Long has been on the list the same amount of time as Lav, who was an end of first round pick. He’s not in the team either ( hopefully that changes at 6.30 tonight)
Point is Long is young too.
Woosha picks experience over youth, which would be fine if he also picked fit over underdone.
This simple shift to pick fit players would see a lot more of our younger players get games.
Because our skills are just sooo awesome at the moment…
I just think you have to play a guy who is going to have a crack at the contest and get from contest to contest, his hanballing seems really good and he seems to know his kicking is an issue and plays within his limitations.
I’d be bringing in him and Parish and starting them in the middle first bounce.
Looking through the following games played Woosha certainly has given priority to mature players except for the very high draft picks which would be standard across most sides.
Not including injuries our draftees since 2014 have played the following games;
Long - 5 games from a possible 89 5%
Langford - 47 games from a possible 89 52%
Laverde - 30 games from a possible 89 33%
Parish - 55 games from a possible 67 82%
Francis - 10 from a possible 67 14%
Redman - 5 from a possible 67 7%
Brown - 39 from a possible 67 58%
Hartley- 41 from a possible 67 61%
Walla - 66 from a possible 67 98%
Dea - 39 from a possible 67 58%
Stewart - 27 from a possible 45 60%
Mc Niece - 10 from a possible 45 22%
McGrath - 41 from a possible 45 91%
Ridley - 3 from a possible 45 6%
Begley - 8 from a possible 45 17%
Mutch - 3 from a possible 45 6%
Clarke - 1 from a possible 45 2%
Draper - 0 from a possible 45 0%
Saad - 22 from a possible 22 100%
Smith - 22 from a possible 22 100%
Stringer- 20 from a possible 22 90%
Houlahan - 0 from a possible 22 0%
Zerk - 0 from a possible 22 0%
Guelfi -15 from a possible 22 68%
Mynott - 0 from a possible 22 0%
Clarke takes a long time to get boot to ball aside from his kicking deficiencies and this also makes things very difficult at afl level.
He is a great kid and works his butt off, I just don’t think he will make it. Hope I’m wrong.
We’ll always play dads army over a kid who possibly, may be a real weapon and help us
Essington pls
All the evidence so suggest you are probably right. I really hope they give him a crack to see. Sometimes perceived deficiencies are not as bad as we think. I hope it’s the case with a Clarke.
Diesel Williams was told he was too slow and couldn’t kick - way slower and worse than Dylan Clarke.
Ended up being one of the best inside mids of the last 30 years with great hand and foot skills.
Doesn’t mean Dylan Clarke will reach those lofty heights but if we don’t regularly play him we won’t ever know will we? He would certainly give more than Myers & co gave on the weekend.
As I wrote in another thread, Port and Geelong showed the way giving Youngers players the nod over older heads.
The game has changed so much in recent times, that kids who are a bit skinnier doesn’t matter so much anymore as they can bring so much with hard two way running and creating space.
It’s one of the frustrations in the last 15 years supporting EFC, seems unless your a top 10 pick you have to do 2-3 years apprenticeship before getting a look in.
Dyl Clarke is a guy who could prosper more so at the higher level, hard tackling, running and intensity, I don’t think your picking him to get 30 touches…he adds something we sorely lacked on the weekend.
There is nothing more Clarke can learn at VFL level.
He needs opportunity.
Bring
Who cares if he can’t kick the ball
WE WON 6 CENTRE CLEARANCES 6
Decent mark on him too. Also, strangely, his kicking for goal doesn’t look particularly bad…
Given some of our mids like to kick blindly out of a contest anyway. You can argue that Dyl’s chaos balls will be more effective.
Its academic. He will be playing at Sandringham on Saturday in the VFL
Wow - Greg Williams was an elite kick off both feet - This was overlooked because of the quality of his handballing.
Would actually be better if you excluded unavailable through injury games from the possible games total
Would certainly change Laverne’s, Ridleys percentage as well as a few others
I considered it but it was going to be too big of a task.
Ridley hasn’t been injured that much has he. He has played a lot the VFL games I have attended.
We all know Laverde and Begley have been injured a lot and even Redman has had his concerns but the rest have had pretty good injury histories.
You’d want to take out injury time from those numbers, surely?
hahaha…I just realised, WOB, that you are now older than those you’re calling Dad’s Army 
Couldn’t be farked to be honest