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Raph Clarke

  • Thread starter Thread starter Defacto
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Great game today. Critics should be very silenced.
 
settle down, he had a decent game, 2009 should have been a huge year for him.
 
I was about to scream when I saw the thread title, expecting another 'let's bash Raph' thread. :mad:

Thank you, Defacto, for a good thread and apologies for thinking you were one of the haters. :o

I thought he was very good today. 19 disposals with 84% accuracy, two tackles (one of them was phantastic - would be in the highlight show if it weren't for Gilbert's tackle of the year) and no clangers.

He was tough and courageous (e.g. running backwards for a mark in the 4th quarter) and showed again that he is a very smart footballer (e.g. the incident when Dangerfiedl was hurt - Raph waited and drew two players before he handballed it to Hayes providing him running space).

I never understand why people say that he could hurt us in the finals. Remember last year ? He was one of our best in September - we need players like him who will stand tall when it matters most.

Go Raph !
 

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That thing with Dangerfield was hilarious (not that I want to see the young fella hurt though). Raph probably looked at him on the ground and said wtf happened there?

But he had a very solid game and I was impressed by some of his evasive skills which have been very lacking of late. He made good decisions (mostly) and contributed to a fine win.

Good job Raph!:thumbsu:
 
Nice to see some support for Raph. Almost faultless display today.

I did note the grumble from the crowd whenever he emerged with the ball, but he kept doing the right thing.

I might also mention that he actually was better last week, except he made three errors. This week there was sort of a half error only. Better than most players, I might add.
 
Thought he was great today aswell, he seemed at some moment during the game to find more confidence and I thought he seemed calm and composed when he got the ball. Good on him.
 
Pretty faultless today.

The problem (and it's a good one) is RL likes having Dempster, Baker and R Clarke all in the side at the same time, and still hasn't pushed Dempster to the backline, playing him as a defensive half-forward/wingman. You've got Gilbert, Blake, S Fisher and Dawson all holding their own, and all except Dawson able to play small and tall.

So who comes out for Max? No one next week. Give Max a week at Sandy, if they ever play again.
 
Was really happy with Raph today for the first time this season.

Thought he made a couple of clangers last week which maybe didn't show up on the stats, but was very solid today and he has a good turn of pace on him. Only major problems were a couple of slips (maybe he needs new boots ;))

Going to be really hard to drop anyone for Max next week. I think Dempster should be in for the rest of the season now (assuming he continues to play well). I like Eddy's work ethic, but he's probably one of our weaker links. Would be very stiff to drop Raph after this week's effort.

I've loved the Cougar's work all season, but he's been making a few errors every game for the past 5-6 weeks. He just needs to keep it simple and not try anything too fancy from the back.

Anyway, as the thread is about Raph the last word should be about him - well played mate :thumbsu:
 
Only bad things I saw from him was the miskick on a 20m pass and a few slips in losing his feet, other than that he was rather brilliant in heavy traffic where you would expect him to falter and lose his head, so good on the boy.
 
Much improved on recent effort. We all know it takes him 3-4 games to hit form. Now he has to keep it up, and more importantly, IMPROVE. I won'y be chaning my opinion, but if he can get better and better weekly, i'll happily eat humble pie. but based on 1 game, i wont be changin my opinion. i really hope he shuts me up
 
Oh, I don't want him to shut you up, AFey, I just want him to make you say stuff of a more consistently positive quality. :)
 

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The Punter said:
if they ever play again.
Click to expand...
no way, get f ... oh, sorry Punts, had the old Angels thing going on :o:p jokes.

It was great to see Raph playing with confidence, his pressure & 1% were great plus 19 disposals with a reported 84% efficiency & 6 contested possessions is better than I recall from the game. He has his limitations sure, but he's not on his Pat Malone there. There's still improvement in him which warms the heart & with confidence building hope consistency follows.

Heard some bloke behind me somewhere yelling out "Ralph" today, that gave me a chuckle.
 
Hopefully he's improving, today was better than last week and hopefully next week will be better than this week.

I think he still needs to try and take the game on more and go for the ball harder. His 2nd efforts need major improvement too. Alot of the time when he lost the ball today and ended up on the ground taking way too long to get up. But he's a prospect... as he's always been.
 
Didn't notice any real faults except when he fell over in the backline under absolutely no pressure. He was just walking backwards and BOOM down he went. Was kinda funny but still a little odd an AFL footballer can fall over his own feet.
 
Not sure why Raph gets so polarised. Surely this was just a solid game. Be honest - the delivery into Adelaide's F50 was atrocious at times. Some of it was due to pressure and some due to implied pressure (they thought they were hot even when they weren't). To see TheCock and Tyson Edward's Bestest Buddy put it out on the full showed they were right off.

If anyone had Raph in their top 10 players on the ground (I shudder before I look through the votes thread) I would be gobsmacked.

The Saints had a club record number of possessions, so the 9 kicks and no inside50s from Raph hardly stands out.

And I am yet to locate the thread which congratulates Steven Baker on his game after a flood of negative sentiment recently. I'm sure it is there, something like "I was wrong for saying he was a worthless piece of shit".

It is the same as Kosi - the keyboards get stained after a good game, followed by the cone of silence after a poor game.
 

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Can I vote from here? I don't want to look now. :(

Next you blokes will tell me Kosi played a really smart decoy role, and snuck a couple of votes.
 
Squizzy1970 said:
Not sure why Raph gets so polarised. Surely this was just a solid game. Be honest - the delivery into Adelaide's F50 was atrocious at times. Some of it was due to pressure and some due to implied pressure (they thought they were hot even when they weren't). To see TheCock and Tyson Edward's Bestest Buddy put it out on the full showed they were right off.

If anyone had Raph in their top 10 players on the ground (I shudder before I look through the votes thread) I would be gobsmacked.

The Saints had a club record number of possessions, so the 9 kicks and no inside50s from Raph hardly stands out.

And I am yet to locate the thread which congratulates Steven Baker on his game after a flood of negative sentiment recently. I'm sure it is there, something like "I was wrong for saying he was a worthless piece of shit".

It is the same as Kosi - the keyboards get stained after a good game, followed by the cone of silence after a poor game.
Click to expand...

Yeah - Raph played reliably, but, while it's a positive, I'm not going to declare him to be great just because he didn't have a clanger and give away a game.
Can't say he was better than Eddy, or better than Geary would have been ( had he been selected ).
 
It was his best game of the season to date IMO

I will be more than pleased if he keeps that sort of level up more consistently, as it appears Lyon well and truly has a spot for him in the side saved

I didn't think anyone had a poor game for the Saints yesterday, which was extremely pleasing
 
raph would be about the twentyth best player for the saints yesterday, a record posscession count for the saints and he didnt really have a shut out role his game was ok,the main thing was he done something with the ball , which was good. can only hope he can continue to improve.
 
His game against Adelaide was quite good. I hope he keeps it up against the Bulldogs this week. Would be very handy to have him in his 2008 finals form, come the business end of the season again. Has gone backwards this year overall, so hopefully the Adelaide match are a sign of things to come.
 

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