He did say at AFL level.
Thank Christ. Make the most of it Kyle, hope you’re given an extended run.
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It seems Donnington does watch, but he’s just very bad at it.
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needs a cane
Now I want Francis & Parish there with them.
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■■■■ ■■■■ up Kyle
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My roommate and I, both bombers fans, are very much divided when it comes to Langford.
I’m very much on the bandwagon, sprouting confident predictions about his future and current potential with every breath I take around the house.
It’s come down to this, I’ve backed him in off strong successive VFL form and we have arranged a drinking game.
Lang gets a one of the below, he takes the following;
Kick/Handball/Mark: Take x1 Drink
Tackle: Take x2 Drink
Goal: Finish your beer
Contested Mark: Finish your beer
Goals Total >1: Assume funnel position
Possessions Total >29: Assume funnel position x2
.>29 Disposals & >1 Goal: My beers all night on him
Conversely;
Broken Tackle: Finish my drink
Missed shot on goal: Finish my drink
Turnover: Finish my drink
<12 disposals at 1/2 Time: Adopt an orangutang, finish my drink, assume funnel position.
<24 disposals at Full time: Attend WCE’s home game vs St Kilda alone and witness that filth of a team win, adopt orangutang, drinks on me Saturday.
The stakes are high lang, too high to leave that face expressionless.
Donnington pls leave your negative vibes at the door.
EDIT: suggestions/edits are welcome
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I said: “They brought in Langford!”
My wife said: “Yanni? What’s he doing in the team?”
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Very nice .
THE LANG. go well son
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Hopefully he’s given until the bye round in the seniors.
Hopefully any judging of him should be based on his performance across the game, not what he could be because he did a few things well.
Best of luck to him. We need him to be comfortably in our best 18 by the end of the year.
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yep - good luck to him. But it is up to him to cement his place and make himself an obvious selection.
It’s equally up to the coaches to back him in and give him fair opportunity to cement a spot.
They haven’t done that so far.
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Given the hype, I don’t think we will ever lose a match that Kyle is playing in.
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In all honestly, I was quite lid off-ish about him in early 2016. In preseason training he was training with the midfield group and I genuinely held the belief that he’d be the big bodied mid post Jobe. I still hold out some hope that he may fulfil that role, but I reckon the moden game has changed since then, even in the space of a couple of short seasons.
Pressure in the midfield has increased exponentially, and it leaves little to no room for big, lanky mids who are even a tiny bit slow with their decision making, or a tiny but clumsy with their ball handling, or who arent willing to be an absolute brute at the ball. You have to be one touch, and crystal clear in your decision making. Langford just falls short a bit at each of these traits at the moment. IMO Jobe slowed down in all the above areas in 2017 and it was a massive reason for his decline in form.
I really got nothing against Langford and I wish him all the best, I hope he can make a good career for himself because I agree he’s super talented, but I just query whether there is a real spot for a player like him in the midfield. Anyway, best of luck.
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Agree. I like to see players given a good run at it to get AFL level form and confidence. Equally, he needs to show them there is something substantial there to back. They just need to communicate with each other about expectations.
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Fair enough but I see it differently.
Kyle is as clean with the ball as I have seen and I personally think its a lack of confidence shown in him by the coaches. His work below his knees is something that impresses me greatly and I think that is a necessity at AFL level.
Those things aside its not the only thing to look at. Surrounded by quick players such as McKenna, McGrath and Smith the requirement for him to be quick is negligible even though he is in my opinion above the standard for his height and size. In particular his footwork gives him space as his lateral movement is very good.
Another thing I factor in with him is his all out attack mentality. He ALWAYS looks for best position for the team, you will rarely see him go backwards by hand or foot.
Something else he brings to the table is marking ability. We just don’t have any height in midfield which really limits the amount of targets that the defenders can hit on the way out. If we could some how release Joe and Stewart to stay closer to home and not have to lead up to the back flank we may have less concerns with sprinting back to goal all the time to provided a target.
With a contested bull like Clarke playing beside him the requirement to dig out the ball is less and it allows him to play to his strengths. Which is what should have been happening from the start.
As I have maintained all along it’s all about a variety of different types that will form an effective midfield brigade and that should allow each to play to their strengths. For far to long we persist with slow players who cant kick and on top of that don’t chase.
My preference would be to develop Clarke and Langford as the inside roles and then surround with speed for the defensive and attacking duties.
That should also allow players like Parish and Merrett to play more outside roles where their size wont be as big a problem.
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All for giving him an opportunity, but he needs to show intensity and go in hard.
Is that all?
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