#20 Zac “Zed Clackers” Clarke - you’re cut

Yeah the balance with two rucks definitely feels better. It will be interesting to see what they do when JD is available.i can certainly see an argument for continuing to run two rucks once he is. I thought there were times in the second half where we were a tall short and struggled to find a target on slow transition.

Clarks work rate around the ground is good, particularly defensively and he was routinely in the right spot to force a contest on their exists from our 50 and some of his work on the deck was actually pretty good.

He Let himself down with a set shot and a bad fumble in the forward line but otherwise you really couldn’t criticise him.

I’d still like to see Draper given an opportunity, maybe even as number 1 because tbell just isn’t getting his hands on it as much, but Clarke is doing enough to hold his spot.

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I don’t feel that we know how Draper will perform in the seniors.

Will his inexperience result in giving away frees and being a liability around the ground? Or will his youthful energy and ability to tap to advantage strengthen our clearance work, and the senior structure make it easier for him to be where he needs to be?

I am very keen to find out.

Edit : reason I put that in this thread is that I don’t think we can say that Clarke or TBC are doing enough to hold their spots unless we have seen the alternative. It must be getting close.

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Clarkey just needs to improve his kicking, he played his role yesterday.

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At 29 years old I think that ship has sailed

Yep he is a spack filler and when JoeDan is back and Draper comes on…………………………………… thanks very much.

As a Ruckman, he’s in his prime years still. So far looks better with every qtr he gets under his belt.

Every chance to end up being very bluddy good if he keeps it up.

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Starting from a very low base though.

Draper takes Belch’s spot this week. Clark gets another game to prove you right.

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:thinking:

Will win us games off his own boot this year. At least he has ability to move around the ground, and on the replay they showed him drawing their key defender away from the action.

Thought he was very good yesterday at key points in the game.

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At his rate of improvement, he’ll be Goodes-level by about Round 7

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Excellent forward craft, the rotation with tbc seemed to work well, can handball.

His stuff in close impressed me

Was better than belly. Thought I’d never say that

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I’m comfortable in saying that Clarke is better than big Jono Giles.

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There was one handball where he looked outside and then came back inside to Zaha who was obn the charge which really made me take notice.

Except Giles DOESN’T MISS.

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Felt he still missed an easy set shot, and still butchered at least one simple opportunity for a goal assist.

I’d like to see him tidy up that, which is probably just nerves / pressure.

Was certainly better than his first match.

A few good efforts at ground level but still needs to slot that one he missed.

Probably not AFL standard for a team chasing finals as you can’t have your tall forward/second ruck only kick 0.2 in 2 weeks

He appears to be getting better each week, which is understandable considering he was out of AFL level for a year and was injured for the year prior to that. The other players will start to learn more about his game and ruckwork slowly too.