17th Premiership wrote:
Enough already with this incessant bagging of Nick Stevens!
You want to know why Camporeale is high fiving in the Essendon* coaches box right now? It's b/c Carlton supporters would not stop giving him crap throughout his career b/c he was perceived to be soft.
Not every player plays the hard man's role. Stevens is in the team b/c of his ability to run, kick & think our team forward.
Yes, he must be accountable but he is far from the worst on this count.
He laid 5 tackles last night compared with Judd's 4. And, as good as Judd is, his tackling is not always that strong - especially when he has to go sideways (possibly b/c of his shoulders...).
Gibbs laid 2 tackles. He hesitated at least twice b/w half back & the wing when there were clear options forward. Murphy laid 5 tackles but was also caught not chasing his opponent a couple of times. Waite got the ball 15 times, 2 contested, laid ZERO tackles FROM CHB!!! and took 6 marks - all uncontested.
Stevens had 23 possessions, 91% efficiency, set up at least 2 goals - probably more - and had more kicks than anyone on the ground except Judd. And with 91% efficiency.
We did not lose b/c of Nick Stevens.
We lost b/c our intensity dropped after we thought we had their measure at quarter time.
We were good enough in the first quarter to smash them. Without Setanta. Without Scotland. With exactly the team as they were on the ground. Not to bring up old ghosts but we damn well got ahead of ourselves. And our kicking was shiite - although some of this too was due to getting ahead of ourselves & trying for the silly shot rather than straightening up & nailing it. And we lost by 4 points.
At the final centre ball up, with 30secs to go & a few points behind, who did we have in the middle? Hadley (ok) & Sauce. No Judd, no Muprhy, no Gibbs, no stevens. In fact, how often did Stevens or Gibbs start in the middle at all?
Let's try supporting ALL those who are putting in rather than perpetuating bullshit stereotypes.
If we are going to improve, there are many things we can learn from this game. I can think of at least a dozen before I'd start worrying about Stevens. Not saying he's perfect but a bit of perspective, please.
Go to the Stevens thread start at about page 20 and digest. We should publish it in a book and title it "We should have delisted Lance because the game passed him by 3 years before we delisted him so why didnt we learn the lessons learnt with Stevo" when Ratts cant hide Stevens lack of defensive pressure. 5 tackles on the stats sheet means little. There are a lot other things