I do on tv and haven’t noticed him the last few weeks actually forgot he was in the team
You stated in the VFL thread that you do not watch VFL games.
Clarke or Saad we are talking about?
Okay, that’s fair. I thought it was about SEH, but it is about Clarke. My apologies.
I agree.
I recon he has been lucky to keep his spot essentially since dream time.
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I think history shows Brad see’s one thing he doesn’t like and you’re pushing uphill from there to crack it.
But there’s no point even trying to make it make sense. Because there is no rhyme or reason to Brads team selections, he is an absolute mug when it comes to this and game plans.
Continually out coached, and he fails us all at selection year after year.
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All of what you’ve said can be true.
Ditto with what I posted.
SEH agreed to the terms of his employment.
It was his choice.
I don’t think he was cohersed into it.
He’d be far more informed than us from the outside to make a judgement on his career and his prospects. Maybe he has a low self esteem issue.
Of course, he’s a high chance to fail. He’s at Essendon after all. He’s playing for a failure of a coach. He’d have the same situation at St Kilda and Carton. Maybe even North. And he’s in a competition where he’s up against 17 other employers and 700~ other people competing for the opportunity to work with those employers.
Maybe some perspective is needed. Clarke is 18 and has played 7 games. Was consistent up to and including the Freo game, never stops trying and running. Was down a bit in the game before that against Geelong, but who wasn’t.
Was poor last Saturday in a Team that had few good players. He needs development and is getting it, and who would you replace him with ? He has been much better than Gresham, Perkins, Menzies, Shiel.and who is left?
I never insinuated he had be coerced into signing, if we had to do this the club really is at complete rock bottom.
Merely that I fail to see why he would do so.
But after being passed over for so many drafts you’re most probably spot on with the self-doubt, and that any other options would also be at a rabble of a club.
Either way I’d be very interested to hear if his manager had actually gone and seen if there was a market. As playing under Brad with the opportunities afforded and gameplan at hand wouldn’t be the option I’d select for him.
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I’d be very surprised if his manager didn’t go out to the market.
Maybe he didn’t cast the net far enough (there always someone willing to take a gamble) but I’d think he’d have a decent understanding of where he sits and what scouts generally think about him and his prospects.
From the outside looking in, I doubt any of us would play for around 80% of the coaches in the league. A good percentage are failures and clubs in general fail across time more often than succeed. In the end you’re a sportsman and you play the cards you’ve been dealt to the best of your ability.
We fail to see why he’s signed because we are missing a rather large part of context that he’d know. And that’s enough for him to decide to stay.
Watch out for Clarke to be a new brad favourite, he was gushing over him a couple of weeks ago in a presser i watched, indicating he likely won’t be dropped for the foreseeable future no matter what he does.
That’s fine coming from anyone else, but with brads track record it made me concerned that Clarke could put a long stretch of games together where he under performs and will still be selected.
This approach to selection doesn’t help anybody. On the contrary, I actually think it’s bad for a players development too, as we’ve seen with Perkins, menzie and the likes. This complete lack of selection integrity would also ■■■■ off and shake the confidence of the other players not in brads favourites category, that get consistently overlooked, subbed and dropped regardless of form.
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They already rated him pretty highly before he was injured.
They (incl assistants for memory) spoke highly of him during pre-season.
He did win our time trial.
The fact he came into the team off very little VFL play or form emphasises that.
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Fair to say Lual’s four disposal game tonight didn’t change my mind.
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17 touches and 3 goals in the 2s
BRING
(Surely)
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Anyone see it?
Yup. He was good.
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…and a couple of solid contested marks.
Played well.
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But Lual showed good intent and physicality.
That’s more valuable than footskills, footy IQ, and scoring ability yeah? Right?
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And then we have Perkins. How could Saad possibly deliver more than Perkins has been all year?
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