Toast Welcome to the AFL Buku Khamis! It’s Buks party time :D

[dogwatch]

In the few games I've seen him I haven't yet seen a whole lot of evidence of his groundskills. They haven't yet passed the eye test for me. And that's notwithstanding his loose-ball goal when it went over the back of the pack on Friday. It was the only good instance I can recall.

The eye test also includes what I've seen in fragments of VFL broadcasts and the 2min 38sec video of his highlights when he kicked 4 or 5 goals in VFL Round 6. There were a couple of handball receives but only one ground ball pickup in that whole clip.

Someone said the other day that what Bevo saw in him as an 18yo was a kid who was a really good intercept mark but he didn't stand out in much else. And he got drafted largely on that one skill (correct me if I've misquoted it, but that's how I remember it).

Before you pile on, I am not saying he doesn't have those ground skills. At his height (190cm - shorter than Bont, Dunkley and Macrae, same height as Lipinski and Hannan) you'd expect that he would. I just want some more evidence before I'm convinced he has them to a significantly greater measure than the likes of similar role players like Cordy and O'Brien. According to the stats he has averaged 4 CPs over his three senior games so I'm prepared to concede I might've missed something if anyone can show me the clips.

What I've liked so far, among other things, are his one-grab marking, his leap, his ability to pinch-hit in the ruck, his forward's IQ, his growing self-belief and his accuracy in shooting for goal.

Hopefully over the next few weeks I can happily add groundskills to that list.

 

[weltschmerz]

In the few games I've seen him I haven't yet seen a whole lot of evidence of his groundskills. They haven't yet passed the eye test for me. And that's notwithstanding his loose-ball goal when it went over the back of the pack on Friday. It was the only good instance I can recall.

The eye test also includes what I've seen in fragments of VFL broadcasts and the 2min 38sec video of his highlights when he kicked 4 or 5 goals in VFL Round 6. There were a couple of handball receives but only one ground ball pickup in that whole clip.

Someone said the other day that what Bevo saw in him as an 18yo was a kid who was a really good intercept mark but he didn't stand out in much else. And he got drafted largely on that one skill (correct me if I've misquoted it, but that's how I remember it).

Before you pile on, I am not saying he doesn't have those ground skills. At his height (190cm - shorter than Bont, Dunkley and Macrae, same height as Lipinski and Hannan) you'd expect that he would. I just want some more evidence before I'm convinced he has them to a significantly greater measure than the likes of similar role players like Cordy and O'Brien. According to the stats he has averaged 4 CPs over his three senior games so I'm prepared to concede I might've missed something if anyone can show me the clips.

What I've liked so far, among other things, are his one-grab marking, his leap, his ability to pinch-hit in the ruck, his forward's IQ, his growing self-belief and his accuracy in shooting for goal.

Hopefully over the next few weeks I can happily add groundskills to that list.

Here's his draft profile. His other big strength when drafted was an excellent kick.

 

[dogwatch]

Here's his draft profile. His other big strength when drafted was an excellent kick.

Thanks, that's an interesting read. It only mentions ball skills once in passing without giving any examples. They are not listed in the bullet points of his strengths. It also suggests he was mainly an outside receiver/rebounder in addition to his intercept marking.

Two things that raised my eyebrows were (1) it talks about his great endurance as one of his strengths - lack of endurance is surely one of the biggest knocks on him at the moment, and (2) he needs to improve his game sense - that's something that I've thought has been quite good so far.

 

[weltschmerz]

Thanks, that's an interesting read. It only mentions ball skills once in passing without giving any examples. They are not listed in the bullet points of his strengths. It also suggests he was mainly an outside receiver/rebounder in addition to his intercept marking.

Two things that raised my eyebrows were (1) it talks about his great endurance as one of his strengths - lack of endurance is surely one of the biggest knocks on him at the moment, and (2) he needs to improve his game sense - that's something that I've thought has been quite good so far.

I reckon his endurance was very good in the beep test type of enviroment, but turned out a bit lacking in VFL games where so much was going on compared to juniors.

 

[doggies ftw]

Thanks, that's an interesting read. It only mentions ball skills once in passing without giving any examples. They are not listed in the bullet points of his strengths. It also suggests he was mainly an outside receiver/rebounder in addition to his intercept marking.

Two things that raised my eyebrows were (1) it talks about his great endurance as one of his strengths - lack of endurance is surely one of the biggest knocks on him at the moment, and (2) he needs to improve his game sense - that's something that I've thought has been quite good so far.

Agree his game sense has been good, genuinely looks like a natural out there, knows where to run where to be etc.

He’s only having 9-10 touches a game so there hasn’t been that many examples of his good ground ball game but he’s had some really nice involvements - if you can be bothered I like to go to the AFL app and you can watch an extended highlights clip for every player which shows all their involvements, good or bad, worth a watch and shows how impressive he’s actually been the last two weeks imo, up that production a little bit, run out the full game and geez we have a player.

I like that he seems to know when to stay down, when to fly, when to get drawn into the contest and when to spread - not easy for any young player to pick up straight away

 

[maddog37]

I think his biggest issue was concentrating the whole time to remain in the contest and provide second and third efforts. Has all the tools but can float a bit when low on gas.