Vintage Bay Mofra's Bottom 50 for 2018

[GetDimmaBack]

Sorry to digress from your most excellent fred, Mof, but has anyone ever seen Hugh Laurie and Bob Murphy in the same room?

 

[Strange Cat]

Sorry to digress from your most excellent fred, Mof, but has anyone ever seen Hugh Laurie and Bob Murphy in the same room?

I can’t see Hugh jumping on stage grabbing an Oscar that he didn’t earn in all honesty.

So they can’t be the same person

 

[3rd Grade Maggy]

I can’t see Hugh jumping on stage grabbing an Oscar that he didn’t earn in all honesty.

So they can’t be the same person

I would have gone with Bob being part of the LaLa Land team but same premise.

 

[Spiritof82]

Sorry to digress from your most excellent fred, Mof, but has anyone ever seen Hugh Laurie and Bob Murphy in the same room?

Hugh Laurie has talent and personality so can't be the same person

 

[juice t]

A few off-site injections should fix it

 

[Art OF war]

The bottom 50's Number 1 to be posted on Christmas day. Well played Mofra, well played.

 

[Mofra]

Player #4 - Jack Billings

Pictured: Jack Billings in action for Sandringham this year

Jack Billings, bless him, has the ignominy of being drafted between two of the games' brightest young stars.
Josh Kelly from North GWS is in the conversation as one of the game's best midfielders, while Marcus Bontempelli already has two club B&Fs to his name - one of which was for a premiership season.

A star junior, Jack made the u18 AA team as an 'underage player' which first put him on St Kilda's radar.
Sadly Jack hasn't quite lived up to expectations as a highly touted pick #3 who was supposed to be deadly in front of goal (we now know that isn't short for 'deadly accurate' or 'deadly' in the indigenous slang for praise sense, but deadly as in coach-killer).

Billings seems a hard worker who was considered to have had incredible goal sense when drafted, yet this year in front of the sticks he went at an accuracy rate of less than 42.5% which is also the average alcohol content of the average Port Adelaide fan's 'morning pick me up'. He just isn't accurate. Asked to describe himself earlier this year in three words he replied "not good with numbers".

So there's the 14 goals 19 behinds he kicked this year. There is the fact he actually went backwards compared to his 2017 average tallies in kicks, handballs, marks, goals, behinds, tackles, contested possessions, disposal efficiency, one-percenters, bounces per game, clearances and score involvements (although he did slightly outdo his 2017 self in average clangers this year).
Then of course, there's the fact he was dropped for round 12 which would have created a huge media circus if St Kilda were in any way newsworthy this year.
To his credit Billings responded with a 54 disposal effort against a demoralised Frankston team that was coached by St Kilda's ruck coach which seems a situation so dodgy it's running as a Nationals candidate next election. An inexperienced VFL fourth gamer had the task of running with Billings which came as a total shock as the words 'inexperienced' and 'Frankston youngster' are rarely seen together in the same sentence.

As a result, Billings' name was floated in trade circles this year however Billings responded with "I'm a St Kilda person" which should disappoint fans familiar at all with VFL/AFL history. Jack was very much in the pro-recruit Hannerbery camp during the most recent trade period whose acquisition should take some of the heat away from Jack.
Also helping is Billings seemed to finish off the year much, much, much better than he started. It appears Carlton played him into form which is a good start to their rebuild. Next year hopefully the Blues can play a couple of their own players into form (and yes I'm aware this is the soy sauce portion of the write-up... Kikkoman when he's down).

Anyway Jack still seems to have talent so as long as he grows a pair he'll be fine.
Billo, Jack, he of a suspiciously short wikipedia entry. Good luck for the pre-season and welcome to the Bottom 50 for 2018.

 

[Bernie L]

Player #4 - Jack Billings

Billings seems a hard worker who was considered to have had incredible goal sense when drafted, yet this year in front of the sticks he went at an accuracy rate of less than 42.5% which is also the average alcohol content of the average Port Adelaide fan's 'morning pick me up'. He just isn't accurate. Asked to describe himself earlier this year in three words he replied "not good with numbers".

Mof on fire today..

 

[Vikingblood]

There's a bloke on all the Carlton boards who flipped his lid when we took Sam Rowe over him in the draft. His argument being that as nobody else was going to draft Rowe we could have had both. What a Bonanza that would have been.

He still maintains that position today. We have tops supporters.

And still wouldn't have evened up the number of testicles at the club.

 

[hawkman]

Called it on the 1st page. Too much for a Bulldog supporter not to use

 

[GudOnya]

Jack made the u18 AA team as an 'underage player' which first put him on St Kilda's radar.

 

[GetDimmaBack]

I can’t see Hugh jumping on stage grabbing an Oscar that he didn’t earn in all honesty.

So they can’t be the same person

Did Bob jump? Or was he "pushed"?

 

[vjknight]

Sorry to digress from your most excellent fred, Mof, but has anyone ever seen Hugh Laurie and Bob Murphy in the same room?

Bob's on the left.

 

[westie]

I don't think Titus O'Reilly has anything to worry about!

 

[Mofra]

Player #3 - Sam Kerridge

Pictured: As a Mildura boy, Sam dominated the 'stealing hubcaps' drills at Paperbag Park

Sam Kerridge would be well known to AFL fans for that one year he was a supercoach bargain. Unfortunately for Carlton fans, he kept playing.

Picked at #27 by Adelaide, Sam spent three years in Adelaide before being traded to Carlton at the end of 2015, presumably because they mistook him as an ex GWS player.
Instead of rabbiting on about stats, his being in and out of the side, only playing in one win for the year (against Essendon which was a delight to all and sundry), I'm going to highlight why he is placed at no 3 this year.

Round 13, 16 June 2018. Carlton vs Fremantle.
Fremantle were on average a year younger and 2 games less experienced per player. They flogged Carlton by 57 points.

Bear in mind the following incident occurred during the first quarter, and Sam is a 25 year old developed player.
Sam was meant to be shadowing ball magnet, all round gun and two time B&F winner Lachie Neale (he also has a second B&F finish in the past three years to go with his two B&F wins). Neale is a gun and not the sort of player you take lightly.

Fremantle take a mark on the wing and Sam leisurely jogs 10m+ behind him, here:

He continues to slowly jog and walk alongside the ball, watching Fremantle players take easy uncontested mark:

After easy uncontested mark:

After uncontested mark. He then watches the ball sail over him for a goal:

There's lazy on the field, then there's this effort.
I mean we all know lazy people - I once had a housemate who didn't get a birthmark until he was six - but for a professional athlete with literally (being a Carlton-Fremantle game) hundreds of people watching, this was next level.

Fascinated by this effort I directed my au pair to hire a private dick to follow him around. After a horrific misunderstanding I put down to a language barrier, we sorted out the difference between a private investigator and.. nevermind. The point is I had someone take a few snaps of Sam in his day to day life, and it was truly fascinating.

It was illuminating. Anyway Sam was delisted by Carlton so good luck next year Sam, I hear the world of security is really kicking off right now:

Welcome to this years' Bottom 50.

 

[Starburns_]

So either Goddard or Boyd will find themself at #1 for the 2nd time in their career.

5 former #1 picks in the top 18 is a pretty stunning stat too.

 

[TerryWallet]

Excellent succinct entry . I personally had Levi as hot favorite to be our highest rated entry but "Kedge" lol certainly deserves his rating.

Levi extremely unlucky not to be Top 3 though. Big fella just can't take a trick. Hell, who am i kidding, he tricked into an 8 year AFL career.

 

[hawkman]

So either Goddard or Boyd will find themself at #1 for the 2nd time in their career.

5 former #1 picks in the top 18 is a pretty stunning stat too.

Taylor Walker, Danyle Pearce, Zac Smith, Cam Gunthrie, Taylor Duryea, Kaiden Brand, Jayden Hunt, Bernie Vince, Nathan Hrovat, Travis Boak, Charlie Dixon, Jack Graham, Paddy McCartin, Kieren Jack, Josh Schache would all be lucky to miss

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Surely Paddy can't be so irrelevant to miss out he was a number 1 ffs.

 

[Ant_]

I don't think Titus O'Reilly has anything to worry about!

Who?

 

[DaveyBoy123]

Player #3 - Sam Kerridge

As this year's winner of the award named after the great man on the North board, I approve.

The only reason why he hasn't ranked so highly in previous years is because of us allowing him to play the role of Mr. Invisible. For some strange reason, Bolton didn't play him against the kangas this season, which begs the question: Is a coach allowed on this list?

 

[WillHayward]

the words 'inexperienced' and 'Frankston youngster' are rarely seen together in the same sentence.

 

[PerfectFooty]

I hope Zac Smith is on this list

 

[WillHayward]

Fred needs more Patrick 'Paddy' McCartin.

 

[Starburns_]

Taylor Walker, Danyle Pearce, Zac Smith, Cam Gunthrie, Taylor Duryea, Kaiden Brand, Jayden Hunt, Bernie Vince, Nathan Hrovat, Travis Boak, Charlie Dixon, Jack Graham, Paddy McCartin, Kieren Jack, Josh Schache would all be lucky to miss

Schache started showing decent signs this year, agree on most of those but I reckon only McCartin is likely to push Goddard out (Boyd is a lock), meaning it's still another #1 pick.