here.

On one hand Keeffe had a stinker last night and we have a quality full back waiting in the twos champing at the bit to come into the side.

On the other hand we probably need to recognise that Keeffe has <30 games experience and I think we need to expect a few hiccups along the way.

So do we stick thick? Or does he go back to the VFL to find form?

No quandary here in my humble, Quick.

Twos bound. Brown would have been in hysterics last night

 

[stevebbb]

Brown > Keeffe imo

 

[dansa]

Brown > Keeffe imo

Keeffe has played 27 games. I think he is still very inconsistent but has the potential to be far better KP player than Brown. We have seen Brown's best and it is not much better than Keeffe who is really still learning the game.

He was very poor last night but deserves to keep his spot for one more week in my opinion. Keeffe needs games and experience and the confidence of the match committee to back him after a shocker. If he puts in another poor game next week then send him back to the 2's to work on his game.

 

[rose jam]

Caff had a stinker..his diosposal was terrible

His disposal is terrible. Period.

When Caff is in the centre square we look deficient there, when he is out of there the group gels. I don't know where I sit with him, a tagger serves a role, but if that position is now being umpired down a bit might be time to retire it.


On to Keefe, is not an AFL regular yet so I think stints back to the VFL is OK for him. He lost his competitiveness last night which means you can't really trust him in a final at the moment.

 

[DaVe86]

Macaffer was doing a decent job on Dangerield up until half time. He was getting the ball, but nothing really dangerous. It was only when Dangerfield was put to half back that things turned. Macaffer got a bit lost.

Then in the last quarter the tag was dropped completely and Macaffer went to Brodie Smith but that didn't work either.

Next week, Caff goes straight to Caff who is one of the most taggable players in the game. Very easy to tag, but absolutely lethal if not tagged.

I just think Dangerfield has the all-round game that exposes Macaffer.

I agree on disposal. It is an issue. But it was exemplified last night by the fact that the tag was dropped and Macaffer had to get more of the ball. Usually, he is not needed to win the ball, just shut down.