Thornton

[Grundy36]

T-Bird
28 touches
12 marks[/quote

he has punched above his weight for years and with those stats he still gets bagged.. give him a break..

 

[rdhopkins2]

Thornton IMO showed true blue spirit & was fantastic for the first 3/4 of the game. There were a few occasions where his disposal was average but overall he played brilliantly, held his end up, didn't let you down.

Bad luck on the loss, but at least you opened up the game, played an exciting brand of footy and made it enjoyable to watch. Judd won't make a team by himself overnight but he will be a fantastic role model and leader for you guys. Good luck for the rest of the season.

 

[HBF]

Worst player in the afl time after time cant kick for sh1t should not be geting a game with us or the bullants would give them a bad name dont say its only round one week after week his like that please carlton get rid of him ......

You're kidding me right?
He's very cool under pressure, and unlike most backman, is good on his non-dominant foot. He is also very good overhead, and very rarely outmarked. Thought he was one of our best last night.

 

[wdgann]

Thornton is a shocking player. Glad people are starting to wake up

He is slow
He cant kick
He is too short to be a key defender

He is good for nothing except switching play and passing backwards which anyone can do

 

[AlecDuncan]

Well, that's two idiots identified then.

 

[thylacine60]

Thornton IMO showed true blue spirit & was fantastic for the first 3/4 of the game. There were a few occasions where his disposal was average but overall he played brilliantly, held his end up, didn't let you down.

Bad luck on the loss, but at least you opened up the game, played an exciting brand of footy and made it enjoyable to watch. Judd won't make a team by himself overnight but he will be a fantastic role model and leader for you guys. Good luck for the rest of the season.

Cheers. Genuinely appreciated. Clever how we are dodging you blokes till the bitter end.

 

[prettyboy65]

Thornton played well
got alot of the ball and took some good marks
but if he could just improve his kicking he would have potential to be one of the better defenders in the game
his disposal cost us at a few points but then his saving marks in defence helped
just out of interest
what did hawthorn offer for him?

 

[Blues_Man]

If a few other players had 30 touches, we may have just won the game .

How could any moron bag Thornton when he was possibly our best player on the night ??

The imbeciles are astounding in their lack of intelligence .

 

[BlueWorld]

Coaches votes on FC gave Thornton best player for us.

 

[The Maleman]

Re: Thornton
Quote:
Originally Posted by THE_GUN
i actually thought thornton was one of carltons better defenders tonight



Sorry if I'm wrong but Thonrton played over a half on the wing man on man with N Brown. Only was on Richo for about 20 mins & richo kicked 2 on him & 1 shanked kick that fell way short.

Thornton seems to have so much time but burns the ball a lot! Mayb he should take a leaf ot ouf Peter Deans book and use the handball more often instead of being the turnover king!

 

[jd2006]

i must admitt im not the biggest fan of thornton or of his game on thursday. but what is more disappointing to me is not he slow moving of the ball or his turnovers but his development as a defender.

back in the dark days when he was holding down the full back position at about 20 21 yrs old we were constantly saying give this guy time, this is all going to help his development.

now at 24 yrs old with a number of yrs of development under his belt and 110 games he really should be a top class defender. consider this ben rutten is 5 months older than brett has played 29 less games yet he is arguably the best defender in the AFL. just like brett, rutten was taken as a rookie if i remember correctly. so why is it that brett has stagnated and become a roaming half back flanker with average skills at best, when with his experience he should be pushing for AA selection. 24 yrs old is around the perfect age for players to be really making people take notice of them for the right reasons.

 

[prettyboy65]

Re: Thornton
Quote:
Originally Posted by THE_GUN
i actually thought thornton was one of carltons better defenders tonight



Sorry if I'm wrong but Thonrton played over a half on the wing man on man with N Brown. Only was on Richo for about 20 mins & richo kicked 2 on him & 1 shanked kick that fell way short.

Thornton seems to have so much time but burns the ball a lot! Mayb he should take a leaf ot ouf Peter Deans book and use the handball more often instead of being the turnover king!

agreed
he has a lot of talent
can people stop being so insulting about people opinions
they are aloud to have them
and everyone is backing them up wif facts aswell

 

[Magnificence]

agreed
he has a lot of talent
can people stop being so insulting about people opinions
they are aloud to have them
and everyone is backing them up wif facts aswell

Sometimes u need to be harsh on people who are blind as it makes me cringe when people have a go at a guy who played like T-Bird did the other nite... he was sensational

 

[wdgann]

one of the reasons why we are s**t is because we are too slow to take the axe for people that cannot play. Thornton would not make any of the top sides and he should have been axed 2 years ago or traded to Hawthorn

Many of you guys defending Thornton are young and immature andhave never seen a good carlton side

 

[Master of Cooks]

one of the reasons why we are s**t is because we are too slow to take the axe for people that cannot play. Thornton would not make any of the top sides and he should have been axed 2 years ago or traded to Hawthorn

Many of you guys defending Thornton are young and immature andhave never seen a good carlton side

He was clearly one of our best the other night. Even the coaches backed that up, and i would think that they would know best. But forget that. Lets say we dump Thornton. Now from your mature expert opinion who would you put into the team to replace him to make us a better team?

I await your humorous reply.

 

[prettyboy65]

we dont dump him
we pt him on the trading block at the end of the seasn
see what gets offered
the problem is we dont have s strong full back
thornton needs to be playing half back flank to create play (only if kicking improves)

 

[Thrawn]

one of the reasons why we are s**t is because we are too slow to take the axe for people that cannot play. Thornton would not make any of the top sides and he should have been axed 2 years ago or traded to Hawthorn

Thornton would slot in nicely as a 3rd backman in a lot of sides. He is clearly our best defender and one of our best on Thursday night.

Many of you guys defending Thornton are young and immature andhave never seen a good carlton side

What a dumb assumption. I was old enough to appreciate the Carlton '95 side in all its glory. Having witnessed a Carlton premiership or not has nothing to do with the value of Thornton on the team in any case.

And why are people comparing him to Rutten? Rutten is a genuine FB - he has the body and the height to tackle the big forwards whereas Thornton simply does not have that kind of build.

 

[Kramer1]

Many of you guys defending Thornton are young and immature andhave never seen a good carlton side

Honestly, why bother replying. You shoot holes in your own arguments with idiotic statements like that.

 

[westbrom]

He was one of our best in the second half but in the first half when he was getting heaps of the ball, he was a turnover king I thought.

I like seeing him with a bit of time these days though, he has probably earned it.

TWO of his possessions in the 1st half did not hit their target, neither cost us an opposition goal. He also had one kick smothered. Released targets forward (not laterally or backwards) consistently. When you consider that 1st half consisted of 17 possessions I would hardly consider him the 'turnover king'. The truth is that he was easily our best player and he also gave us more forward momentum than any other player. Very good game by Thornton and if he cannot please people with that game he never will.

If Andrew McLeod had Thornton's exact game, everyone would be singing his praises. leaves me completely baffled

 

[Jezza U Beauty]

How anybody can bag Thornton after he was CLEARLY BOG is absolutely beyond me. He took at least one fantastic contested pack mark about 25 out from our goal, and absolutely destroyed Nathan Brown, who did nothing all night until Thornton was moved off him.

Here are the facts.

He had 28 touches - the most in our side, and most on the ground. His effective disposal percentage was 71% - that is equal to or better than Kade Simpson, Shaun Grigg, Marc Murphy, Heath Scotland and Ryan Houlihan had.

He had 12 marks, 3 of which were contested. Again, the most in our side.

He had 3 frees for (most in our side behind Judd), and gave none away.

So he was our best player in the air, best player in terms of possessions, was named best player by the Carlton coaches and didn't use the ball badly by any stretch.

The guy is a gun and we'd be so much worse off without him that it's not funny. Surely the fact that Chris Pelchen (Hawks recruiting manager - widely regarded as the best or equal-best in the AFL) is keen to get hold of him backs this up as a pretty handy second opinion.

 

[thylacine60]

Bet the Hawks wish they had him now if Croad misses weeks. The question I'll put is what would we be saying in pre-match if he was a backman for an opposition team?

 

[wdgann]

where did this term '3rd tall' come from? you are either a defender capable playing on the likes of brown or richardson or you are not. If you are not, then you are capable of playing on some of the smaller strong markers e.g Scott lucas. THornton is capable of neither

further he is incapable of playing the ang christou, ady mackay type role

Therefore, what good is he? pretty simple question which most of you morons seem to answer with '3rd tall'

 

[Jezza U Beauty]

where did this term '3rd tall' come from? you are either a defender capable playing on the likes of brown or richardson or you are not. If you are not, then you are capable of playing on some of the smaller strong markers e.g Scott lucas. THornton is capable of neither

further he is incapable of playing the ang christou, ady mackay type role

Therefore, what good is he? pretty simple question which most of you morons seem to answer with '3rd tall'

He is CLEARLY our best defender. Can you please go back and read my post on page 3 and learn a bit. You should not be calling people "morons".

 

[thylacine60]

where did this term '3rd tall' come from? you are either a defender capable playing on the likes of brown or richardson or you are not. If you are not, then you are capable of playing on some of the smaller strong markers e.g Scott lucas. THornton is capable of neither

further he is incapable of playing the ang christou, ady mackay type role

Therefore, what good is he? pretty simple question which most of you morons seem to answer with '3rd tall'

Who would you replace him with?

 

[Thrawn]

where did this term '3rd tall' come from?

Because he's not big or strong enough to go up against most FFs and CHFs in the league.

you are either a defender capable playing on the likes of brown or richardson or you are not.

No, you're either a big gorilla, a medium sized defender or a small one. Only the best of the best can multi-role and do it constantly - and those players are incredibly rare.

If you are not, then you are capable of playing on some of the smaller strong markers e.g Scott lucas. THornton is capable of neither

In the past Thornton went on forwards who out muscled him and held them pretty well. Richardson, Lloyd, O'Loughlin... to name a few. But a lot of the times he was beaten (ie Gehrig, Riewoldt) because he wasn't strong enough. He's also done jobs on Lucas in the past - take a look at last year when he was switched on him after half time in Round 3. This was a Lucas in arguably career best form, and he held him well enough so he didn't have much influence on the game thereafter. He has also played on small forwards such as Milne and Williams with reasonable success.

further he is incapable of playing the ang christou, ady mackay type role

He is pretty good as a sweeper. He may not be as tough as Andy McKay or as smooth as Ang was, but he gets the job done better than anyone on our backline.

Therefore, what good is he? pretty simple question which most of you morons seem to answer with '3rd tall'

What good is he?

He's good enough to be BOG for us on Thursday night, along with taking a pretty good scale in Brown. He is our best defender, and I think he's important for the team.