There was a bit a facetiousness going on there with the selection of the pic in question, and the question asked based of the pic I selected.
I have never liked the language used by people like him, and the interest it creates, when suddenly we see a form spike when contracts are due. That tattooed rapey muppet from Collingwood also.
His priorities are his kids and that’s fine but he could also show something to them by coming out mid contract, or start of season, just consistently fit and firing and looking after himself all year around and giving something back to the club that’s put a lot of faith and a lot of coin in him.
That one half a season made him untradable. I’d hate to think he just pulls it out when he needs too.
Jake has never been someone who has been in consistently fit form. There have always been issues regarding his consistency and application off field. I don’t think he decided to pull his finger out for half a year to get another contract. It’s just Jake stringer. He will have another patch where he looks a world beater, probably several patches like that, during the remainder of his time with us. But it’ll never be a consistent thing.
It’s funny as he went on a podcast at the end of the season and essentially said that’s what happened.
The thing about those 10 games in 2021 was that he was consistent throughout a game. In other periods, he just shows flashes for a quarter or a couple of mins.
The second game against Sydney this year summed up Jake perfectly. Was worst on ground by a mile to 3 quarter time, and then wins us the game himself in the last quarter
even that imo is a misguided view held by a lot of people, oh he’s a match winner cos in the last qtr he fluked a couple of goals, or he wins us the game off his own boot.
that’s not entirely true because the the rest of the whole has to work and function vaguely coherently to allow those 2-3 bits of play to have any perceived value.
eg if the backline allows 5 goals to be kicked, his 2-3 bits of play become irrelevant and show how horrid his game actually was.
they don’t, the midfield work well and the forwards do their bit also, suddenly the whole side gets a win, but jake gets the moniker " he’s a match winner" because again of 2-3 flukey bits of play, that granted look good in the moment, but are few and far between actually being valuable to both consistency and success.
the sooner the coaching staff move away from thinking he is an integral piece to success, the better imo. If he can fluke being fit enough near seasons end if we make finals great, if not the plan should be to find a side who performs at a higher standard across 4 qtrs across the whole season, so as not to constantly need to rely of flukey bits of play once every 4 odd weeks where it snags you a random win.
It also ignores the fact that it still makes the person a match winner. Also forwards kicking goals isn’t “flukes” and Jake has enough runs on the board that making that statement is just biased garbage trash and stupid.
He can also determine an outcome from the middle. Not just ahrsey pings on the outside of the boot from 60. Which are not really ahrsey. I’m glad we have him, streak of non vanilla
Lets not forget his centre bounce impacts either…and lets not forget he has been carrying injuries & been underdone when he comes back in early cause the team needs him and the medical staff and coaches allowed it.
Jakey and Tippa are protected species, but in a good way. They can be match winners!
Its not just them personally but it applies to all players as they age. They simply must drop kgs or they will be too slow, and too prone to injury. They even had to get Franklin to drop kgs and will want him to lose even more in 2024.