John Worsfold

Really? You’re going to go with that stat as if it proves anything? It would be almost impossible to have played less then 50 players over the two years given the circumstances.

I don’t mind that though because with our increased membership this year and the club on the rise I expect we should get quite a few more televised games. The big stage is just what we need to test these young kids.

You look at is s stat-others can see it as coach going through the process of assessing a lot of players for AFL readiness.

Some idiot (John something?) said he was ready 5 weeks ago. Since then, 2 of our 3 small forwards have had injuries. It’s luckily we’ve had Bird and Howlett available to be brought back, twice for Bird, big futures for each of them, and already paying big dividends.

The output from our last 2-3 spots picked each week make a compelling case for change on their own.
Myers, Howlett and Bird, Watson and Colyer have basically stunk it up for most of the year. Colyer i can understand, because he gives us real point of difference, but the other 4 have had waaaaay too many chances.

some of you are that welded onto defending selections this year you’re being unrealistically pessimistic about our talent, and the coaches’ ability to develop said talent. The Coach and club are doing a lot more right than wrong, but they’ve been waaaaay too conservative with selection this season.

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That idiot probably deserves a bit more respect and he said Begley would be considered for senior selection at some point. Here we are; he’s in. We’ve reached that point.
Still very very skinny with that lot.

Experiment? This is the one thing Woosha has been loathe to do all season. He could and should have changed things up at some stage, but has played safety first all season.

Francis played last year, no games this year and well documented why he hasn’t. Another case of Woosha making a call on a player not ready for the step up to AFL at the minute and rightly so. You could argue Francis has being showing signs to justify a spot but not quite enough.

Not that it matters but pretty sure he has played 3 games this year.

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Yep. (2) Hence the "Franga In out in etc " thread title.

And afterwards…

DON’T FRET ON FRANCIS URGES BOMBER COACH

Essendon coach John Worsfold says young gun Aaron Francis remains on track despite a long absence from the senior side.

Since being drafted with the sixth overall selection at the 2015 draft the hulking youngster has played five senior games, including two this season, but has not been sighted at senior level since the Bombers’ Round 7 loss to Fremantle in which he gathered 13 disposals.

“He’s tracking along at a pretty good rate and he’s going to be a very good player,” Worsfold told SEN Breakfast.

“The fact he’s not in (the senior side) and dominating games right now is not a concern for us.”

The premiership coach said while Francis had size – he’s listed as 193cm and 92kg – he did not yet have the strength to play the forward role required at senior level.

While robust, the 19-year-old is still raw and very much developing his power-to-weight ratio.

Five weeks ago finals was in our hands and it was obvious the same old same old weren’t getting the job done. Now it’s a crap shoot and we’re going down thrashing about.

It’s weird.

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You could say Worsfold has been coaching with one hand tied behind his back. And yet he has been able to create an exciting, fast-running, goalkicking team to give us bursts of utter joy during games this season. Let’s wait and see what magic he will produce in the next few years…

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Very weird. If we were 6 spots lower on the ladder, we would be getting accused of tanking I reckon.

I think a couple of the returning players are struggling to get to the finish line of the season.

Hurley is injured, Bellchambers has been injured, Watson is struggling, Colyer’s been dropped, Hocking/Stanton never got a look in, and Howlett has been no better than average.

I reckon Heppell and Hooker are the only ones finishing really strongly, somewhere near their best. Myers does seem to be playing better than he was earlier in the season too I guess, but I wouldn’t say he’s playing his best footy.

Not sure how the other blokes at other clubs are doing. Ryder seems like he’s going well, as does Hibberd. Melksham and Monfries - dunno. Haven’t seen much of St Kilda - but Carlisle seems to have been going ok from what I read. Crameri is injured.

I suppose they’ve used this year as a way of getting footy back into some of these players, and seeing who they keep - particularly as quite a few are out of contract.

Ryder has been great and bad at times throughout the season, Hibberd consistently good, Melks up and down also but doing better than ours, Monfries has struggled both with form and injuries and isn’t being considered as serious for next year. Carlol has been very good at times then his very lazy self at other times.

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So pretty much as they were then…

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If he fixes the midfield (just as he has done with the forward line), look out… It’s interesting that this is pretty much the 1st time he’s involved in a team lacking a strong midfield, played in a side with one & coached a very strong midfield… We have some of the best individuals in there now, but don’t have the depth yet… Need to recruit/draft at least one & hopefully one of the youngsters comes on & it’s lid off!!!

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One of these blokes is not like the others.

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Because their surname has one syllable instead of two?

All of them have dropped off over about the past month IMO.

What does skinny even mean?

Reality is we’ve had 19 guys play 3/4 of the year or more. That means, most weeks,there’s 21 guys or so fighting out for the last 3 spots.
You reckon that there’s only 4 or 5 guys who could possibly get up to that level to fill those spots.
I reckon there’s more like 8 or 10. And we should’ve seen them a long time ago.

Again if you supposedly have faith in the coaching staff, you’d expect they could find 3 guys better, and a better fit, than 2017 model Ben Howlett. out of the 25 other AFL listed professional players.
It’s a bizarre interpretation of faith that their selection calls are perfect but they can’t improve players. And one that would fly in the face of all we’ve seen this year.

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It’s almost like the coaches were told to focus on finals and preference the returning players where they can to give them every chance.

But then Stanton has been shifter all season, I cannot see in any way where Howlett is give a game over Stanton. But hey that’s the Bombers of 2017.