Magpies as Seagulls Week 8

[The Royal Sampler]

The kids all seem to be going well.

Gotch seems to think Wellingham can be an inside player, Ben Reid is stepping up, Stanley continues his good form, Davies and Nicholls using the ball well, Macaffer had his best game yet and kicked four in a quarter... good signs all round.

 

[medhurstISGOD]

Williamstown had a strong win on Saturday over Box Hill, eventually triumphing by six goals, 16.10 (106) – 10.10 (70). We now have four wins and two draws from seven matches, and sit third on the VFL ladder.
It was a really promising performance, and below are my comments on each of the Collingwood-listed players who represented Williamstown on the weekend, exclusive to collingwoodfc.com.au.
It would be great to see even more Magpie fans at Williamstown games supporting the club and the Collingwood players participating. This Sunday we’re at home at Burbank Oval, taking on an in-form North Ballarat side, so it would be great to see you there.
Nathan Brown
Nathan Brown did a good job on (Mitchell) Thorp, who kicked six goals the week before against Geelong, and then Thorp went off and (Jarryd) Roughead went forward. Roughead got hold of him a little bit, kicked two or three goals on him, but I thought it was a good experience to go against a good player like that. Browny didn’t get a lot of the ball, but really concentrated on his defensive role, and that’s what we’re wanting from him, to get better at that.
Chris Bryan
Chris did quite well in the ruck, had a lot of hitouts, kicked a goal, and had 15 touches, so Mick would’ve been pretty happy with his performance. He’s there waiting in the wings.
Martin Clarke
Clarkey was a little bit quiet in the first half, and then I moved him into the backline and he got back into the game. It was just in the first half he didn’t get a lot of possessions for the role he was playing, he was sort of playing half forward/midfield, and in the second half he gave us a bit of run and did a lot better, finishing with 16 touches. He’s still going quite nicely.
Ryan Cook
Cooky was a bit sick, he was vomiting and had an upset stomach, but he still pushed through. He was on and off the ground a little bit, but I thought he had a good impact on the game with 15 disposals. He kicked a goal playing as a half-back flanker. He provided plenty of run, did alright one-on-one, so he’s actually going along really nicely at the minute, Cooky.
Shannon Cox
Coxy had a sensational second quarter, nine possessions in the second quarter, read the ball really well. He’s been a little bit crook, and he’s had a leg injury, so he’s just been lacking in his training a little bit in the last two weeks, so I reckon the game affected him, especially later in the game, so he ran out of a bit of legs. I know he cramped late in the third quarter, but his use of the footy and his run was really good, especially in the first half.
Ben Davies
Ben Davies was good again. I played him on the ball, ruck rover. He had five clearances, 12 handball receives, 23 possessions. I thought he used the ball really constructively and ran hard, but his clearance work was the key, it was fantastic. He was solid.
Brad Dick
Dicky only kicked the one goal but he set up a number of goals. He’s a very good crumbing forward, who puts a lot of pressure on the opposition, and if you drop your guard against him, watch out, because he’ll set up things from nowhere.
Sam Iles
Sam was good again. I played him on the wing for the majority of the game, I think he’s a natural backman, but he’s got good fitness and can run with players, and I think he’s just starting to get the gist of how to play that wing position. He had 18 possessions and uses the ball so well. There were a couple of times where we broke out of the middle and fed the handball out wide to him, and his delivery to Ben Reid and to Andrew Williams and those guys was just outstanding.
Paul Licuria
For a guy who had been out for five or six weeks he was very impressive in the way he went about it. He’s naturally a fit fellow but you could see he’d done a lot of work in the gymnasium either doing his rower or his grinder to make sure the hamstring didn’t hold him back with his fitness level. I had to give him a few little breaks throughout the game, and he was a little bit dirty on that, he loves to do a lot of work, but the instructions were to play him about 80 per cent of the game, that’s what we got out of him, and he had 26 possessions and kicked a couple of goals, so he had a really good game first up.
Brent Macaffer
Played in the Williamstown reserves, and probably played his best game of the year. He kicked five goals playing in the forward line after kicking 70-odd goals last year for the Gippsland Power under-18 team. We’ve been trying to do a few little different things with him as a half forward, ruck rover, half back. But on the weekend we went back to playing him a bit like the way we play Medhurst, as that small forward, and he was very impressive. He kicked four in the last quarter. He was ok for the first half, then in the third quarter he looked like he was really going to get on his game, and then in the last he was on fire, so that was a really good performance from him.
Daniel Nicholls
He kicked a couple of goals which was good for Nicho, used the ball well. Probably didn’t have as big an impact in the last quarter, but especially in the early part of the game he was lively, hard at the stoppages, plenty of tackles, good use of the ball.
Ben Reid
I think that’s the first time he’s got the three-goal mark, and two behinds as well. I had a look through his tape the other day and he could’ve quite easily kicked five, they weren’t difficult shots the two that he missed. A really promising performance from Ben, and I think they key to it was he’s starting to take some contested marks, because he’s quite a light-bodied player, he’s just turned 18, and he’s been a thinly built boy, he’s starting to put on some size, and it’s giving him the confidence to take some contested marks. His goalkicking from set shots on the weekend was outstanding, two of his goals were set shots and one was a brilliant snap from about 45 metres out, so promising signs for Ben.
Danny Stanley
This is the third week in a row that Danny’s played very well and it’s just great to see, because when we saw him as an under 18 a couple of years ago for Geelong he was very impressive, and we didn’t see a lot of that last year. In the last couple of weeks he’s really stepped out of the blocks and has shown some great form, I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes his mark over the next few weeks, the way he’s going, if he can continue to do that consistently.
Shane Wakelin
He’s the ‘Rock of Gibraltar’ down back. He plays full back and centre-half back, and the young players just love having him in the team. He was tremendous on the weekend and had a few touches himself, he’s not in bad nick, Wakes. I think he’s really putting his hand up for senior selection, so if someone falls over upstairs, he’s going to be a great chance to take their place.
Sharrod Wellingham
He looked really impressive, Sharrod. He only played 80 per cent game time for 21 possessions, and just did some brilliant things at the stoppages. Hitting through with clean hands, and setting up some outside players, and also just his use of the footy and his possession rate, he’s a bit of a ball magnet the way he plays. He’s going really nicely as a rookie, Mick (Malthouse) would be really impressed with the way he’s going, so I’ll probably try and step him up a little bit more in his game time, to see how he handles all that. Being a young player, naturally I’ve been looking after him a bit along the way, and we’ll probably try and step it up a bit more, but he’s going well.
So all in all, it was a pretty promising performance form the whole squad. There aren’t too many blokes who we couldn’t be glowing about in some capacity, which is a good sign.

 

[Jason5]

Ben Reid seems just about ready to play. But i guess it really depends on who our opponents are and who is out of form for a key position player like him to come in