Player Watch Steele Sidebottom

[Kilmo]

Another bump of this great thread.

Steele Sidebottom currently 2nd in the AFL Coaches Champion Player votes after four rounds.

LEADERBOARD
26 Tom Mitchell (Haw)
24 Steele Sidebottom (Coll)
23 Brodie Grundy (Coll)
23 Rory Laird (Adel)
23 Dustin Martin (Rich)
22 Ben Brown (NM)
19 Max Gawn (Melb)
18 Stephen Coniglio (GWS)
18 Trent Cotchin (Rich)
18 Lance Franklin (Syd)
18 Nat Fyfe (Frem)

 

[Kilmo]

Spewing we missed out on the Lever/Sidebottom trade.

Indeed!

Lever worst on ground in an 11 goal thrashing
Sidebottom best on ground in an 8 goal victory

 

[Maggie5]

Haunting eyes and beautiful smile, love the smile when he kicks a goal.

Oh and by the way, not a bad one club player. Simply the best!

 

[Collingwoodity]

Haha what a laugh this thread is. Easily top 3 for us overall and has been for a long time. Classy on both feet and dangerous when he goes forward.

Whilst I agree with you, I don’t agree that he has been as good as he has been this year in previous years.


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[Collingwoodity]

Currently sitting on at least 7 Brownlow votes

Grundy and Sidebottom have been phenomenal this year.


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[The Dawes]

fingers crossed he finally gets some acknowledgement in the form of All Australian selection this year.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

I’m just stunned that he is such a beast inside player, have we been playing him in the wrong position his entire career ?

No. Hes a pretty decent allrounder.

 

[Saintly Viewed]

fingers crossed he finally gets some acknowledgement in the form of All Australian selection this year.

All jokes aside on the 4 rounds he must be a certainty if stayed same level.

It always check the dingbats that vote that will tell the tale

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

He has lost the brain-fade lazy easy 35 metre kicks that used to miss the target. It was the most (only???) frustrating part of his game. Hopefully its gone for good.

 

[Vicky Park]

Another bump of this great thread.

Steele Sidebottom currently 2nd in the AFL Coaches Champion Player votes after four rounds.

LEADERBOARD
26 Tom Mitchell (Haw)
24 Steele Sidebottom (Coll)
23 Brodie Grundy (Coll)
23 Rory Laird (Adel)
23 Dustin Martin (Rich)
22 Ben Brown (NM)
19 Max Gawn (Melb)
18 Stephen Coniglio (GWS)
18 Trent Cotchin (Rich)
18 Lance Franklin (Syd)
18 Nat Fyfe (Frem)

And look who's 3rd.

 

[BringouttheGimp]

I would like acknowledgement for sticking by this bloke from the first game he played up until now.. he's a gun.. simple as that. Barometer and a potential captain.

God how I get things right it's ridiculous. The Greek intuition re.. thank the Gods to have been born Greek re.

I f luv youz man.

 

[Black_White]

Haunting eyes and beautiful smile, love the smile when he kicks a goal.

Oh and by the way, not a bad one club player. Simply the best!

Took less money, and the chance to play at a club closer to the window, to remain loyal.

 

[Magpie Ink]

On the positive side for those who wrote Sidey off, at least his great form means the Pies are a better chance of winning games.

Unless of course for the odd Troll who would be pissed off both ways

 

[Boris the Contradiction]

Let's be honest. Steele is currently playing at a much higher level then he ever has previously. Just because he's always been a good footballer, doesn't mean he can't have a break out season. He is currently having one.

Prior to this season, Steele has always been a very good, solid, classy player.

However, despite being reasonably consistent from game to game, he was extremely inconsistent within games. Almost every week he would have these uber productive periods where he would get the ball a lot in very short periods, then go completely cold and do crap all for even longer periods. Despite solid numbers, he also lacked significant impact even when playing well, other than when we played him deep forward, where we almost never seemed to play him, despite it so obviously being his natural role.

I personally thought the trade suggestions were warranted - not for bloody Lever, but warranted. That said, Steele's popularity in the dressing room would've made it a very risky play by the club. He was an aesthetically pleasing player with a very good external reputation, which exceeded the actual value he brought to the team. He was therefore a prime trade candidate because we would likely have gotten disproportionately good value for him.

What we are seeing this year is a completely different player. He is still having the uber productive periods where he gets a lot of the ball, but he is punctuating them with solid, sustained contributions for the remainder of the game. He has also significantly improved his clearance work to an elite level and the result is that he is genuinely dominating games in the same way that the universally accepted 'superstars' like Dangerfield, Fyfe and Martin do, or like Swanny did. Pendlebury for example, despite his greatness, has never dominated games like that. We are simply seeing top echelon, elite, champion performances from this guy.

Hopefully he can keep this going and it becomes the new norm, because with his skill set we could have a proper monster on our hands.

 

[Anzacday]

He has lost the brain-fade lazy easy 35 metre kicks that used to miss the target. It was the most (only???) frustrating part of his game. Hopefully its gone for good.

Annoyed the crap out me too.
Wonder if Buddha has had an impact there - he was very good on his left.

 

[Mudeo]

I think he's always had the capacity, just rarely plays that inside role.

This. With the addition of Phillips in the team it looks like Sidebottom has had a change of program. I was starting to get a little worried over the past couple of preseasons when he wasnt winning the TT anymore but looking at him its obvious they have looked to give Steele more balance to his game.

Genius move that should have been made years ago. He doesnt have the leg speed for an outside mid and didnt have the size for an inside mid until now and wow what a start to the season.

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[Timmy from Thomastown]

Annoyed the crap out me too.
Wonder if Buddha has had an impact there - he was very good on his left.

I can’t recall if Steele’s unforced errors were on the left or right boot but I’m glad they haven’t been occuring so far this season.

It wasn’t a skill issue, more between the ears.

 

[Andrewy]

Annoyed the crap out me too.
Wonder if Buddha has had an impact there - he was very good on his left.

On a slight tangent I reckon Buddha has said to him that " you are the man this year and next".." forget feeding Pendles and Adams...they will look after you"..'Treloar at stoppages; Grundy will force the play; the young kids will just keep running..so.." .."step on up..you are the man!"
or something similar as I dont think its a skill thing more a headspace change

 

[Soaring Magpie]

Looking forward to him tearing it up again on ANZAC Day

 

[jmac70]

Looking forward to him tearing it up again on ANZAC Day

Short odds for the medal I reckon. He’s playing at the very highest level.

 

[Saintly Viewed]

Short odds for the medal I reckon. He’s playing at the very highest level.

Might be giving the Brownlow a shake too

 

[oswood]

This. With the addition of Phillips in the team it looks like Sidebottom has had a change of program. I was starting to get a little worried over the past couple of preseasons when he wasnt winning the TT anymore but looking at him its obvious they have looked to give Steele more balance to his game.

Genius move that should have been made years ago. He doesnt have the leg speed for an outside mid and didnt have the size for an inside mid until now and wow what a start to the season.

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Seems like he’s gained some size and playing with more aggression round the contest... I always thought he looked a little lame the way he runs around with his forearms kind of dangling (particularly after he broke his hand a couple years back), but seems to be stronger this year, a little more like Ben cunnington, great to see

 

[Robroy22]

He's an elite midfielder that's just been unfortunate to have always had other (bigger) elite mids in front of him in the pecking order. Swan, Ball, Beams, Pendles. Those last few games last season when Pendles was out really gave SS a chance to be that "main man midfielder" and he took the chance and ran with it.
So its not that he's never had the physical strength to play the role before, its that the role was never his to play before now.
He's an elite reader of play, a great crumber and his vision allows him to feed others just as well as Pendles can. He's obviously been told to use his right foot a lot more this year too, because he's dumped his dinky little left foot passes in favour of longer precision kicks.
Always been a gun, now he's just our number one gun.
Go Steele.

 

[sr36]

On a slight tangent I reckon Buddha has said to him that " you are the man this year and next".." forget feeding Pendles and Adams...they will look after you"..'Treloar at stoppages; Grundy will force the play; the young kids will just keep running..so.." .."step on up..you are the man!"
or something similar as I dont think its a skill thing more a headspace change

I don't know it was Buddha, but I reckon the bloke who showed him the whereabouts of the weights room is the one who deserves praise. To me he's always been an inside mid in waiting - waiting until he was strong enough. He's always had all of the other tools: fabulous balance, clever body positioning, excellent play reading, quick decisions, vision, composure, creativity, clean hands, skills and endurance. Love him.

 

[The Plowking]

2017:
Should offer him as part of a trade for Lynch.

2018: Gun. Don't trade.

(am I doing this BF thing right?)