OK, what in your view is a soft player ? For me “soft” means, coward, timid, never gets his own ball, never tackles, never chases, and all of them, not just one trait.
Because a player avoids getting hit, doesn’t mean he is soft. Often means he is just clever.
I have watched just about every Bombers game since the 1962 Grand Final and honesty could not say one Bomber player was soft. Stanton was called soft on occasion because he waited to be given the ball, but he chased and he tackled. Some AFL players have great skills but poor footy smarts which is also called soft.
I maintain no-one makes it onto an AFL list who is soft.
My only view on soft is when the footy is there to be marked/won they aren’t flinching or avoiding the contest.
You don’t get to a professional level of football being like that though and mind you I wouldn’t call anyone who steps onto a Aussie rules oval at any level soft full stop. It’s a very tough game..
A soft player is a player that doesn’t go in when it is their turn. A player that half attacks a contest or half goes into a marking contest. We have too many players that aren’t willing to take a hit.
I’m not talking about running into a marking contest recklessly, I’m talking about going into a marking contest with a genuine attempt to hit the pack hard and impact it. I’m talking about tackling hard with an intent to hurt the opposition player legally or knowing that taking possession of the ball will lead to you being hit hard. It means that you don’t panic kick or handball just because you don’t want to take the hit.
I would put most of our senior players in the soft category.
No they aren’t. If they bid for Bewick at pick 1 and we don’t think he is worth that, he goes to Tassie. Tassie need to ensure that whoever they bid on they want at that price.
I was too stupid to not go it hard for the ball when I played footy and local footy then was much more vicious than now. But I didn’t want to get hurt so I watched for the thugs coming at me.
If you believe that most of our senior players are soft then perhaps we can get you to address the Team and explain it to them.
Just look at the footage, there is nothing to explain.
Wright closes his eyes when going for marks. McGrath dump kicks it when he senses he may get some contact. Parish, well just watch the ANZAC game, Langford is a lead up forward or winger, Merrett doesn’t go in at all.
Merrett does some great run down tackles, but how often do players just run through him and other senior players because they don’t want the contact and tackle with their arms only.
Only Darham, Duursma and Caldwell don’t mind the physicality. The rest are soft. You can argue with this, but watch the better sides and they all go in hard. This then sets standards and expectations for the younger guys.
No one is soft but some are definitely a lot harder than others and some absolutely squib contests.
We need to weed out the ones who continue to short step contests, it’s simply unacceptable and should be a non negotiable
I don’t care if you didn’t go in hard, you didn’t play for Essendon. Also, the AFL has stamped out a lot of things that would have made you scared. AFL is a contact sport, players should expect contact and train for it.
You only have to watch the great Essendon teams of the past to know what toughness looks like:
Solomon
M.Johnson
J.Johnson
Hardwick
Wallis
Barnard
Harvey
Hird
Wanganeen
That’s players who went hard at the ball, the man, or both. The toughest/bravest player we have who I’d be happy to put in that category unequivocally is Duzz. That’s it.
Yep, you need a core group of senior players that like physicality. We have the opposite.
Funny enough, earlier today I was watching the highlights of the Ess v St k game from round 2 2004. We had it in for Hamil and boy did we take any chance we could to start a fight that day.