Guys, just be happy that the Tsatas kicking action is so speedily moving in the right direction at the same time he already has other weapons with his hands and speed. I’d bring in Heath Hocking to assist Rath in the overall development……Heath had more tricks than a barrel of monkeys when it comes to ball use and would no doubt speed up the process of getting Elijah to an elite level.
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How good is that / not at full pace but he’s on the move.
Elijah intercept mark in front of the incoming 2MP.
https://x.com/bomberricko/status/1878254651641880973?s=46&t=wD5NFeJD3AcUcC07zCd4ow
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huge hottake
Just looked very similar sort of style to me from the Vfl games I watched last year, which was pretty much all of them.
Was fantastic at getting his hands to the ball first, great gut running and providing an option for the team.
Probably not as pure crash and bash out of a pack as Oliver but similar in other areas imo.
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I don’t see the Oliver comparison personally.
I do however, see a lot of Adam Treloar and Ryan Griffen in how he plays.
There’s two pretty big caveats but I’m pretty comfortable with the call. Not saying it will happen
best 22 of essendon players who will overtake parish. go
Lol.
I just think his pace, albeit underutilized, is still an asset parish didn’t possess and he’s bigger.
I think he’s already as clean off the deck as parish and his hands are pretty damn quick
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I’m not buying into any hype until I can see that he’s a decent kick of the footy under match pressure against genuine opposition. Or if his kicking is ordinary he at least needs to show the power and speed to explode from stoppage against AFL mids and make that his point of difference. Without either he’d just be another accumulator with little hurt factor.
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I’ve never seen this ‘pace’ that Elijah supposedly has. He looks a worse runner than Parish.
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He doesn’t use it to burst away but he is quicker across the ground, no doubt about it
I just think he’s a natural onballer and has the potential to be a great one. Parish is probably the last one of those that we recruited and when he was up and about and actually played in the middle he was awesome (injuries have cruelles him).
Just like Parish we faffed about playing Tsatas everywhere but on the ball.
I don’t think you fix kicking in one off season but I think that if he gets to play in his natural position he’s going to thrive. He has elite hands at ground level, great balance / evasiveness / agility, runs hards defensively and has a natural confidence.
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Yeah nah - a straight arm gets the ball to the drop zone well. Buckley was a really high dropper and a relatively high released. What he do though was push the ball down with a fair force to the release around hip height, so it was in control be a use of his forceful downward guide/push. If you have a high drop and let it go all wish washy the release will be extremely high and inconsistent. This is on-the-run kicking. I think Buckley would have been more compact with a set shot - but haven’t checked.
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He’s never demonstrated it in a game of football against adults. It’s a serious concern. His time trial results indicate the same. He is not a good runner. He is not quick in the sense that is useful in Australian Rules.
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His hands are fkn ridiculous. Some of the handballs he made in the last few VFL games were legit globetrotters level ■■■■.
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A useless skill unless he learns to absorb physical heat. If he’s just going to come to the AFL and shovel the ball to other teammates under pressure quickly then he is as functionally useless as the rest of our midfield (merrett excluded).
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He was more than willing to cop a hit while handballing from what I saw.
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What was his time trial result?