His brothers on Tiwi have some impressive footy history. I think Simon is his oldest brother who was the first player to play 200 games in the NT League, and another brother played in Perth.
3 Likes
Not sure this is a fair comparison. James was a highly credentialed footy player as a kid. However he chose to focus on cricket for a few years which meant he could be selected as a Cat B rookie. He also comes from a line of AFL/VFL players with both his dad and grandfather having played for St Kilda.
1 Like
With him, I believe it was more assimilating into an AFL team environment as well as having the fitness base to be able to do what we saw as highlights for 4 quarters of footy.
From what I saw, he was fitting in well. This was before the bye. I didn’t see any indication he wasn’t enjoying life as an AFL footballer.
I think we did take a very slow approach to him though. Through pre-season, he was mainly running laps and I don’t recall him joining in on full training until the end of pre-season at the very earliest. By Anzac Day, he definitely was involved in everything.
His early games in VFL weren’t overly great. He was played ahead of other non-AFL listed players and given time work on his fitness. He barely touched the ball for the first two months, but I don’t think he was ‘underperforming’ he just needed time to get the hang of VFL footy.
He did have a few months of footy where he was getting low possession numbers (ranging between 7 to 10 possessions) but was hitting the scoreboard regularly.
I’ve been preaching patience with him. He definitely has talent. And he definitely has a good tackling intent.
But in all honesty, he wasn’t VFL standard yet. I think 2025 would be the time where he can consistently establish himself on games, get his possession rate into the high teens, hit the scoreboard and have enough of a fitness base to start producing at AFL level.
One of our list problems is, we have many players who are one or two years away and need development into them (VFL) before being getting their shot at AFL level. For some players it’s been injury, for other’s they are ‘long term prospects’.
I think if we could have gotten 20 VFL/AFL games into Reid, Cox, Harry Jones and even gotten 10 games into Hunter like we did for Voss and Hayes, there’d be a bit more leeway to hang on to players that need more time.
But such is life.
We’ll wait and see how things come about over the next six weeks.
7 Likes
I thought i saw somewhere another Munkarra at Essendon
1 Like
I wonder if he was the victim of low expectations. The media talk of him taking a while might have also been a guiding influence on coaches who felt he would need more latitude. Unfortunately, when his output equalised with those training expectations, a judgement was made that he was not going to be good enough.
He showed more as a schoolboy than most.
I don’t think there’s been much media talk about him.
Every other club overlooked him for a spot on their main list. So it was already a given that he needed time before pre-season actually started.
The limited amount I saw of him, it was noticeable he was a long way back.
But what I did see of him at VFL looked great. There just wasn’t enough of it.
1 Like
The word I used to describe him was “like a Matador” , he had a way of side stepping that was really uncanny.
1 Like
I’m blissfully ignoring until I see confirmation, he’s still there in my mind.
11 Likes
Maybe the club has another cat b rookie in their sites?
5 Likes
And there it is. Not offered a contract. That’s really disappointing, no matter which way you slice it.
46 Likes
This club just constantly invents new ways to let down their supporters.
FFS
31 Likes
I think we deseve a more detailed explanation than that from the club.
Unless its a behavioural issue and they can’t really say it without putting Anthony down
9 Likes
3 Likes
I agree, the lack of information is revealing in itself I reckon.
5 Likes
I think they’re being very deliberate with the phrasing there. Very deliberately saying ‘will return to the Tiwi Islands’, rather than simply ‘wish them them the best with their future endeavours’ that delistees usually get. Not sure why, but it’s strange.
We’ll probably find out in 10 years after we’ve gotten rid of three more rounds of coaching staff, and there’s a shitfight going on about whose fault it was that Munkara was mismanaged…
6 Likes
FeelsBadMan