Re: 2018 Rd 16: Pre Game Prattle: Carlton vs St Kilda
Reply #231 –
Shaw is playing this week, to the best of my knowledge he's an average player and his VFL form hasn't been anything to get excited about.
I beg to differ.
I thought Shaw had quite a good VFL patch, partly from my direct observations and partly from mates reporting on matches, he was especially effective when Weitering was back in the magoos, run off him and worked well together, then Weitiering went back to AFL and Shaw copped an injury and hasn't been the same since which is why I have to question the timing. I realise there may be circumstances beyond the MCs control.
When SoJ got the recall from the magoos, in my opinion Polson was a mile ahead of him in terms of midfield influence and I also suspect kilometers covered per game. I would have said that in VFL SoJ was at best on par with Lang and neither of them set the world alight at VFL level! Many were very disappointed with Lang at VFL, but perhaps SoJ gets some slack because of his surname, if so I'm not sure that helps him because the reward might be unjustified! Yet when the crunch came SoJ came in and Polson was left languishing in the magoos for a few more weeks losing form, hopefully not losing heart! There was some irony we had Murphy out around that time, reducing our run, and we opted for SoJ over Polson.
Obviously having Cunningham missing hasn't helped, he was in reasonable form before injuries cruelled his season.
Of our regular AFL players, only Weitering has gone back and dominated at VFL, like an AFL player should. In that context, if McKay is kicking hard earned bags of 2 or 3 goals at AFL level, he should seriously be kicking bags of 6 or 8 at VFL, but he isn't and that is a tell!