#11 David Zaharakis - Surviving half-Ironmans

....he's been utterly useless. Jogging half pace around, 20m passes to opposition players, he doesn't even look like he cares anymore?

Making stuff up?

I actually disagree with Bacchus, anyone can comment. And there’s nothing wrong with honest criticism. However, for what it’s worth, and I’m not pretending thy is much, I reckon criticism ought to be in line with what you’d be happy to say right to a players face. Not spitting across the fence like some Richmond flog supporter, but if you ran into them at a bus stop or the local footy club fundraiser. And that would - I reckon - omit some of those derogatory lines that various have posted on here. Not saying you said these things Crazy, but if everyone who wrote lines like pea heart, take a decent trade and run, can’t teach heart, no he didn’t work hard just jogged around etc reckons they would be happy to say that face to face, I call bull@&$t. I can hear some saying of course you wouldn’t speak the same way. Why not? Because they deserve respect? Only to their face?, But not behind their back, where you can be an anonymous big man? What would that say about you?

The difference between what you’d say on here and face to face should be a measurable index. Keyboard warrior factor.


What a load of sh*te. What utterly stupid logic. So for someone to have a say or have a view that isn’t positive, I have to go up to Zaharakis himself and say it to him? I wouldn’t even tell my girlfriend that her hair looks messy, doesn’t make it not true. So me saying “Zaharakis got spanked by a 20 year old tagger” is being a “keyboard warrior” despite the fact it’s clearly true? Why don’t we shut down the forum because clearly having a discussion board to discuss players is pointless and in our and Bachus’ world the only players on the forum discussing players would be AFL veterans or face to face skype sessions with the players themselves. And this is despite the fact Zaharakis HIMSELF admits he’s been in terrible form? Does this also mean everyone in the Ambrose thread pre Round 12 was only allowed to criticise if they were willing to say it face to face? What about the Kommer thread? is it only OK to point out players in bad form if it suits you? Or should it only be only positive discussion even when playes play bad? THis does not mean I condone swearing or anything like that. I’d have no issues discussing his form this year but i doubt he’d want to talk to a spud like me.

I don’t understand your point regarding your quote? I’ve been saying he’s been playing badly? You just backed my point up. The made up stuff comes from Bacchus telling me that I’ve said bad stuff about Stanton etc which is just not true. Stants + Winders were my two fave players. And all the other stuff Bacchus was dribbling about but lobbing it all onto me pretending I said it.

And I tell you what, if a player appears to be jogging around, then guess what, I and others might say it. If it appears he’s not quite all there, people might say it. If I see him half jog to a contest near Jenkins, half heartadly put his arm out and then watch as the ball is kicked through for a goal whilst he points at others, I may point it out.If it appears a player is getting thrashed by 20 year old taggers, then people might say it. Stop being precious about him, he’s had a breakeven 2014, a poor 2015 and for someone as pretentiously talented as him we need him to fire consistently. He’ll bounce back, but if he plays bad, I’m gonna call a spade a spade. If he plays well, then he’ll be praised. You can pretend he’s kicking matchwinning goals on continuous loop if you want.

Anyway, good luck to him this week. Hopefully saving his best for last.

Now I'm interested to know what AFL team Bacchus played for.
None. He didn't pay out on any players. You're not following the rules of Bacchus
Now I'm interested to know what AFL team Bacchus played for.

University

Ain’t enough likes in the Uni verse

Zaka backed it up today and finished with 10 tackles which was great.

If he can bring that next year with our full brigade our midfield is gonna be in great shape.

Well done Zaka and make sure you finish the year strong against Farkcarlton.

Farkcarlton!

Wasn’t tagged from what I saw, again odd on the oppositions half. Had a solid game, I was impressed with his tackling and effort, something that was missing for a few months. Surely must be just mental, he looks a complete different player when no one goes to him?

Thought he was good. His workrate off the ball is what pleased me the most. Tackling was good too.

If he keeps up that sort of effort consistently i will be very happy.

Looked way busier.

Looks like he’s also putting in the extra yards pre-season. His latest tweet is on top of a mountain in Colorado. His off season also seemed to involve a lot of hiking (& travelling!) Really looking forward to seeing him in the midfield next year with the boys back around him.

Looks like he's also putting in the extra yards pre-season. His latest tweet is on top of a mountain in Colorado. His off season also seemed to involve a lot of hiking (& travelling!) Really looking forward to seeing him in the midfield next year with the boys back around him.

I think thats more him wanting to take some extra nice selfies to woo the ladies.
lol jks…

he looks to put heaps of effort into his preseasons. i think his real test is that he needs to focus on gameday execution. hes got tons of talent and has the fitness level required, but needs to get harder in the contest more consistently. hes shown he can do it in patches but then hell go missing in games where hes heavily tagged. he needs someone to psych him up like a matador bull before every game. that is the answer

haha needs to go down Pamplona way for the next part of his travels…

Looks like he's also putting in the extra yards pre-season. His latest tweet is on top of a mountain in Colorado. His off season also seemed to involve a lot of hiking (& travelling!) Really looking forward to seeing him in the midfield next year with the boys back around him.
Keen to know everyone's thoughts on how well he can do in 2017. With the boys back and elite support around him, could he excel into one of the elite midfielders in the competition? I believe he hasn't reached his full potential and at 26 surely his due for a elite breakout year soon.
Looks like he's also putting in the extra yards pre-season. His latest tweet is on top of a mountain in Colorado. His off season also seemed to involve a lot of hiking (& travelling!) Really looking forward to seeing him in the midfield next year with the boys back around him.
Keen to know everyone's thoughts on how well he can do in 2017. With the boys back and elite support around him, could he excel into one of the elite midfielders in the competition? I believe he hasn't reached his full potential and at 26 surely his due for a elite breakout year soon.

I think the half back flanker lining up on him is going to need to be put on a drip after the game.
Him and Stanton could really screw some teams over.

haha needs to go down Pamplona way for the next part of his travels...

What a lot of bull.

What we need is a good father/son so we can say The Son Also Rises.

He aint no Parish
He anit no Zerret
He is Za Ha Ra Kis
So don’t you forget it.

Good thing about the forum change is getting a chance to scroll through threads that I haven’t been in for ages. This thread caught my attention because, when read in a block, it shows the very nature of Blitz (and probably many other forums). Good game = praise, bad game = vitriol, in between times = argument between the supporters vs the ‘haters’. And therein lies the problem, criticism is so easily labelled hate and from this narrow dichotomy flows a great deal of debate over very little.

I think Zaka and Stanton do share a similar tale with regards to the Bomber faithful. Both a very good players on their day, both a very loyal clubmen and both have been vulnerable to patches of low performance. The key, in my opinion, is the expectation vs output question.

I think both Stanton and Zaka are very good players but neither are elite… but that is ok. You can not have 22 ‘elite’ players on the list. Even in our best season (2000) we didn’t have 22 elite players. I think of guys like Blumfield, Caracella and Heffernan as the prime examples of this. All three were actually inconsistent performers, all had weaknesses and were prone to go missing… and yet through the strenght of the team around them they came together to form the core of an elite midfield.

For ten years we have had to pin our hopes on guys like Stanton and Zaka to be ‘elite’ without realising/admitting that the lack of depth around them made the job near impossible.

I have high hopes for Zaharakis this season and I think he will flourish, not just because of the lack of tag but because he will be able to play the role for which he is most suited… 4-6th best midfielder. The guy who comes into the middle in the second and third rotations and can use his outside run and speed to advantage. The one can focus on the attacking side of the game, knowing that he has a strong team defence around him. I look forward to him picking up about 20 touches a week and kicking a goal every second week or so after a long searching run. I look forward to him contributing at least 2-3 sensational games where he goes crazy good and is BOG or close too. I look forward to him playing with freedom and flair and reaping the rewards of a career played under difficult circumstances.

I hope this is, finally, the season we see guys like Zaka and Stanton played in their suited position, with the appropriate level of expectations and they reap the ultimate reward and recognition of their endeavours.

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I think it’s a bit unfair to compare the two. Stanton has always been my favourite player and regularly has been able to break tags and was just unfairly critised for some bad turnovers (which I saw more of the fact no one presented properly up field). Zaka literally can’t break tags and can’t influence the games whatsoever.

I think Zaharakis will be what he’ll always be.If people want to say “we have our other players back, Zaka doesn’t get tagged” as the answer then so be it, personally I hoped we could rely on him no matter what but if that’s what we accept as a team then fair enough. If he’s allowed to be loose without a close check then he can really damage sides on the outside, no doubt, up there with the best, but if he’s given any amount of close checking or a tagger he’ll be non-exsistent. I think that’s his flaw and he needs to work on. He needs to be able to contribute when he gets a tagger and there’s no point having him if he can only get 8, 9, 10 possessions and his tagger has 20-30. That’s not good enough for a senior player no matter how forgiving we are. Loser talk is saying “oh he just can’t do it”. If we’re to do better as a team we need to expect more than “oh he’ll do well a game per month”. Every year we expect him to explode and every year he gives us about 7-8 really good games and the rest he’s invisible. We expect more because we know just how good he is on his day. I’d prefer a whole consistent year then just 2-3 “crazy good” game.s

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thought he learnt a bit about working through a tag by the end of last year. Of course, most of the sides we were playing weren’t going too hard. But hey, positive signs I thought.

It’s a lot easier to break a tag when you have big bodied experienced players around you to help out. He pretty much did it alone in that respect throughout last year. I would expect whoever is getting the tag each week this year to have a somewhat easier time with it.

Of course on Blitz sometimes you only have a tag if you can’t beat it. For years Stanton “couldn’t handle a tag” despite picking up one regularly and running them into the ground, because of the odd game where someone got on top of him.

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What I find interesting is that there is a perception that with the lads returning, that all of a sudden Zaka will no longer cop a tag.
I think it’s likely that he will still be tagged as he has shown an inability to handle it. Why would you put a lockdown guy on someone on the chance you might be able to stop them when you could put him on zaka and just about guarantee that zaka will struggle.
It’s up to zaka to work out a way to handle the tag

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