We have delisted or lost players via FA who may have had some hand in the leadership stakes and with an all-new & revamped list, one with a lot of younger guys, I'm somewhat concerned about the quality & depth of leadership we have at the club right now.
I'm not a fan at all of this invogue "leadership group" concept, in fact I think it's a complete & utter wank. I prefer three people in that group - captain, vice-captain & deputy vice-captain.
With Judd entering his last season of footy and having passed on the captaincy to Marc Murphy, where is our leadership going to come from in the future ??
last year we drafted Cri[[s, Holeman and Giles. They were all Captains of their Clubs at U18's (pretty sure thats correct). If so, there has to be some leadership material amongst that lot.
If that's the case, then that's great news. It shows the club recognises the need for young leaders to come through and compliment our current crew.
He is no good down back and with Jaksch in and the club having to justify taking the latter and trading pick 7 I can see Watson only poistion as down forward....problem being with Jones, Casboult and Henderson ahead of him IMO he will be struggling for senior game time if we dont get injuries..
Given all that I reckon he will be trade material in 2015 and probably get some games at the end of the year to fatten up his trade price....
Completely agree with most of that, however there's still a fair bit of value in Matthew Watson as a depth player given he can play both ends of the ground and do it quite well. We are Carlton, there is no way in hell we make it through a whole season without suffering significant injuries to key position players. Every year we seem to end up playing bunches of games where guys Simon White's size end up having to hold down key position spots.
Having a Matthew Watson who can slot in at either end is invaluable cover, I'd suggest he'll end up playing 10-15 games simply as a result of that. If he fires and cements his spot during those games then I'll be thrilled and I'm sure everyone else will be too. He's a big lump of a kid with a truly outstanding hoof on him. We haven't had a key forward capable of kicking the goals Watson would be capable of since Fev.
Our leaders, aged 24-27, are hardly old at this stage so we should be concentrating on solidifying their skills in this area. Murphy, Gibbs, Henderson, Thomas are those leaders.
When we draft now, we should be looking for leadership qualities in the people we bring in so that we can create the next generation coming through.
It will be the same thing as always. Plays crap seconds football and robs himself of the chance to play seniors where he has shown he could possibly cut the mustard.
Is it that he plays crap seconds footy or that he just does nothing to stand out in the seconds? He doesn't dominate when he plays at that level, he just pretty much serves up the same standard of performance as he does in the ones. In the seconds, that isn't good enough because good players are expected to dominate but in the ones, it's okay because it's serviceable.
Maybe he's just a guy that literally only has one gear and will dish up the same performance playing at AFL level as he would playing in the EFL 4th division?
I used to use a Gilette Mach 3 about once a week, but my crazy girlfriend and I had an argument over some trivial crap last weekend and she decided to throw my razor and all the blades away for some reason (along with hiding all of my phone chargers somewhere and throwing my shower gel out into the yard... like I said, she be crazy).
So last night I used a disposable for the first time since I was 15... and it hurt... I actually went through three of them before I learned the 'one light brush at a time' technique that allowed me to finish the job.
If Thomas was set goals and achieved them in 2014 then bar was set low IMO......700k for what he delivered wasnt a great investment and I remain unconvinced about his top 10 finish in the B&F. We will learn more next season when I expect him to start delivering the returns we are paying him for...
Agree.
The bar would have been set low. One of his achievements would have been to survive a full season relatively unscathed given the last time he achieved that would have been 2011/12ish.
20+ matches is a massive feather in his cap moving forward. From all reports he was cooked and would never be fully fit ever again. That looks less likely now, but still a possibility. That being said, a second season like this one would make his recruitment a disaster, unless we truly have lots of cap space free, and had to spend it somewhere, and decided to recruit Daisy.
All in all its not bad. Another thing that is not being considered, is that Daisy played in a fair few different roles for us this year. Between half back flank, and forward pocket, wing and the occasional run on the ball. That wouldnt assist a lot of players.
For everyone who is questioning it, you sort of get your answer in the names that finished just ahead of him. Docherty missed a fair chunk of the season and yet out voted him. Judd missed almost half the year and out voted him. Even Everitt missed a good 4+ matches and he still polled better. There were enough good games (like the West Coach and Freo matches) that would have gotten Daisy into the votes. Sure, there were enough that would have hurt him, but he played more footy than both Docherty and Judd yet still finished behind them in the B+F.
^^ this...
Hopefully someone else saying it other than me makes it clearer to everyone else haha
@nath his form up to being moved to half back was woeful. His move to half back got him more of the ball but I would not be happy if that is what he produces next year. That was the absolute minimum required output. He needs to win is big games.
I couldn't agree more and am pretty sure I've said that in every post that I've made about it so far haha.
All I keep saying is that he played enough good footy to poll a few votes across the whole season. You don't play a good, consistent season of elite football and finish 10th in the club best and fairest.
He's a gun footballer who had an ordinary season so had an ordinary placing in the club best and fairest. I don't get what everyone is getting up in arms about, really. If he'd finished in the top 3 on the back of that season, I'd be the first one jumping up and down but he didn't do that at all.
He probably got most of his votes against Freo and GC at the end of the season. They were both close to BOG games.
Please note that I'm not saying that I think Thomas has a good season overall. I think he had a pretty poor one, and I'm sure both the coaching staff and he, himself would say the same thing.
I'm saying that he's a quality player who did enough good things to poll a few votes here and there. He didn't win the B&F, he finished middle of the road and scraped into the top 10. That isn't good enough for what we're paying him and certainly isn't what we recruited him for.
I'm just saying that 10th was probably about right for him based on his performances. He's a gun player who played a couple of great games, a few good games, a few above average games, and a bunch of poorer games. Assuming he polled votes in his great, good, and above average games, then finishing where he did makes sense. He wasn't our worst player across the season, by any means. Far from it, really.
You guys are getting carried away with what a top 10 finish means to a player like Daisy Thomas. It doesn't imply a pass mark on the season for him. Finishing 10th is way, way below where he should have finished if he'd played to the best of his ability across the whole season. If he finishes 10th next season then I'll be one of the first screaming for his blood. It's not good enough for an elite player on elite player dollars.
That still doesn't make it any less of an accurate reflection on his 2014 season, though.
If he can build on that and be every bit the player we recruited him to be next year, then we're going to be in for a big season. Gibbs, Murphy and Thomas has the potential to be an outstanding three way punch.
I agree, I'm not talking down his future just discussing his past and I think 10th is a bit over-rated, or perhaps others under-rated!
Perhaps they have done this because that is what Daisy needs, but surely others need some recognition too?
B&F voting doesn't really work like that. It's across every game of the season and is a cumulative thing rather than just a group of people sitting down at the end of the season and deciding who the top 10 players were for the year. Mick isn't the only person that votes either, I'm not sure what system we use at the club but at every footy club I ever played for we had multiple people putting their votes in each week and the cumulative totals decide the awards.
I'd agree with you wholeheartedly if we'd given him some arbitrary award for something, but the B&F isn't arbitrary. It's based on game by game votes and Daisy played enough quality games to warrant a top 10. Finishing 10th is actually a poor return for a player as good as he is, in my opinion. I doubt very much that he'd be happy with it himself and I'm certainly not happy with it. We're paying him $700,000 a season, which is just something you don't do for the 10th best player on your list across any given season.
He needs to finish in the top 3 next season to justify his dollars and only time will tell if he can do that. As I said, if the end of the season performances he put up were an indication of what he'll deliver consistently next season, then I can't see anyone complaining too much about anything.
Meh, I dunno, keep in mind that Daisy played almost every game for the season and you're comparing him to guys who missed big chunks.
Sure, we recruited him to be a top 3 finish player and he didn't do that, but I'd imagine 10th to be a fairly accurate reflection of his season. He was certainly playing much better footy towards the end of the year as his fitness levels got back to where they should be. He was realistically playing the sort of footy we recruited him for.
If he can build on that and be every bit the player we recruited him to be next year, then we're going to be in for a big season. Gibbs, Murphy and Thomas has the potential to be an outstanding three way punch.
Realistically, given our performance last season, our membership last season and the crowds we drew last season, any form of upgrade to the number of games we play at the MCG is a win for us.
Really, though, it's the nature of the deal we've struck this time with Etihad that will determine whether we did well here. There's no reason those games couldn't be profitable or beneficial, especially given that finals are played at both stadiums these days, provided we didn't get bent over the barrel and our pants pulled down around our ankles like we did with the deal that Collins brokered for his own benefit.
As it stands right now there are plenty of clubs bigger than us who deserve more MCG home games than us. Only we as a club can turn that around and we've got the next five years to do it now.
Bit of a shame it took anyone at the club 8 years to realise that Bryce Gibbs, the premier under 18 midfielder in the country when we drafted him, was actually a midfielder and not a half back flanker .
Who knew???
Congratulations, young man, very deserving winner and can only see him going from strength to strength from here. Gibbs and Murphy are as good as combo as any going around in the AFL in the midfield, we just need to get better support in there for them, more quality to the depth in rotations and have some decent structures up forward to convert the midfield work into scoring.
Outstanding wraps to Sam Rowe on resurrecting his career in such a profound fashion. If you watch any of his early season games then fast forward to the end of the season, you'd swear to God think you were watching two different footballers. He is a quality CHB through and through and that knowledge should allow the coaching staff much greater confidence to build a forward line that functions in 2015.
Also credit where credit is due to our recruiting division. We made three acquisitions last pre-season being Daisy Thomas, Andrejs Everitt and Sam Docherty. All finished in the top 10 of the B&F in their first season with us. That is a huge win and one that we haven't really seen in a decade outside of Chris Judd. Looking forward to seeing what gems they might unearth for us this year as we are still a work in progress.
Overall, I think there is plenty to look forward to next year. We finished the season strongly, pushed quality sides (Port Adelaide aside, and we were cooked by then), have plenty of first string players to come back from injury and plenty of development still in the young guys. North Melbourne and Port Adelaide have proven that teams can bounce back quickly once they embrace the right game style. Hopefully we can show the same from 2015 and beyond.
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