What sucks the most is what a powerful athlete he is.
If only he was picking up the nuances of the game quicker.
Should be catching up with Zack Touy
It’s debatable.
Conor is being judged on a very small 1st’s sample base.
BJ is probably our best field kick - and screws up a couple of times a game.
Walla - see above
Zerret often makes errors, and often kicks it blindly.
Fanta is a great set shot kick
McNiece, like Conor - well, like Conor
Heppell isn’t bad.
Francis - we have no idea and shouldn’t figure into this.
Jobe - not really.
JoeDan is probably up there with our best field kicks.
Nothing wrong with a difference of opinion every now and then mate, and I do usually agree with you. I do know you’ve been on the McKenna bandwagon for a long time so you can be the first to get the confetti when he turns into a capable player. I don’t disagree that we should be trailing players but there has to be a limit to how much it hurts the team before you say enough and either try them in another position or let them learn the craft further in the VFL. I’m not saying he’s a bad kick, I’m saying he’s not in the top 10 for our club, based on everything I’ve seen from him at AFL level he’s not near it. Perhaps his positioning or awareness being below average for an AFL player is affecting his ability to disposal the ball properly.
Yesterday he had a match high 8 clangers (3 highest from the next Ess player) and a disposal efficiency of 61% where only Daniher & Hannan had lower. Gleeson also had the the same disposal efficiency as McKenna. I’m not really going to go into who’s a better kick because McKenna has literally had no sample base to draw from. If you want a few names tho i’d dare say Goddard, Tippa, Daniher (field), Fantasia, Heps & Zaka (not this year) for example and you can’t tell me McKenna is better than a majority of our list if he can’t perform at senior level. Just my opinion tho.
But deserves a longer run at it.
Simple decision to make in many ways.
Play an inexperienced young player like McKenna, or persist with the likes of Howlett, Stanton, Hocking all of whom will be lucky to be at Essendon in 2018.
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This is what you need to understand. We need to move on Watson, Stanton, Kelly, Goddard, and probably Hocking and Howlett in the next couple of years. Unless we are extremely successful in getting all the GWS cast offs ahead of Collingwood, we are going to have to play some of the young guys currently on our list. If you give up on guys like McKenna (and Clarke, Begley, Mutch, Ridley, Draper, Long etc) whenever they fail to come up to expectations, you are going to be playing a whole lot of 2017 and 2018 draftees.
McKenna has real attributes, and a few obvious faults. The faults, as posters here have identified, can be summarised as “game awareness” He has reasonably good “game awareness” at VFL level, but is poor at AFL level. I wonder why. Could it be because he has only played a handful of AFL games? Of course it farkingwel is!! Give him a run at it. If after about as many games as Gleeson and Jackson Merrett have had to find their feet, he is still a liability, then maybe make a call on him. But give him a chance to adjust up to the standard and the quicker more pressured game at AFL level.
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Q1
Time index is countdown clock
14.06 - first sighting, in the right spot with his man in the back pocket as a long kick comes in, didn’t have to contest, moves to attack loose ball but giveaways way to tbell who gets there first. We fark it up and it goes back over head as garlett goals
11.50 runs on to loose ball at chb after errant Oliver kick. Bad kick into the center looking for zac, turnover goal. Ouch
10.42 in off the line for the centre bounce, clumsily gets into back of opponent over the ball and gives away a cheap free.
10.18 chases back into defence as ball goes over his head, gets to contest to last tackle jkh. Doesn’t disposes or upset handball release.
7.56 Pushes to wing to provide option and takes a good mark in front of his man, turns and goes. Chips up the wing and hits his target. The ball comes back to merrett and he fails to shepard. Merrett kicks under modest pressure and misses his target but we retain possession only to cough it up a couple of possessions later.
6.00 takes a great pack mark on our forward flank after a long Melbourne kick in. Goes short to chf but missed zaka, they get a good quick transition which ends with an oobf shot on goal
3.50 arrives at contest in back pocket and forces ball up. From The ball up dees scramble a kick fwd, hurls gets it and shovels a hand pass to Connor on the last line who, under real pressure, chips to and finds jobe. Jobe eventually kicks it back to him, he marks plays on into the center but doesn’t quite hit the target, we manage to retain possession, transition and JD blasts it oobf from 55
0.30 receives a short pass on the edge of the square at the wing, kicks to zaca on the boundary attacking side of the wing but zaca’s man closes him down to force the thrown in. Can’t tell on the replay if there was a better option but he certainly looked inside first.
Played as part of the backs the entire qtr and it was clearly case of undoing most of the good he did and a few other unforced errors. Poor quarter no doubt, cost us a goal and another scoring opportunity from his turnovers while being involved in one transition that led to a shot on goal for us.
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Great effort. Not sure I could endure watching the replay. You must have a high pain threshold.
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I’m still weighing up whether i can suffer the 3rd qtr
I reckon he was about 40% rubbish but I’d still pick him again. The good he does is very very good.
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I usually like your stuff aceman but to put watson as an equal kick to mckenna shocked me. Actually i would put jobe in the bottom 20 percent of kicks on our list.
I advise people to head along to a training session and watch Mckennas kicking, it is the best at the club imo. His stuff ups are decision making based which he seems clueless at times. If you had every player asked to hit a target 40m away id put my money on Mckenna to be the best at it if thinking didn’t become involved.
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I’ve watched him quite a bit at VFL level also and I support that statement!
Conor doesn’t have instinct to fall back on because he is new to the game, but others have had a similar learning curve and adapted!
He turned 21 less than two months ago and has played 16 games.
They didn’t upgrade him from the rookie list because they didn’t think he had something!
Once it clicks for him we have a good player.
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Jobe’s kicking is pretty good during matches, he doesn’t miss too many targets. I think his kicking is better than what most people give him credit for especially over 15-30m
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McKenna’s disposal efficiency was only 61% (usually much higher) largely because he won so much contested ball - 11 out of 21 possessions. It’s a statistical fact that the higher your proportion of CP relative to your total disposal count, the lower your disposal efficiency.
Understand that only one player - Goddard - had more CP than McKenna. That is staggering and an indictment on the rest of our mids. this is the first game I’ve seen McKenna spend time across the midfield and he showed a hunger for the ball that was refreshing. He now has to learn to win plenty of CP & dispose of it more cleanly. In Q4, on the wing, he was arguably our best player and directly responsible for 3 of the 4 last quarter goals we kicked. He actually gave us real drive. He needs now to stay in the midfield because we need his bullocking ways in the middle.
Gleeson played a much more outside game - as he always does - and won only only 7 CP out of 18 disposals. His disposal efficiency should have been much higher than McKenna’s given that so much of the ball he got was uncontested i.e. under no pressure.
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Q2
18.00 Roves pack well at hbf from kick in and runs into the corridor but has nothing to kick to (I remember that from the game) sends speculative floating handball looking for hepp but it is cut out. They end up converting a difficult set shot. This is one where id like him to go long to a one on one down the line but it strikes me he doesn’t like to kick across his body.
15.50 outbodied Pederson on the wing to take the mark but the ump pays in the back. It was probably there to be honest, maybe a bit stiff. Hurley intercepts the long Kick to chf though
15.10 receives from bj in the corridor and goes quickly across his body into the center for zaka. It ends up going long to the goal square where JD gives away a stupid free going for mark of the year. Jd then forces a turnover by running down melk in the pocket and plays a quick give and go with Coner but JD missed the resulting snap.
7.40 flys in a pack to work petraca under a long kick in which forces a free kick to us because the kick in wasn’t touched
4.30 trails his man in at chf, his man taps it to Watts who has a ping from 60 but misses
3.00 centre bounce, he follows in jkh and it goes over their heads to a contest, another quick kick which petraca marks in the square. No impact on the play but note worthy that he lost jhk as they ran back from the middle. Connor got sucked to the first contest while jkh pushed straight for the square.
2.00 zerret commits a terrible hand pass turnover. He puts pressure on a dees player who kicks in50.
0.20 receives handpass on fwd flank and accelerates into the corridor drawing a man and releasing bj by hand who gives to hepp who puts it to the top of the square. Nothing comes off it but we should have got a free for a blatant throw
Not as involved, maybe for the better after the first, but still managed to cough up a goal and could have been burnt for 2 out 3 if petraca hadn’t have marked at the top of the goal square and Watts had kicked straight. Played back all quarter. Helped Set up 2 scoring opportunities though 1 came about because JD screwed up the first one.
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He was also one of our better players in the second half against Adelaide when all was lost.
Q3
15.30 excellent collect below his knees under pressure running flat out toward the boundary, he snaps up the line (probably the only other option was to run it out and risk deliberate) but McDonald takes an uncontested mark as the spare. Our structure failed him here. McDonald pumps it in but we repel temporarily
12.43 makes space in the center on the switch to receive from bags, turns and goes deep inside 50 to JD but their spare gets across, we win crumb and kick point.
11.20 he’s been switched to a wing and gets caught between two opponents after they win the center clearance which looked like it might go our way before the ump ignored a clear in the back to parish. He chases hard despite the overlap and makes contact with Watts on the kick. Brown drops a tough mark which he probably should have spoiled through, they goal from the crumb.
10.27 he’s deeper again and wins a good contested ball and flicks a great over the shoulder handball to zerret he finds JD in the middle. Our transition fizzes out with a smother on the fwd flank.
7.52 flies for an intercept mark at our chf after Melbourne scramble it clear but he doesn’t hold it. Unfortunate because I would have marked him down to goal from 50 dead in front.
5.12 takes up a good defensive position at a stoppage in their forward pocket, does enough to make Oliver fumble then wins the ball takes half a step to avoid a tackle and is caught and pinged. reckon this one is a bit tough on him, if he’d tried to dispose immediately the initial tackle would have blocked him. A specialist clearance player wouldn’t have stood up but would have stayed low and released and handball as the first tackle arrived. McGrath is really good at this btw. Something for conor to work on. Howlett probably needed to communicate better too. Garlett goals and puts them 20 up after a period of domination where should have kicked at least 2.
(Aside) Hannan kicks their next goal opposed to mcniece. Hannan ate medium and key tall defenders alike for breakfast in the vfl last year and I reckon mcniece is giving away close to 10cm. It’s a real bad match up, he does enough to stop Hannan marking in their first contest (though he is lucky not to give away a free) but can’t spike a clearing spoil and is then caught out of position when the ball gets chipped back to Hannan. Next goal is that ■■■■ free to Watts, seriously it’s appalling, and the game is gone.
2,00 conor comes off the line from the wing at the center bounce but is slow and arrives a fraction of second late in his tackle to upset the play. They move forward and tippa wins it at half back only for zaka to knock him over and jones claims him holding the ball. Behind from 50. We’re in full blown Essington mode now if you haven’t picked that up already.
1.02 closes well from behind Pederson on the back flank to spoil and then wins a free while following up the crumb. Kicks long down the line but punched out off bounds by their spare, hooker not happy, think he wanted it quicker. Conor did look inside the corridor for a while but the dees were pretty well set up ahead of the ball because it took a while for the ball to come to Connor originally.
Split his time between wing and defence after spending about the first 5 minutes on the pine. He’s consistent, he gave up a goal but none of the massive disposal howlers of the first half. He still finding it and getting involved more than a few highly regarded players.
Some observations 1. he runs in straight lines and doesn’t have a genuine baulk or movement off the line. He can evade instinctively but not suck a guy in. This is something he really needs to develop. 2 he doesn’t get easy handball receives by moving at pace from behind the mark. This was tippa’s bread and butter last year when at half back. Pops in particular would look for him. We could do worse than try to use Conor like this a bit more because he can break a line with his speed. This should be something simple to try and implement a bit more and it would be great for his confidence.
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Sorry about the formatting by the way. Seen to be losing the bullet points from Google docs and can’t be arsed reformatting right now.
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I think his issue is just plain old game sense. He’s quick. his skills are great, while not really being the most consistent kick just yet, he can pull off kicks that very few in the team (or league) can. He doesn’t shirk a contest, and he doesn’t drop his head.
There is a lot there to like. No doubt.
He didn’t make it as forward, because he didn’t really understand the basic fundamentals. Where to lead, when to lead, when a ball may go over the back / fall short, etc. These same problems have followed him into the backline IMO. He’s ok in just a straight up one-on-one contest, but when it comes to knowing where to run, when to man up, when to leave your man, when to defend space, when a ball may fall short / go over the back… he often looks totally lost out there.
It’s completely understandable considering his background, but i’m not sure it’s fixable. You either pick it up, or you don’t. I have no idea how long this took the Hanley / Touhy types, and maybe it is just a matter of sucking it up and just letting him figure it out live, on an AFL field? Maybe not though.
I’m not particularly hopeful, but considering his potential upside, and that his competition for half backs spots atm are either old (Kelly, Stanton), very average (Gleeson, Dea, Mcneice) or perpetually injured (Morgan), I’m not against him getting more opportunity over the season.
It’s a long shot though.
Man, Hibbo would be nice right about now…
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I can understand the frustration with Conor. And I admit that there are times where he just looks completely lost. But what else do you expect from a bloke whose only played the game for 3 years.
As for his kicking, yes he had a bad day by foot against Melbourne, but his kicking is definitely within the top 5 at the club. Not to mention he can use both feet and can spot up targets that few players can see.
Personally, judging by the way we’ve performed so far in the season, there is almost no chance of us finishing in the top 8. Especially if Melbourne is considered on the periphery of the 8. Therefore, i’d much rather watch a bunch of kids run around in the black and red knowing that these games will prove invaluable for their development in the long run. McKenna is one such player that should be pursued with in the firsts.
On the topic of positioning, would Conor be that out of place in the forward line or on the wing? He’s quick, aggressive and can run all day and by playing him in those positions he has less accountability than he does down back and therefore his mistakes wouldn’t be as costly as they are now. That forward pressure act in the last quarter that led to hooker’s goal just makes me think that he does have a future in the forward half of the ground.
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