Of Babies and Bathwater

[Marlin01]

So far, I've been very happy with what the Eagles have produced. We've caused all our opponents problems with our zone and general tackling pressure. We are starting to look like a team that plays with a plan, in a reasonably co-ordinated fashion.

Had you told me, prior to this season, that we'll be 2 and 2 with a % of 100, I would probably have taken that. But with improved performance, comes higher expectations.

I think most people that have watched us play would agree we are still lacking the class forward of centre to take advantage of the turnovers we are causing. Obviously, losing LeCras doesn't help this, but you can't build a team around 1 player anyway.

My questions is this:

Should we gamble the improvement and progress we have made so far this season, by selecting players such as Strijk, Hams, Swift and Stevenson over more defensively-minded players or should we stay the course and look to achieve an acceptable result this season?

 

[new breed]

Darling has been a find and his contibution and pressure have been a factor in our improvement .

I think Woosha is filling time untill Lecras comes back , not sure he is too keen to experiment with fringe players ATM - But he Should !

 

[Marlin01]

Darling has been a find and his contibution and pressure have been a factor in our improvement .

I think Woosha is filling time untill Lecras comes back , not sure he is too keen to experiment with fringe players ATM - But he Should !

Yep, Worsfold also seems to be convinced that Kerr will get back to his creative best. If we get Kerr back to his best and add LeCras, things will look a lot better.

 

[Eastern Rangers]

Kerr isn't getting the numbers he has in the past but he's played pretty well on the weekend.

Strijk needs to improve his defensive efforts that i don't disagree with, he lacks accountability even at WAFL level. On the other hand we don't want to end up the next St Kilda, we want to kick winning scores as well as closing of as much space as possible. Eg: Collingwood and Geelong.

 

[Marlin01]

Kerr isn't getting the numbers he has in the past but he's played pretty well on the weekend.

Kerr for mine has been a bit of a liability. He's playing the role of an attacking mid and really hasn't contributed a huge amount of forward movement. Hopefully this is just the price we have to pay to get him back up to his best.

 

[The Falcon Strike]

thought kerr was improved yesterday.

Some quality handballs in tight - and his kicks were hitting targets

Had 20 touches that were pretty much all decent. No dashing runs or weaving and dodging yet - but that was a reasonable output.

Would have liked to have seen his chase of Young - see if he got up to full pace

 

[larrikin]

thought kerr was improved yesterday.

Some quality handballs in tight - and his kicks were hitting targets

Had 20 touches that were pretty much all decent. No dashing runs or weaving and dodging yet - but that was a reasonable output.

Would have liked to have seen his chase of Young - see if he got up to full pace

He ran at pace down the wing a couple of times yesterday and delivered long (and well) by foot, which to me was the most encouraging aspect of his game. They are the hamstring pingers.

And I'm not at all worried about the notion the commentators keep raising of him being tackled alot - he always has been and the game is trending even more in that direction.

 

[Monocle]

Kerr is getting better each game and he already is having an impact by drawing a quality opposition player to man him up.

The knock on effect is that our second and third best onballers are getting a slightly lesser opponent than if Kerr was not playing.

 

[Eastern Rangers]

Kerr for mine has been a bit of a liability. He's playing the role of an attacking mid and really hasn't contributed a huge amount of forward movement. Hopefully this is just the price we have to pay to get him back up to his best.

For his first two games i would agree with, but he was pretty usefull yesterday.

 

[sTeeL]

Just not confident in his hamstring. Hes just playing within his limits at the moment just being safe. When he gets the confidence back, then he will get back to his best.

Doesnt even attempt to stretch himself atm.

 

[lewigie]

For his first two games i would agree with, but he was pretty usefull yesterday.

He just has a knack of taking one or two tacklers at once, and then getting a handball out to someone. Works really well for us.

 

[Eagle87]

Kerr for mine has been a bit of a liability. He's playing the role of an attacking mid and really hasn't contributed a huge amount of forward movement. Hopefully this is just the price we have to pay to get him back up to his best.

Kerr at his best is our best inside mid....

With his lesser breakway pace and explosion at present he probably needs to play that role. Of course .... umm ....

 

[Keys]

A centre square setup of kerr, shuey and s selwood with naitanui in the ruck would be our most effective from our current list IMO

 

[Scotland]

I like it.

Of course it's no Cox, Naitanui, Priddis, A Selwood...

 

[Keys]

Looking a couple of years ahead you'd hope that masten would develop sufficiently to displace kerr

 

[ziad]

Kerr is getting better each game and he already is having an impact by drawing a quality opposition player to man him up.

The knock on effect is that our second and third best onballers are getting a slightly lesser opponent than if Kerr was not playing.

In addition his handball is more effective in an attacking sense that any other player at the moment.

Swift and others have been set tasks to improve specific weaknesses in the WAFL. The ball is in their court and we must pick the best team so that honesty prevails.

 

[Galileo9]

So far, I've been very happy with what the Eagles have produced. We've caused all our opponents problems with our zone and general tackling pressure. We are starting to look like a team that plays with a plan, in a reasonably co-ordinated fashion.

Had you told me, prior to this season, that we'll be 2 and 2 with a % of 100, I would probably have taken that. But with improved performance, comes higher expectations.

I think most people that have watched us play would agree we are still lacking the class forward of centre to take advantage of the turnovers we are causing. Obviously, losing LeCras doesn't help this, but you can't build a team around 1 player anyway.

My questions is this:

Should we gamble the improvement and progress we have made so far this season, by selecting players such as Strijk, Hams, Swift and Stevenson over more defensively-minded players or should we stay the course and look to achieve an acceptable result this season?

why would we risk it? havent you been watching top teams, its all about proper defending and that immediately leaves stevenson out. hams is not a crumbing forward, not a midfielder who is 25/26 years old. he aing going to get much better and doubt he would add anything to the team at the moment. and whilst strijk has done some good stuff, he would he dislodge? forward line pressure is really good andnoone deserves to be dropped. so all in all, answer for me is no.

swift still have hope but not sure who he could displace. he may have more potential than some others on team but id like him to earn it.

 

[bodazoka]

My questions is this:

Should we gamble the improvement and progress we have made so far this season, by selecting players such as Strijk, Hams, Swift and Stevenson over more defensively-minded players or should we stay the course and look to achieve an acceptable result this season?

Strijk has a foot problem which kept him out of round 1 and is currently playing under duress as well as suffering an injury to his neck last week. His WAFL coach said he should be ready by the next round v Melbourne.

Hams should be in the team but he is certainly not a wingman, he is a FP/HF certainly would help the skills out and crumb goals though. Id take Nicoski or Ebert out for him.

People dont seem to remember what Swift's problem was? he got caught too much, had disposal and decision making issues and didnt get enough of the ball. He is looking better in the WAFL and IMO will be in the team soon enough anyway so IMO is a moot issue.

I dont think Stevenson is going to solve any of our problems, he wouldnt be better than Embley or Rosa right now. He will get a couple of great kicks off when in space on the wing but a consistant 4 quarter effort? Im not sure...

 

[September_Glory]

Kerr is not durable (or reliable) enough to be the no.1 guy.

Masten for the same reasons.

If Shuey were to breakdown again, I think we should gamble with Scooter Selwood. His offensive prowess is severely underrated.

 

[Winky]

why would we risk it? havent you been watching top teams, its all about proper defending and that immediately leaves stevenson out. hams is not a crumbing forward, not a midfielder who is 25/26 years old. he aing going to get much better and doubt he would add anything to the team at the moment. and whilst strijk has done some good stuff, he would he dislodge? forward line pressure is really good andnoone deserves to be dropped. so all in all, answer for me is no.

swift still have hope but not sure who he could displace. he may have more potential than some others on team but id like him to earn it.

Swift is certainly better value than Dalzeil and probably McGinnity. For balance we also need to drop 1 tall.