We found one. Just gotta keep finding more of them.
16 Likes
Get whoever recruited/found Johnson to recruit another 10 players.
We’re going nowhere until at least half our list can kick and make decisions like him.
23 Likes
Yep,
He will only get better.
He has presence unlike Prior who is scared of his own shadow.
Yeah Geelong seemed to have a whole lot of players who could find targets
He was really good tonight and should go close to a Rising Star nomination. Him and Roberts in an overall dirty night for the team were shining lights.
12 Likes
Give it time.
I thought Roberts was putrid.
1 Like
He’s now one of our senior players.
Will be the best of this draft crop.
His skills are awesome!
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The thing I’ve been most impressed with is his demeanor out there. He move decisively and plays with such confidence. The one thing you never know with a kid is if they’re going to believe they belong. He clearly knows it.
There’s been no drop off from U18s to VFL to AFL… hugely impressive.
52 Likes
Roberts held Miers pretty well, they both kicked a goal, roberts provided some run.
issue was more other players kicking to him under pressure causing turnovers.
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He’s already better than McGrath
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Mind you, they had a hell of a lot more targets to find than the Bombers. (Not that we would hit them if we had more.)
I’m always a little suspicious part of our bad kicking is partly bad game plan and bad work rate.
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He certainly knows how to find the ball, and he certainly knows how to kick it. A couple of other things impressed me tonight, though. I thought some of his ground ball collects/handball releases were really nice, and near the end of the game, when most of his teammates had given up, I reckon he contested really effectively in a few defensive 1v1s.
Very good signs, he should play the rest of the season and get himself a solid platform for 2026…
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Not defensively he isn’t.
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Our non existent work rate upfield when coming out of our back 50 is absolutely a huge contributing factor.
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He was very good, he was also involved in what i found to be the most frustrating play of the game. He was running through the back half of the square and parish, who was ahead of him, called for the handball, Johnson dutifully obliges. At that point i covered my eyes, and when i uncovered them, as i expected the ball was going the other way.
1 Like
I think there is a fair bit to bad game plan to it right now. Against Geelong most of our turnovers were a result of 15m kicks to players under pressure. The high possession in the back half game plan is the key driver there. An example that comes to mind is Martin kicking a short 15m pass on a 45 angle into the centre from the back half. It needed to be perfect and it pretty much was but Roberts dropped the mark under a bit of pressure as there was an opponent on him and it let to a goal the other way. Those kicks in my view just aren’t necessary but so many of our players tried to pull them off. They aren’t really skill errors, they are decisions that our players made. And too many of them made them to make me feel like they were bad decisions. It seems to be part of the game plan that Brad is driving.
4 Likes
Best way to describe him is he looks like a Geelong player.
Out of all the young guys we have he is the one absolute lock to end up a very good player.
4 Likes