Training Pre Season

[Dard Ball Get]

Our list is littered with no compusure,vision and football smarts. I believe the club has realised this and will be looking to the next few drafts to fix this issue. How we could draft so many headless chooks is astonishing. Spent too much time on character and not enough on actual football ability. This year it was a focus based on who we selected. Some may still i.prove but guys like gilbert newnes acres and webster will always undo there good work with basic football errors. Even savage just bombs it at time to no one. The list goes on.

I agree, our disposal and decision making is deplorable at times.
However, we're not the worst, more a few kinks to iron out with goal conversion imo.
It's not as bad as you say, but then again, things rarely are

 

[Joffaboy]

Our list is littered with no compusure,vision and football smarts. I believe the club has realised this and will be looking to the next few drafts to fix this issue. How we could draft so many headless chooks is astonishing. Spent too much time on character and not enough on actual football ability. This year it was a focus based on who we selected. Some may still i.prove but guys like gilbert newnes acres and webster will always undo there good work with basic football errors. Even savage just bombs it at time to no one. The list goes on.

Have read a bigger load of crap on here for a long time.

 

[Ads734]

Firstly

Sure quality is great, but if you're only getting a small number of clearances, then they'd need to be exceptional for your clearance work to even be a par overall, and from what I've observed, I'm not blown away enough with the quality of his clearances, to make up for the low number.

He's played 44 games now and the most he's had in a game is 4, and even in that stretch of 5 games at the end of 2016 (when he got the 2nd-most B&F votes and spent plenty of time on the ball) the most he got in any of those games was 3, and he only had 13 in total for the 5 games.

This year he had just 27 from his 18 games. Even Sincs had 39 from his 17, including a 6, and 5 twice, despite never lining up in the middle once, that I remember.

Before he'd even turned 20yo Bont for instance had had a 10, a 9, an 8 and two 7's. Clayton Oliver had an 8 and four 7's inside his first 13 games, in his first season.

Patty Cripps at just 20 yo and inside his first 22 games had had a 13, an 11, three 9's, three 8's and three 7's! Guys like this just seem to have a much more natural knack of it than Blake.

I just don't see clearance-winning as a strength of his, certainly at this stage at least. If it was, I fully expect we would have seen him get much more of a look-in on the inside this year.

Firstly to compare Acres, who pretty much played 998 per cent of the year as a winger /half forward and was lucky to play maybe 100 minutes total as an inside mid combined to players like Oliver and Cripps is just silly. If you want a fair comparison of clearance ability for guys who have played on the wings

Gaff, Sidebottom etc.

There is a signinficant difference between playing on the ball and playing on the wing. More importantly the way Acres is switched across positions across the ground means that it is more diffuclt to find a consistant high level of clearances. Compared to Cripps who pretty much plays soley as an inside Mid as does Oliver.

I truelly believe after seeing him play lots of AFL and VFL if he is given the same time as the above metioned names on the ball and not the wing you'll see his clearance numbers increase drastically. In addition, a mix of Acres, Steele etc as oppose to the usual Dunstan Ross Steven etc midiefld might make us a little less predictable and more dynamic.

 

[Ads734]

Just in case anybody is really bored on youtube there are streams of TAC games from this year including many Stingrays games. I've just watched a few including the game against the Knights.

Firstly on Hunter
-He never funbles ever. Just so clean, one handed pick ups, his kicking is silky as it gets either side. Once he puts on some size he is going to be so difficlut to tackles. The thing that separetes Clarke form other players is his willingness to move the ball forwards.
Its interesting because if you just describe his attributes with no influence of the knoweldge of his performances you would say his is exactly what we need. Despite the supposed clear top 4 of the draft.

After more vision he is very simmilar to Shaun Higgins/Lachie Whitfield which is everything we need.

Nick Coffield
-Coff is just so creative and composed. His kick is very penetrating however what is going to allow him to become a midfielder is his step. He just cuts angles so easily and well. Whilst his midfield game isn't there yet, we have to pesist. He really has all the tools. Also his clutch goal out of the pack from 55 was unbeivable.

 

[Nutsngum]

Saw jack billings today. He looks like an absolute unit now, really obviously super fit.

 

[Snailspace13]

Just in case anybody is really bored on youtube there are streams of TAC games from this year including many Stingrays games. I've just watched a few including the game against the Knights.

Firstly on Hunter
-He never funbles ever. Just so clean, one handed pick ups, his kicking is silky as it gets either side. Once he puts on some size he is going to be so difficlut to tackles. The thing that separetes Clarke form other players is his willingness to move the ball forwards.
Its interesting because if you just describe his attributes with no influence of the knoweldge of his performances you would say his is exactly what we need. Despite the supposed clear top 4 of the draft.

After more vision he is very simmilar to Shaun Higgins/Lachie Whitfield which is everything we need.

Nick Coffield
-Coff is just so creative and composed. His kick is very penetrating however what is going to allow him to become a midfielder is his step. He just cuts angles so easily and well. Whilst his midfield game isn't there yet, we have to pesist. He really has all the tools. Also his clutch goal out of the pack from 55 was unbeivable.

I have watched some of those TAC games and agree with you Ads.
Both players look very classy indeed.
Just on our 2 x1st rd picks (which as mentioned above,look like 2great picks).If we had picks 6&8 going into the Draft,with all the talk on Stephensons Heart issue,and the top5 mids taken,does anyone know if would have taken Stevo or did we have Clark and Coffield locked in

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

Our list is littered with no compusure,vision and football smarts. I believe the club has realised this and will be looking to the next few drafts to fix this issue. How we could draft so many headless chooks is astonishing. Spent too much time on character and not enough on actual football ability. This year it was a focus based on who we selected. Some may still i.prove but guys like gilbert newnes acres and webster will always undo there good work with basic football errors. Even savage just bombs it at time to no one. The list goes on.

see i think thats misconception... yes we have at times had the players rush it out and just kick and hope but i think that is more a sign of inexperiance then one of skill level.. i remember early on Joey being a prime candidate of that just looking paniced when he got the ball rear of centre it took a few years of experiance to see him calm down and back himself to hit the right target.. Robbo is another one who in his early years would just bang it on the boot ... in other teams such as hawthorn the experiance they had around their younger guys took some of the pressure off with out team being one of the youngest we dont have that but if you look at the panic acts from last season and compare it with previous years it is on the improve ..

 

[Sab22]

I agree, our disposal and decision making is deplorable at times.
However, we're not the worst, more a few kinks to iron out with goal conversion imo.
It's not as bad as you say, but then again, things rarely are

View attachment 446561

Funny that Drug Lords and Plastics made finals.

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[Marlo]

I may live in the past when every team had an enforcer or two, who stood up to opposition players, who just literally took no shit from them. The rest of the team stood tall with those type on the team and IMO this what Jack Newnes also brings to the team, a tough no nonsense type who takes no shit from opposition players. May not be a superstar but is one tough hombre & just the sort of player we need in going forward.

That's why I'm hot and cold on Mav.

He can do the odd flashy wow thing, but he needs to forget Top Gun Superstar idea, and embrace the Liam Picken scrubber role that got the Dogs a flag.

Needs to simplify his game so it will shine in finals in particular. He's often caught in two minds, and needs to eradicate that from his game. Shouldn't be getting caught holding the ball. Shouldn't be having long range shots if Billings is free, etc. I get that he can pull it off on the odd occassion and it looks awesome, but those flashy moments shouldn't be his first thought if he is refining his role for consistency within his ability.

We need a relentless dog that makes timid opposition players crumble in finals. The last thing we need is turn overs from role players.

 

[aussierulesrules]

Firstly

Firstly to compare Acres, who pretty much played 998 per cent of the year as a winger /half forward and was lucky to play maybe 100 minutes total as an inside mid combined to players like Oliver and Cripps is just silly. If you want a fair comparison of clearance ability for guys who have played on the wings

Gaff, Sidebottom etc.

There is a signinficant difference between playing on the ball and playing on the wing. More importantly the way Acres is switched across positions across the ground means that it is more diffuclt to find a consistant high level of clearances. Compared to Cripps who pretty much plays soley as an inside Mid as does Oliver
.

But who's suggesting that he should be finding a "consistently high level of clearances"!?

Do you really think I don't know how much harder it is to win clearances when playing on the wing than it is when playing on the inside?

It's not impossible though, hence Sincs having 39 of them this year, despite spending from what I observed zero minutes playing in the middle.

Yet he still managed to have 6 in one game and 5 in a couple more, which is more than Blake has had in any game in his career- despite having spent considerable time playing midfield in some games and having also played plenty on the wing, like Sincs was.

And of course it would be silly to compare Blake's clearance winning to that if the likes of Bont/Cripps/Oliver from an overall perspective, but that wasn't what I was doing.

What I was doing was pointing out that they had games of high number of clearances (eg. 7, 8, 9, etc) within games of their debut, at 18/19/20yo, whereas Blake hasn't even had a 5 in a game, in four seasons and 44 games.

Surely if he has this natural clearance winning ability that I'm suggesting he doesn't have like those others do he would have snuck in a 6, 7 or 8 game or two somewhere along the line. Like he snuck in some high disposal quarters.

Oliver like I said had an 8 and four 7's within 13 games in his first year, including a 7 in his very first game and again in his 3rd. Within his first 13 games Cripps had had two 9's, two 8's and two 7's, etc. And they did this when they were just unfit "pups". They didn't need to have lots of games there to start showing this ability. It came almost instantly.

If Blake was within cooee of these types when it comes to natural clearance winning ability he would have shown it by now and we'd have had him in there more, because it's not like we've had a Sydney like plethora of inside beasts.

The club would have a better idea of this than any of us and the fact they hardly play him in there speaks volumes to me, as they would have seen how he goes there in training, in the VFL, and the AFL, and if he was better than I'm suggesting he is at it, they'd have surely had him in there more to put it to good use.

Now I'm not saying that he can't or won't get good at it eventually, but at this stage I don't believe it's a strength, which is why it's probably hard to pinpoint his best position at the moment.

 

[gringo2011]

But who's suggesting that he should be finding a "consistently high level of clearances"!?

Do you really think I don't know how much harder it is to win clearances when playing on the wing than it is when playing on the inside?

It's not impossible though, hence Sincs having 39 of them this year, despite spending from what I observed zero minutes playing in the middle.

Yet he still managed to have 6 in one game and 5 in a couple more, which is more than Blake has had in any game in his career- despite having spent considerable time playing midfield in some games and having also played plenty on the wing, like Sincs was.

And of course it would be silly to compare Blake's clearance winning to that if the likes of Bont/Cripps/Oliver from an overall perspective, but that wasn't what I was doing.

What I was doing was pointing out that they had games of high number of clearances (eg. 7, 8, 9, etc) within games of their debut, at 18/19/20yo, whereas Blake hasn't even had a 5 in a game, in four seasons and 44 games.

Surely if he has this natural clearance winning ability that I'm suggesting he doesn't have like those others do he would have snuck in a 6, 7 or 8 game or two somewhere along the line. Like he snuck in some high disposal quarters.

Oliver like I said had an 8 and four 7's within 13 games in his first year, including a 7 in his very first game and again in his 3rd. Within his first 13 games Cripps had had two 9's, two 8's and two 7's, etc. And they did this when they were just unfit "pups". They didn't need to have lots of games there to start showing this ability. It came almost instantly.

If Blake was within cooee of these types when it comes to natural clearance winning ability he would have shown it by now and we'd have had him in there more, because it's not like we've had a Sydney like plethora of inside beasts.

The club would have a better idea of this than any of us and the fact they hardly play him in there speaks volumes to me, as they would have seen how he goes there in training, in the VFL, and the AFL, and if he was better than I'm suggesting he is at it, they'd have surely had him in there more to put it to good use.

Now I'm not saying that he can't or won't get good at it eventually, but at this stage I don't believe it's a strength, which is why it's probably hard to pinpoint his best position at the moment.

I get your point but you have chosen examples of two of the very best young extractors who had very quick career starts. Blake isn't them but it's also valid to not compare him with out having him play there. I don't think it suits his skill set anyway as his burst speed isn't great, but set him off loping away and nothing stops him. I have seen Sincs set up at around the ground stoppages too so might be where he's winning clearances.

 

[aussierulesrules]

I get your point but you have chosen examples of two of the very best young extractors who had very quick career starts. Blake isn't them but it's also valid to not compare him with out having him play there.

He has played there though, which is part of my point and I gave examples of those instances and how few clearances he got on those particular occasions.

The main examples I used were that patch of 5 games at the end of 2016, when he spent a lot of time in the middle (after Dunstan went down with his shoulder), where he was going so well that he got the 2nd most votes in the B&F for that period of games, yet the most clearances he got in any of those games was 3. And that was at the end of his 3rd season, when he was in the best form of his short career.

For him to have not even gotten half the 7/8/9 clearances in any of those games that the likes of Oliver and Cripps were getting in games on a regular basis within games of their debut just says to me that there's a fair gulf in natural clearance winning abilities there.

Then late this year in that quarter where he was going so well on the ball that he got a whopping 15 disposals for the quarter, not even one of those 15 was a clearance, which is just further evidence to me that it just isn't his bag, at least not at the moment.

Which is surely why the club don't play him there more. If he was really good at winning clearances and is the 191cm-ish that he is, and has the other abilities that he has (like running/linebreaking) I would have thought we'd be trying to build our midfield around him, not only throwing him in there occasionally! But that's just my opinion.

 

[gringo2011]

He has played there though, which is part of my point and I gave examples of those instances and how few clearances he got on those particular occasions.

The main examples I used were that patch of 5 games at the end of 2016, when he spent a lot of time in the middle (after Dunstan went down with his shoulder), where he was going so well that he got the 2nd most votes in the B&F for that period of games, yet the most clearances he got in any of those games was 3. And that was at the end of his 3rd season, when he was in the best form of his short career.

For him to have not even gotten half the 7/8/9 clearances in any of those games that the likes of Oliver and Cripps were getting in games on a regular basis within games of their debut just says to me that there's a fair gulf in natural clearance winning abilities there.

Then late this year in that quarter where he was going so well on the ball that he got a whopping 15 disposals for the quarter, not even one of those 15 was a clearance, which is just further evidence to me that it just isn't his bag, at least not at the moment.

Which is surely why the club don't play him there more. If he was really good at winning clearances and is the 191cm-ish that he is, and has the other abilities that he has (like running/linebreaking) I would have thought we'd be trying to build our midfield around him, not only throwing him in there occasionally! But that's just my opinion.

I think we agree, Oliver really wins contested ball better than nearly anyone I have seen.....I don't think he would have had more than about 5 kicks a game even though he must have averaged about 30 possessions PG this year. To say he's handball happy is an understatement. Cripps is a freakishly tall extractor, both are much more suited to being full time inside mids. I don't know what Seb's clearance rates are like but he's played predominantly a more outside role and probably the guy Acres needs to over take for that role.

 

[can coach]

Some of the best insite that Iv seen really

 

[toxic]

Our list is littered with no compusure,vision and football smarts. I believe the club has realised this and will be looking to the next few drafts to fix this issue. How we could draft so many headless chooks is astonishing. Spent too much time on character and not enough on actual football ability. This year it was a focus based on who we selected. Some may still i.prove but guys like gilbert newnes acres and webster will always undo there good work with basic football errors. Even savage just bombs it at time to no one. The list goes on.

Xmas lunch drinks i assume

 

[VDS66]

Xmas lunch drinks i assume

Ran out of repeat prescriptions...

 

[Premium]

We have now got a team that will push high into finals , imagine if Armitage , Steven , Weller get back to their best and Steele , Billings , Dunstan , Gresham , Sinclair , Acres , Ross , Stevens and Freeman all step up we are in for a great year and with many x - factors to look at with Austin , Goddard , Battle , Hunter - Clark , Coffield , Long , McCartin.

 

[toxic]

We have no got a team that will push high into finals , imagine if Armitage , Steven , Weller get back to their best and Steele , Billings , Dunstan , Gresham , Sinclair , Acres , Ross , Stevens and Freeman all step up we are in for a great year and with many x - factors to look at with Austin , Goddard , Battle , Hunter - Clark , Coffield , Long , McCartin.

I confused - have or have not got a team?

 

[Premium]

I confused - have or have not got a team?

sorry we now have a team

 

[toxic]

sorry we now have a team

Agreed

 

[Brains Trust66]

I never thought I would be missing Roo and Joey already especially when I saw this photo on the afl site

Can’t wait for 2018 season.

 

[Premium]

Agreed

Toxic your thoughts on the Magpies next year - any chance they can improve.
I feel Roos , Suns , West Coast , Carlton , Lions , Fremantle , Hawthorn and Magpies will be the bottom 8
and top 10
GWS
Essendon
Saints
Cats
Tigers
Crows
Demons
Sydney
Dogs
Port

 

[toxic]

Toxic your thoughts on the Magpies next year - any chance they can improve.
I feel Roos , Suns , West Coast , Carlton , Lions , Fremantle , Hawthorn and Magpies will be the bottom 8
and top 10
GWS
Essendon
Saints
Cats
Tigers
Crows
Demons
Sydney
Dogs
Port

All depends on injuries for us.

Already faz and elliot and our true elite mover is 34 or 35.

Saying that we have a favorable draw. I think we'll make the 8

 

[Premium]

All depends on injuries for us.

Already faz and elliot and our true elite mover is 34 or 35.

Saying that we have a favorable draw. I think we'll make the 8

good luck - you could surprise

 

[Sab22]

I feel like Acres is type of player who could do a Danger - Fyfe - Martin type. Impacting in the midfield and kicking goals. Steven, Armitage, Ross ain't those mids who have consistency with kicking goals. Acres showed that he can kick goals in 2017, so I kinda hope he can get like 20 - 40 goals in 2018.

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