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Toast Michael Apeness

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Awesome.
I can't remember having 2 power forwards lining up in a Dockers fwd line - not unless you count Pav & Kepler. Will give us a different look.
Imagine a fwd line with Pav / Apeness / Ballas / Walters / Mayne / Sylvia with Fyfe, Mundy, Barlow & Mora firing shots at goals from the rear - a pretty potent lineup which we might see soon.
 

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Wow saw Apeness as an automatic out due to the return of Pav but rapt to be able to watch him and Mora play on Sunday.

If Johnson is also coming in and with Mora guaranteed a game it will make for a very interesting selection. I wonder if it is a case of a couple of players being in form trouble or whether resting is actually on the agenda. Anyhow my suggestions:

Resting: Mayne (working hard back from injury but might need a freshen up)
Spurr (played all year - has put the body on the line and possibly needs a break)
Dawson (didn't train - if he has a niggle perfect time for a rest)
Z Clarke (rumours of a slight knee - good time to rest)

Form: Really no one is out of form, but if pushed for a decision
Sylvia - got to hit the scoreboard but other parts of his game has been good
C Pearce - was going out last week, played ok, but would appear to be the certainty
 
Its funny how the only people who dont blame Stk's current plight on RTB are those that worked there at the time and could see inside the walls that their kids were crap except the ones he did give a game (ie. Armitage, Steven)

Apeness and Mora makes Sundays game at least a little more appetising.. except maybe the challenge of keeping GWS to 0 or 1 goal.
 
yakamoto said:
Would be a waste of a game playing him alongside Pav. Pav still attracts a lot of the inside 50 entries so couldn't see Nessie getting much of a look in. No way we would see both out there in a game for 4 points.
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You might want to look at Ross' most recent presser.

If both are fit and healthy for the game against GWS, looks like both will play:
http://www.fremantlefc.com.au/video/2014-07-09/tough-life-for-forwards-lyon

We've been crying out for a strong contesting marking deep forward to act as a foil for Pav. Why wouldn't we play them together now that we have a young fella that looks like he ticks some of the boxes. He was playing against a top flight one-on-one key defender in Frawley, and I thought the kid looked really good - Frawley certainly didn't manage to make him look silly.

* Slippery conditions... if they were a little drier (and he didn't accidentally grab the same mark as Fyfe) he would have had at least a couple of contested marks to his name.
* Made some great contests to get the ball to ground... one in particular he pushed off Frawley (while Frawley was trying to draw him back from a Melbourne tall fronting the contest) and Apeness got himself there and spoiled the mark. Not an obvious passage of play, but a critical action. Imagine what something like that might have done against the Hawks last year in the GF, or against North at Subi this year.
* Cut Matt Jones in half while trying to take a mark.
* Tackled two or more players to ground (including a Freo player in each case) to ground on two occasions... Mundy and Fyfe in those separate tackles from memory. No small feat.
* Kick for goal didn't miss by much.

Lots to like about his performance, and looking forward to seeing him get a run against GWS.
 
eastfreo75 said:
Pavlich on the lead and Apeness for high ball contest. Some teams have three/four talls in the same team.
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Spot on. Pav is actually a pretty average contested mark. He's at his most dangerous on the lead and in space. Ideally we'd be playing him at CHF and Apeness at FF.

EDIT: My obligatory graph for the week. Looks like in the first half of 2013 the big 3 were getting about the same number of hitouts as they have in the last couple of weeks. So not something completely new. But may have picked things up a bit compared to the start of this season.

Might also be the ruckmen that we've been playing against the last couple of weeks. Who knows. Will get another look at whether it's a thing, or just an anomaly on Sunday.
Hitouts to big 3 mids.png
 
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strobe00 said:
Spot on. Pav is actually a pretty average contested mark. He's at his most dangerous on the lead and in space. Ideally we'd be playing him at CHF and Apeness at FF.
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Pav is still equal 12th in the comp for total contested marks. Pretty good effort for a 33 year old.
 
yakka man said:
Pav is still equal 12th in the comp for total contested marks. Pretty good effort for a 33 year old.
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True. Was going off some stats in the Champion Data prospectus for season 2012 I think... which said that he was towards the bottom of the list of key forwards according to his percentage of marks won in a one-on-one marking contest, but that he was elite on the lead.

He is doing very well this year though with his contested marking. But I still think he's more dangerous on the lead, and in protecting space that he's run into, rather than plucking a mark dropped onto his head.

20th in the comp for contested marks on a per game average. 12th if you look at totals. Still a good job though. Especially for a 191-192 cm KPF.
 
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He's looking promising but PLEASE !!

>Don't get on the hype train we all saw what happened to Jack Watts. "This 19 year old will carry us to finals CHOO CHOO MOTHERF**KER!!"
 

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tacopavlich said:
He's also one of the shortest key forwards in the game. Similar size to Darling for some perspective. He's actually an amazing contested mark all things considering.
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No disrespect to Pav but he plays for way too many frees. I always get so upset when he does this instead of actually making a genuine attempt to mark the ball. It's like he just assumes he's never going to take the mark so he tries for the free instead. But the few times I see him go for it (I think the pies and hawks game he went for a few), he often takes them. My theory is that his achilles is so shot that he doesn't want make a bigger than average jump for the ball.

Anyone else agree he plays for too many frees or is it just me?
 
belzor said:
No disrespect to Pav but he plays for way too many frees. I always get so upset when he does this instead of actually making a genuine attempt to mark the ball. It's like he just assumes he's never going to take the mark so he tries for the free instead. But the few times I see him go for it (I think the pies and hawks game he went for a few), he often takes them. My theory is that his achilles is so shot that he doesn't want make a bigger than average jump for the ball.

Anyone else agree he plays for too many frees or is it just me?
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he had a period there where he threw up his arms a little more dramatically than you usually have to in order to attract the notice of the umpires. Someone like Zaarke is shithouse at this and often doesn't get the frees that he deserves, so there's an art to it. Pav has toned it down a bit over the last year or so, though.
 
belzor said:
No disrespect to Pav but he plays for way too many frees. I always get so upset when he does this instead of actually making a genuine attempt to mark the ball. It's like he just assumes he's never going to take the mark so he tries for the free instead. But the few times I see him go for it (I think the pies and hawks game he went for a few), he often takes them. My theory is that his achilles is so shot that he doesn't want make a bigger than average jump for the ball.

Anyone else agree he plays for too many frees or is it just me?
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I really don't agree with this but you opinion is valid, care to point out some specific moments, maybe some screenshots, not hard from afl.com.au. if anything of late my opinion is that he is being mauled by the defenders and not being rewarded..
 
Apeness & Mora make this match exciting. Wonder if Mora will be the sub again, gonna be awesome hearing the crowd cheer him on when he gets it, hopefully he kicks his first goal back this weekend. Could be worth playing Fyfe forward more than usual too. Colin simply needs to perform against these kids, I feel like hes lucky to still be in the 22, that's if he keeps his spot this week.
 
tofushark said:
I really don't agree with this but you opinion is valid, care to point out some specific moments, maybe some screenshots, not hard from afl.com.au. if anything of late my opinion is that he is being mauled by the defenders and not being rewarded..
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Sure gimme a sec I'll find one from the eagles game
 

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tacopavlich said:
He's also one of the shortest key forwards in the game. Similar size to Darling for some perspective. He's actually an amazing contested mark all things considering.
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One of the things Pav does better than anyone else I can think of in the competition is protect the fall of the ball in a marking contest with his substantial backside. Pav has already done a lot for the freo footy club but if I could ask him to do just one more thing it would be to pass this skill onto the Ape.
 
Hmmm not very good at this and the AFL smart replay thing is pretty average to manipulate, but this was an example of what I was talking about. Maybe hard to see but pretty disappointing, and the Eagles took it up the length of the field and goaled.

1.png 2.png 3.png 4.png 5.png 6.png
 
belzor said:
Hmmm not very good at this and the AFL smart replay thing is pretty average to manipulate, but this was an example of what I was talking about. Maybe hard to see but pretty disappointing, and the Eagles took it up the length of the field and goaled.

View attachment 66893 View attachment 66894 View attachment 66895 View attachment 66896 View attachment 66897 View attachment 66899
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Between pic 4 and 5 I'd say there's a case for push in the back. McKenzie uses a "double action" in extending his arms to push Pav under the ball. Personally, I have noticed umpires not giving frees that do deserve to be paid just because the player plays for it too much. I have also noticed Pav exacerbating contact a bit, such that the free that is there is ignored because of his over emphasis. There was a case in the Adelaide game as well, where he got pulled off the ball by the collar and made a big show of it. Debatable whether the free was there in that case, but due to the way Pav carried on about it, the Umps were unlikely to pay it.
 
Very happy to wake up to this news. Apeness was impressive with his limited touches and displayed a great ability to hit the packs and bring the ball to ground for ballas. I hope he keeps on trucking and could be a slight smokey toehold his spot further along the line this season. Imagine walters and balls at his feet.

Ballas Apeness Clarke/Sandi
Mayne Pav Walters

The only problem is it is another player to squeeze into the lineup/ getting way too far ahead.
 
belzor said:
No disrespect to Pav but he plays for way too many frees. I always get so upset when he does this instead of actually making a genuine attempt to mark the ball. It's like he just assumes he's never going to take the mark so he tries for the free instead. But the few times I see him go for it (I think the pies and hawks game he went for a few), he often takes them. My theory is that his achilles is so shot that he doesn't want make a bigger than average jump for the ball.

Anyone else agree he plays for too many frees or is it just me?
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Most forwards have some of this in their game, and tbh would he really need to be doing so if defenders weren't allowed to scrag and cling onto forwards as much as they do nowadays (looking at you Mckenzie). Dawson is guilty of this as well, despite my invested interest I think he gets away with too much.

For some strange reason umpires are too afraid to give forwards free kicks, the natural reaction for some is to try and appeal more for them, rightly or wrongly.
 

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Toast Michael Apeness

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