Fairly glowing endorsement of your level of performance if you’re getting tagged in a reserves practice match that’s only your 4th game of footy in 18mths…
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And Perkins plays better when he’s getting tagged.
Get him in the seniors immediately!
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If he came in who would we kick out of the midfield? Don’t say Shiel… he’s not that bad.
Or do people want him playing up forward instead of…?
in a god damn practice match, farking essington
Probably Ham.
And use him as tagger!
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Yeah ham has been average. Where has he been playing? Bit of wing, bit of half forward?
Wonder if arch can play wing? Looks best around the ball, in traffic given his explosive attributes
Yep. High half forward pushing up to the contest occasionally from what i’ve seen. Ham hasn’t been bad but needs to start finding a bit more of the ball and impacting the game. I feel as though AP is the type of player that can really impact a game with low possessions so he’ll be knocking down the door of Ham’s spot.
Yeah I agree but at least ham covers a lot of ground.
Is Perkins someone we want to be bringing in after our work rate on the weekend?
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Perkins missed the year of development that would have honed his midfield skills. I don’t mind taking a little bit of time and let him lead the VFL midfield to help make up for that lost year.
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There is no problem with Perkins’ endurance.
He’d have a bigger tank than half the 22 that played against Hawthorn.
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Why not? He plays for Essendon, he needs to get used to it.
According to the Telstra tracker, Ham covered more ground than any other player on Saturday night: 14.7 km. Snelling second with 14.5 Km, equal with Moore from the Hawks.
Last year we were regularly beaten on team total KM and team total sprints: both good indicators of work rate.
As a team we covered nearly 11 km ground than the Hawks (284.0 to 273.2) and had 15 more sprints (279-264).
These numbers indicate our fitness has gone up a level on previous years. Saturday night’s problems were set shot kicking for goal and contested ball after half time. If we looked tired at the end it’s because we had run ourselves into the ground and those two afore-mentioned problems meant we didn’t have the score to show for it.
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Yep. Spent all the petrol tickets in the 2nd and 3rd quarters while we set up the game then chased tail as it slipped away.
You always look more tired when you’re chasing tail.
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I mean, we’ll be debuting him in a belting either way. Devil’s advocate might say it’d be good for him to do it in an away game. Less pressure.
There’s still a bit of a structural issue with positioning around contests too, we’re not getting a defensive sweeper in place often enough
I’d expect him to start forward. Hopefully play a bit of mid some point during the year.
I’d play him. Stringer likely won’t play this week. Play Perkins forward so he can get his debut game out of the way.
Having a full game at AFL level is essential so that he can identify key development areas. Getting a taste at AFL level can put VFL games into perspective.
When Stringer comes back, give him 5-6 weeks of VFL time in the midfield so that he can apply what he learned from playing AFL football.
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Is he accurate in front of goal?