Kouta wrote:
Big Kahuna Boot wrote:
..l.davis is delivering the goods now, no doubt.. ..but how many years did he take..?..
What does that have to do with Yarran?
The fact Wayne Hughes invested pick six from a good draft in Yarran has me confident that he will be a star.
Rich is an elite kick, but he is a one trick pony compared to Yarran who is an elite kick with both feet.
And a line breaker with pace, plenty of tricks and another gear.
We must find a way to work Yarran's 2009 back to Ratten and Sticks.

..doesn't have much to do with neon leon, happily will admit that.. ..just replying to posts [some recent, others goin' back a while now] which use Leon as some kind of example as to how good he's playing now.. ..and i'm saying that ANY non-kpp top ten pick that takes as long as leon took to play good footy, has taken too long for a top ten non-kpp pick.. ..more-so for a team with a list like ours is currently..
..as for the rick/yaz 'bag of trick' debate.... ..i think sayin' all rich has is a long left kick, is sellin' him short.. ..he's more two-sided than most left footers, and there's tonnes of footy champions that were one sided (hird springs to mind, and not a comparison just an example of a great one sided player).. ..it's like sayin' all Mitchel can do is extract the ball, where's all his tricks..?.. ..if a player is v.good in what their role is, they need not have a bag of tricks, and there's no use having said bag of tricks if you're not on the field delivering all these tricks we salivate over.. ..hoops has a bag of tricks, and years later we still lament his 'lack of intensity and defensive aspects'..
..as for line breaking pace, yes we need that i agree.. ..but a long penetrating accurate kick is better than running the lines in my opinion.. ..look, i agree that what's done is done, and last years draft picks aren't gonna be undone.. ..but i think we made a knee-jerk reaction last year at the draft table, and i think we need to be honest and make sure we try and remedy the problems we still have.. ..unfortunately, our midfield isn't as good as some would like to believe.. ..we're a bit above average, which is a good improvement on where we were, but we're still a-grade quality short, and have no proper in and under extrtactor.. ..or, we do, but Juddles is physically struggling already and he's not even 2 years in his role for us..
..now, i also have often stated that Yaz is bottom aged [or close to it], and the first year for him is a bit of a write-off in regards to senior footy production.. ..it's more a development year for him, and that's all well and good.. ..not his fault in that regard.. ..but he needs to get a wriggle on, cos we invested our [hopefully] last top ten pick on him, and we can't afford to wait too long to reap the dividends, the longer he takes, the better he has to be to justify his selection.. ..simple as that.. ..my beef is less with Yaz himself [aside from questions regarding game-style and intensity towards play and training, but he's young and will cut him a little slack], and more a beef with those at the draft table..
..especially choosing a kid that said he didn't wanna go inter-state.. ..it's not like the old days where melbourne was sooo much better a city and only top level footy was played here.. ..a player can play top-shelf footy almost anywhere now, so an interstate kid can get back home and still play afl footy and live in a good city easily enough.. ..extra work needs to be put in to make a kid feel extra welcome and at home when they didn't wanna be there in the first place..