#11 David Zaharakis - Surviving half-Ironmans

Remember last year when Zaka out ran Polec from the half back line, through the middle, right to half forward, and made Polec look like a complete loser ? Classic example. Polec was publicly hammered for that effort also.

sorry. Meaningless post. Just playing with replies

Two very different players. I get you mean Smith’s attitude and approach but again, also very different personalities so you just cannot expect that from all players.

Everyone bangs on about how Richmond built their game plan around the type of players they have. Yet we want all our players to be like someone else. No, let us instead identify their strengths and use them in those areas. Not all Tigers players go as hard as each other, despite what people might say.

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There’s another factor in this. People might ask why zerrett or smith might have more zip. I’m not sure about this post dz’s shoulder but early season he was routinely on the park for 3-5 mins more than smith and 8-10 mins more than zerrett. If you reckon 3-10 ?? more minutes wouldn’t make much difference to the way you run at AFL intensity , well that’s like us having 1-2 men short averaged across the team. Not every game was this true, but most. Goddard and Heppell also do (or did last time I checked) more than their share. Why does the coaching panel do this? Well obviously they think on balance it’s better having him/them a bit fatigued cos he/they can still get around ok-ish with those longer stints and shorter rests, while allowing the burst guys to go harder and rest longer. There’s a cost to everything - part of this is calls of ‘downhill skier’ from casual observers. I’m sure zerrett s not saying that about DZ (or hepp or goddard) while he’s catching his breath…

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Giants screwed themselves on that one. Freo were offering 2 early 1sts from memory.

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Hate it when people use possession counts to say if a player is good or not. The first few months of the year we were regulary beating our opponents for possessions by 100+. Reckon we had nearly 5/6 players getting near or over every game. All useless.

Just becuase people have different personalities doesn’t mean they can’t both have the same approach when it comes to tackling, chasing, etc

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I agree with you on possession counts being overrated. But I just checked and the most we beat anyone by in the first 8 rounds was 44 against Hawthorn. We beat Melbourne by 42 and the next highest was Carlton by 15.

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This makes it seem like he wasn’t copping the same lazy crap when Stants was still around, which unfortunately he was. In fact it seems to have been relatively quiet this year

Still, like Stants, you can usually dismiss most of the people criticising them* as being clueless

*That doesn’t mean that there aren’t legitimate criticisms to be made by people who do have at least half a clue

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He is 8th at the club for tackles, so it is not like he doesn’t tackle. Oh and last year he was second for tackles but played 23 games to this years 17 games.

Comparing him to Gaff on tackles he has a far greater avg: Gaff 1.9, Zaka 3.7

People have a perception of him that isn’t fair or reasonable.

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I’m not saying he doesn’t tackle, if the opposition player is right next to him he will tackle. But you rarely see him run down someone with a tackle.

When he has a chance of receiving the ball going forward, he is moving a lot quicker than when the opposition have the ball and he is having to tack back

You are being far too harsh on him and just making comments that really you don’t have a lot of evidence for.

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Not really. I watch him live every week as I have for his whole career.I see what he is good at and what he needs to improve

I thought it was telling in that awful period of rounds 1 to 8 Worsfold was specific about saying that one of his top priorities at the time was signing David Zaharakis.
I don’t know why he seems to have become somewhat of a whipping of late. Without having any inside info at all I would bet the D Zaharakis is one of the first picked each week.

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I compared him with Stants some time ago and he is only a whipping boy for those who don’t completely understand that different components and abilities make up a good side. It’s cool to love hard nuts but a team of hard nuts won’t win you too many games. Like Stants, he’s a very good player, very consistent and we are lucky to have him. It’s just not cool to love these types of players. Polec and Gaff aren’t cool but there’re very good. Same with Craig Bradley.

What the? Zaka was already on a long term contract before this year

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On 187 games, Zaka is now our most experienced player ( in terms of games played) should make it to 200 next year. In fact could make it to about 207, which would put him in Mark Harvey/Mark Mercuri territory by the end of 2019.
He is on track to get into the top 20 most games played for the club, by the time he hangs up the boots.

Hooker and Hurls are just behind him on 175 and 160 respectively.

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Good work for zaka to be at the vfl final on the weekend. He was trying to be inconspicuous but channel 7 cameras found him.

Find the mob of women, you find zaka.

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Unlike Rance, who was trying to be conspicuous and the channel 7 cameras found him,. over and over and over again.