Carlton Supporters Club

One gentle piece of advice Kruddler, stick to what you're good at, ok?

I'm making the point that roughly half of the AFL is 'average or below' in terms of kicking.  You are correct in what you say, but it serves little purpose and the point i make is still valid. Nobody considers anybody 'average'. To suggest someone could be is always taken as an insult. Its clear that not everyone can be above average.....unless they play for the club you support and you have your navy coloured glasses on.

re DE%'s....
I was wondering if someone was going to compare them.
I'd argue this, a kick is a harder skill to execute and thus players who kick more have a lower % compared to those who simply handball.
The longest kick people attempt? Lets just suggest 50m, but you could argue more.
The shortest kick? Basically 15m to be considered a mark is about right, but you could argue less. The number of kicks people attempt above 50 is probably equal to those below 15, so 15-50m is the range.
Handballs? anything from 0.5m up to maybe 10m....you rarely see bigger, and if you do its usually just to space.

Difficulty level is clearly harder with kicking.

That being said, you also can't analyze simply kicks vs handballs either. As generally the more skilled players attempt higher degree of difficulty kicks. A couple of perfect examples to that are Eddie Betts and Stevie J. They do things a ruckman would never even think is an option. It doesn't always come off, but attempting them drops their %'s compared to if they took the easy option all the time.....which most ruckman do. So much so, some rucks dont even attempt a kick at all!

So that being said, use %'s to compare, sure, but watch the game to get the whole picture.

FWIW, Cripps goal kicking efforts over his career - 23.32 (42%)...or 33% if you go by AFL.com.au stats which include complete misses.

So yes, i stand by my comments that Cripps is average by foot....which is probably doing him a favour.

Note: This does not mean Cripps is not an elite player, nor does it mean i love him any less. Even superman had his kryptonite.

Lets not forget that its bloody hard to be accurate by hand let alone by foot when in a congested situation. Just ask Judd.

His deposal efficiency must have dropped a fair way when he had to become a contested player rather then an outside runner in his WC days.

I remember Juddy blindly handballing 15-20 metres forward out of a pack time and time again sometimes it hit a teammate other times it didn't and would land in the opposition hands. Its used to frustrate me a bit but as he did it time and time again it dawned on my (from the comfort of my couch) it must be a lot harder then it seems to use the ball cleanly when blokes have arms on you and in Judds case were hanging off him.

Put in this way I would rate Cripps general field kicking as clean as anyone in our team. His goal kicking has been below par but that's it IMO.

We've picked up quite a lot of depth across all segments except our forward line, so I think you are being a little pessimistic.

If you look across our list these are the players who do, can or have played midfield rotations at various times;

Dow
Murphy
Cripps
O'Brien
SPS
Kennedy
Kerridge
Lamb
Docherty
Lang
Schumaker
Plowman
Garlett
Fisher
Cunningham
Polson
Curnow
Curnow
Graham
Pickett
Byrne
Thomas
Wright

Based on VFL results, Jones could ruck and Kreuzer could play midfield, O'Shea could also get a rotation and has done so at VFL level, as well as Marchbank. But I thought Fraser had done a marvellous job at VFL level of getting Jones into the midfield with the right attitude and intent, and that is half the battle, feeling like you belong and being comfortable in the hustle and bustle.

I wouldn't be surprised to find Mullett acting as a backup for Ed Curnow as well, although if Lamb was available I'd let Lamb cover the loss of Ed and set Mullett free to attack the goals.

I haven't included the rookies Shaw or McDaid, but both are aerobically capable of being onballers and over 185cm x 85kg.

Silvagni, Williamson and Macreadie are strong enough and have sufficient aerobic capacity to do a mid-rotation as well.

Whether some of these players are successful at a rotation is more about coaching, structures and attitude than physical characteristics.

Some might argue having the correct attitude is a domain of coaching and leadership, which reminds me of those video clips showing Hodge berating Mitchell for not following his man!

Anyway this is a Casboult thread, these posts would be better of in the selection dilemma thread.

What I was hoping to highlight, is how important the older blokes are to our side, and irrespective of how well players come on, the 1st tier will absolute be the first names written on the team sheet most weeks.  The fact that there are others relatively cemented on there too, is quite irrelevant to whether or not they get selected and you will find the youngsters will only keep the mature players out if they REALLY kick on and become not just decent performers, but 4 quarter players each and every week. 

We are very thin for mature, experienced top liners, and they will be in the mix for selection most weeks.

Look at this back bone, and pick your starting 22:


--BP-------------------FB-------------------BP

HBF-------------------CHB-------------------Simpson

Wing------------------Murphy------------Thomas

HFF-------------------Casboult---------------Wright

FP----------------------FF---------------------FP

Followers: Kreuzer-----E. Curnow--------------Mid

Int: 1-----------2----------3----------4



There is plenty of space for the kids and there, and whilst I can appreciate that many have pencilled in Cripps Im not writing him in here, because he is ahead of schedule and we need to be thinking a little bit more about that, when we look at our team, because the second you start dropping the likes of the above names, for kids, all of a sudden Cripps effectiveness will be reduced because he is no longer worried about his own game, but having to lead the line (Murphy, Kreuzer and Daisy are underated in this facet) and whilst Cripps might relish it, its not something we should take for granted.

Phillips and Rowe look right to go to me, although Phillips shared a lot of the load with De Koning.

Lamb is one of those blokes like Ed Curnow, great in the 3rd or 4th banana role, but not effective at being the front man.

Phillips and Rowe look right to go to me, although Phillips shared a lot of the load with De Koning.

Lamb is one of those blokes like Ed Curnow, great in the 3rd or 4th banana role, but not effective at being the front man.

Prophetic.  In fact this thread has been very much all valid and proven correct.  The biggest issue I have is that the folk in the stands, can see this stuff coming, yet the club has failed to entertain it.

I should keep a level head and listen to my inner self a bit more and perhaps not let my emotions get in the way of clarity of thinking.

In any case, with our injury list mounting, we need to get the following players as mainstays, and maybe give the kids a bit more VFL time:


Alex Silvagni
Sam Rowe
Andrew Phillips
Jed Lamb
Matt Shaw
Sam Kerridge
Matthew Lobbe

They don't have to all play together, but we are far too uncompetitive and might need to get a few more battle hardened bodies in the team to prevent demoralising situations that have been playing out at senior level thus far.

What I similarly worry about is that the same issues will likely play out at VFL level (demoralising performances) due to a lack of senior battle hardened bodies at this level too, so its a real balancing act that we are in unfortunately as a washout of the heavy turnover of the list.

Note: This does not mean Cripps is not an elite player

It does in my opinion.
Elite players have all of the skills of the game, which is why there are so few of them.