I don’t expect everyone to be as tough as Hobbs. But when it’s your turn to put you body on the line, there is no excuse not to. There was a point yesterday when a Geelong player was running at Martin with the ball, and Martin step out of the way and put a single arm out to tackle. That’s nowhere near good enough
While he has areas of improvement, it seems you are more focused on those things than what he does right. Everything in life requires balance, it is good to provide that balance when assessing a player too.
Areas for improvement
Areas for praise
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To be clear, Martin was running towards the wing I was sitting on and he had no good options. There was one player who was clearly covered and then bumpkus. I think he handballed to Mass not seeing the extra Geelong player, who nipped in and took it. The issue was both that Mass had someone on his hammer anyway (so was not in a better position), the handball would have been short anyway, and of course he didn’t see the extra Geelong player.
It is frustrating to me that in some circumstances that our players seem to be taught to be attacking rather than either simply taking ground or (where possible, Martin couldn’t) take the ball-up. Parish and a few mids took blind handballs when they could have just accepted a stoppage and resulted in turn overs.
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I thought he had a sideways handball option on the wing but it seemed they were moving away from him rather than looking at him and calling for it *
- I wasn’t at the ground yesterday so the tv may have lied
Blitz: “drop him to the vfl”
By memory, and it can play tricks, that would have been a LONG handball, and the Essendon player had a Geelong player in close proximity.
I mean, this was definitely where he should have kicked it. I’m just saying it wasn’t as obvious a choice as implied, given the man was covered and kicking is slower than handballing.
From the behind the goal footage it looked like the guy out side had at 5 meters on his opponent but was running towards the boundary rather than running forward. Martin is perfectly capable of a little 20m chip kick over the top there I reckon.
Or just kicking it out to space to wing/our HF which is really what should have happened
The less stuffing around with the footy in the defensive half the better
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Nic Made 1 poor error, but had a good game, everyone focusing on the 1 mistake.
He scored more supercoach points than last year when he kicked 5 goals.
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Yeah I thought he was great. Not in my votes, but not far off. I reckon he is such a smart player with his little touches and his balance and use. Not such a big call given how he has started his career, but I reckon he is going to a pretty special player pretty soon. Hopefully for us!
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I have this habit of commentating the game while it is happening.
I said a lot of “good Nic”. I thought he was very good.
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The player in the open was Durham and looked like he called for the HB over the top.
He didn’t have a poor game by any stretch and he is super consistent and also still very young and under developed physically. But he is a bit one paced. I don’t see him have a quick turn of pace to really help apply pressure when he’s in close and not necessarily guarding a wing. I’m not saying he is slow at all but I’d love to see him accelerate to apply more significant pressure when he’s in tight nearer to ball carrier.
Just imagine what John Coleman’s record would have been if the maggots had umpired him fairly, let alone getting away with all the things they let Hawkins and other favourites get away with.
[Of course JC was such a fair player he wouldn’t have used those illegal tactics anyway].
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He offers more than Perkins, Cox and Reid combined, actually true
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The bloke is just good at football.
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Only thing this guy lacks is pace.
Imagine if he was quick…
But he moves like silk and has an awesome sidestep.
Can create space from nothing.
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Quick enough.
There is speed of foot, and there is speed of thought.
Martin has more speed of thought than foot, and rarely gets caught, he manages to get his foot to the ball quickly and usually picks the right option for the situation. Without looking up his DE numbers, l would say he it would be pretty high. He is one of the better kicks in the team.
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He looks pretty athletic in movement, and looks quick to me, when in motion.
But not explosive quick out of the blocks type.
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