Who's Our Most Important Player

[Daics35Marvel]

Thought I'd gauge the Collingwood BF community to find out who you thought is currently our most important player. I'll try and make a case for each of the selections and then let you decide:

Ball: Tackles like a maniac, wins plenty of clearances, very reliable shot for goal which steadies the team when it seems everyone else is missing (vs Sydney and Carlton). The back-ups for his position (J. Thomas, Beams among others) are less developed than for our other midfield positions. Is this enough to consider him our most important player?

Cloke: A few years ago, he was regularly touted as our most important player. After a few lean years he has again emerged as a force. With our thin depth at KPF and in his current form, is Cloke again our most important?

Jolly: Over the off-season, he was the popular choice due to our relatively thin ruck stocks. But then he missed a bunch of games mid-year and we kept on winning. Should he still be regarded as our most important player or have others gone past him?

Pendles: Every year his game has gone to another level. Now vying for the mantle as the best player in the league. Could he be a top 5 player in the comp and yet not our most important?

Swan: 3 time Copeland winner, won just about every award last year, exceptionally quick, strong and reads the play as well as anyone in the game. Recent injuries have thwarted his output a little and yet he still deserves to be in the discussion.

Thomas: Think back to GF1 and more recently the Adelaide game when we were behind for 3 1/2 quarters. Who was busting their gut to keep/drag us back into the game? This man. When the chips are down, he doubles his effort and is regularly in our bests when it counts.

But then again, Collingwood are just full of B-grade players who are very well coached .

 

[lozza63]

Daisy - driven type who plays with such flair and panache!

Bally - the extractor and our barometer - when he plays well the rest follow.

Pendles - our most efficient performer, sides look to tagging him to stop us.

Jolly - simply must have him fit and firing at the pointy end.

Cloke - this colossus is our main weapon. Trav is the most important.

 

[jonbe54]

Daisy - The most improved player on our list - possibly in the league, incredibly hard at the ball and ball carrier, covers amazing territory both with the ball and running for team mates which just isn't picked up on TV. Yet still capable of producing spectacular bursts of brilliance.

Bally - The final piece in our premiership puzzle, an unquenchable appetite for the contest, vastly improved even since last year, a clubman par excellence and a role model for our young mids.

Pendles - How do you describe this guy? Apart from blistering pace and a monstrous kick he has it all. Poise, balance, vision, creative disposal to advantage, inside, outside he does it all and has time to spare while opponents flounder behind him.

Jolly - Our midfield tower of strength, made a huge difference for us last year finally allowing Pendles and co first use of the ball, turned a super competitive midfield into a deadly dangerous creative midfield in one fell swoop.

Cloke - The hard thing to remember is this guy is still only 24 and just coming into his physical prime as a KPF, the terrifying thing for our opponents is he is steadily improving even while dominating the contested marking and improving his goal kicking this year.

Who's the most important?

Hard to gauge as they all contribute essential ingredients to the mix so I'll go with who gives us the most unique and hard to replace advantage.

Cloke - the guy is a monster who unbalances every opposition backline.

 

[PremierPie13]

Cloke followed by Pendles imo. Jolly needs to find some form if we want to have more influence at the stoppages come finals time and I'd put him at 3. Thomas will dominate the big games as per usual

 

[loki04]

That's a hard choice between the players listed but 1 game you missed that Jolly didn't play in, was our only loss vs the cats and we were spanked in the center.

If Geelong kicked accurately we would of lost by 6 goals.

So for finals he would be our most important it's critical that your Ruckman doesn't allow easy taps to the opposition or into space for the opponents to run into. The game starts in the middle.

 

[mattys123]

Where's the Alan Toovey option?

I voted Cloke, but it's arguable between him and Jolly, simply because both are completely non replaceable, well at least from within our current list.

I may be joking about Toovey, but I see him as one of our 5-6 most important players now, simply because he is the defender you know you can rely on to shut a player down when you need it most.

 

[handy point]

When it comes down to playing against Kruezer, Hampson, Ottens etc in the finals, Jolly is our most important player, IMO.

 

[smiddaz123]

I'd have Cloke well ahead of Jolly in terms of importance. When Jolly was out, we still performed fine didn't we? I also have enough confidence in our midfield to perform and win the ball even if we're losing the ruck battle.

Cloke and Pendlebury are the two most important imo.

 

[iGNITER]

Cant go past Clokey at the moment.


Another one is Ben Reid. VERY important to our back 6. Doesnt give away too many goals and has a weapon of a left foot. Love seeing the ball in his hands for the clearing kick out of defence.
Especially with no N.Brown now he becomes even more important.

 

[Avatar]

Cloke for mine easily with the form he has been in this year.

Provides a strong contest every time he goes near the ball, wins the contest more often than not. Even when he misses shots on goal it's not the worst thing because it has given us time to set up for the kick-in and try and get the ball back quickly.

Not having Cloke would affect the way we play and our performance more than any others listed.

Davis has become a pretty important player this year also, even moreso now with Shaw and Toovey out.

 

[jonbe54]

Cloke for mine easily with the form he has been in this year.

Provides a strong contest every time he goes near the ball, wins the contest more often than not. Even when he misses shots on goal it's not the worst thing because it has given us time to set up for the kick-in and try and get the ball back quickly.

Not having Cloke would affect the way we play and our performance more than any others listed.

Davis has become a pretty important player this year also, even moreso now with Shaw and Toovey out.

On a side note imagine the state we'd be in if we hadn't have nabbed Taz and turned Leon into a near AA back pocket!!

Sure there's a chance that a Rounds or Buckley type would have stepped up but I'd say a bigger chance that we would be fighting it out for fourth position with the pack.

 

[Ed D]

Jolly for sure. The difference between him and Wood is huge and it's the main reason we lost against Geelong earlier in the year. Getting first use of the ball to our midfielders is a massive advantage and then being able to be a dangerous forward on top of nullifying his opponent is something Wood can't do.

Cloke is really important at this stage but with a firing Dawes we can cover him. Especially when we don't play through Cloke as our only scoring option. Having guys like Didak back would also help cover his loss.

So I guess going into round 18 without Dawes or Didak, perhaps Cloke is more important but overall Jolly for mine.

 

[joxstrap]

Voted Cloke, but Reid going down would be a little bit ugly.

GOD FORBID

 

[Ed D]

I'd have Cloke well ahead of Jolly in terms of importance. When Jolly was out, we still performed fine didn't we? I also have enough confidence in our midfield to perform and win the ball even if we're losing the ruck battle.

Cloke and Pendlebury are the two most important imo.

Not sure, we got our only loss of the season mainly because Jolly was out plus we haven't played a game without Cloke so we don't know if we can cover him. We seemed to be able to quite easily last year though.

 

[Avatar]

Not sure, we got our only loss of the season mainly because Jolly was out plus we haven't played a game without Cloke so we don't know if we can cover him. We seemed to be able to quite easily last year though.

Didn't Wood draw the free that led to Pendlebury's disallowed goal that could have won us the match? Jolly would have likely given a free away!

 

[Ed D]

Didn't Wood draw the free that led to Pendlebury's disallowed goal that could have won us the match? Jolly would have likely given a free away!

Ottens was just about BOG that game.

 

[smiddaz123]

Not sure, we got our only loss of the season mainly because Jolly was out plus we haven't played a game without Cloke so we don't know if we can cover him. We seemed to be able to quite easily last year though.

The Geelong game was probably one of both Cloke and Pendlebury's quieter games for the year too, so you could partly attribute the loss to that just as much as Jolly's absence.

 

[Avatar]

Ottens was just about BOG that game.

Yeah, just having a bit of fun.

I agree Jolly is super important but still would have Cloke slightly ahead of him.

 

[Ed D]

The Geelong game was probably one of both Cloke and Pendlebury's quieter games for the year too, so you could partly attribute the loss to that just as much as Jolly's absence.

Of course there are many factors. You could argue Pendles was not getting the ball tapped to him in the ball ups or the midfield was not getting as much clearances to Cloke. In reality Pies played below their potential that game as a whole, but I'd find it hard to think Ottens would be near BOG with Jolly against him.

I guess it's a pointless argument. Both are important to the side, I just find it amazing that in the space of 6 months suddenly (according to this poll) Jolly isn't as important to the side because he's been out injured so long and Cloke is in career best form. With Jolly in form the Pies are much more dangerous IMO and it's the difference between beating good sides and thrashing them.

 

[jonbe54]

Of course there are many factors. You could argue Pendles was not getting the ball tapped to him in the ball ups or the midfield was not getting as much clearances to Cloke. In reality Pies played below their potential that game as a whole, but I'd find it hard to think Ottens would be near BOG with Jolly against him.

I guess it's a pointless argument. Both are important to the side, I just find it amazing that in the space of 6 months suddenly (according to this poll) Jolly isn't as important to the side because he's been out injured so long and Cloke is in career best form. With Jolly in form the Pies are much more dangerous IMO and it's the difference between beating good sides and thrashing them.

Jolly certainly does give us that strut in the midfield and fortunately we don't have to worry about thrashing sides this year, our percentage is massive as it is

Losing either Cloke or Jolly for the finals would be a body blow but I'm not entirely sure we would miss out on a flag even then.

 

[Didak Wine]

An exercise in futility in my opinion. We are not a one man side, our strength is our team effort. Everyone is critical in the forward press. If Pendles is firing, Cloke has a better chance of firing. Just because a question can be asked it doesnt mean there is an answer. When one guy fires, it creates the illusion that others are less important.

 

[Dundalis]

I think we can easily enough cover any single player.

I don't think anyone stands out enough as irreplaceable to make a call on someone. You could just go for the usual suspects (i.e. the best players) but I don't think the loss of any of them would make a very big dent in our performances. I'm pretty sure we have missed just about every player who would be in contention over the past 2 years for at least a game or two and done just fine without them.

 

[Swooop]

Voted Jolly.

Not because he's our best player but his replacement (ie Wood ) would weaken us in that position, more critically than any other player's replacement.

If Cloke went down, we'd have Dawes and Tarrant/Brown to play forward, perhaps Macaffer- we'd be weakened, but not as badly.

Pendles, Swan, Ball, Daisy...we have a plethora of mids so any one of this group out would hurt, but again not so much as having Wood traipse around.

I doubt we'd win a grand final with Wood playing - and Jolly out.

 

[vjknight]

having someone with the ability to receive the amount of delivery we send forward, and convert them as he does from up to 60 metres out, i vote cloke.

i sat thru the frustration of the late 70's/early 80's where we had a good backline, good mids, but absolutely bugger all up forward (hence my enduring love for bernie quinlan). with just one quality marking forward we had flags everywhere.

with our current quality mids, we can survive without a ruckman, we have just enough backmen, and with dawes absent, cloke is on his own, but thankfully strong enough to cope.

 

[Williamc99]

Well in the 70s we had Peter McKenna (but still lost with him in the side) and Phil Carman (suspended in Semi Final '77 and we eventually lost the Replayed Grand Final). I do agree with you though that we did have bugger all up forward. You can't win a Premiership with just one quality forward. What is good about our team is that we have the big guy, Cloke, but we also have all the crumbing forwards as well. We didn't really have that in the 70s or 80s.

As to the question, it's a hard one. We have won a lot of games without Jolly but I bet if he were in the side where we versed Geelong, then we would have won. Pendlebury is an absolute star midfielder and more important than Swan now, imo. Thomas just goes hard at it day in day out and can sometimes be the difference between winning and losing. I'd put Ben Reid up there as well. One of the better kicks in the competition (imo) and doesn't let many goals get kicked against him. I will have to say Cloke though as our most important player. Sure we would have Dawes to cover him or even Tarrant but Cloke is in Career best form. He marks nearly everything he goes for and can set up so many goals with his powerful kick to our crumbing forwards. Without him, I don't think we'd be as good as we are, imo.