I appreciate the stat, but it’s not very helpful without context.
GC played a pretty open forward-line when he was there.
We haven’t been, certainly not for the last two weeks.
There’s a difference between a contested mark with two players, and a contested mark with six.
2CentermeterPeter ……plays like he has no presence or stature
If Wright doesn’t improve his effectiveness forward, and when Draper returns I’d be tempted to try a combination forward of Draper, Caddy, Jones (Caddy repl Wright). This allows Draper to impact as a ruck, resting forward. Goldy rest as a ruck. If Caddy keeps doing what he did last weekend, he has to be considered ahead of Wright once Draper returns.
But he’s not just failing to take contested marks against six opponents.
He is barely taking any, against any amount of opponents.
He may be competing better in body-on-body, but he is grabbing less than he ever has.
His hands are like trampolines ball just bounces off
Same with Jones. What do we have to do to get a couple of key forwards who can crash packs,take marks and also kick goals
Man, I dunno.
I think it’s ridiculous to judge his contested marking when our forward fifty is a swamp and the delivery takes longer than Dominos.
But I’m not disputing his contested marking is not his strength, and I think I made All of those issues clear in my previous post.
You recruit someone that looks like Chungus Jr, or Hawk, or the big fat idiot at Port.
What you Don’t do is sook about players who are Clearly not that and never will be.
I get your point. But It’s not drastically different to how we were kicking to him in 2022.
All I’m saying is, that his already low base for contested marking, is poorer this year than it has been. Ever.
His marking confidence is clearly off, crowded forward line and all. I mean, he’s not even trying to mark half the time, he’s doing two handed palm-downs to nobody in particular.
I agree with this part.
Expecting him to suddenly become a pack-busting beast just because we want him to, is a fools game.
Never has been his game, never will be.
Ehhhhh.
I really don’t want to be argumentative.
Truly, I don’t.
But it’s not just 2MP, is it.
I’m seriously looking at our last two games as one eight quarter game, and we looked okay in One of those eight quarters, and to me it’s a massive difference to how we’ve played previously.
But we can set a benchmark?
Because he took eight marks against GC.
At least one I remember in the backline, so shrugs probably three.
But that’s still five elsewhere…
I don’t want to marry the guy, but I am asking for some balance and recognition of the circumstances.
Now now, let’s not say things we don’t mean 
I’m not really mounting an argument against you. In fact, I only just saw your initial post about him then.
I was posting independently of that, just extending on from some stuff I was saying a few weeks ago. My issue is with the idea that ‘he was always this ■■■■, one year aside.’ No, I think the state of his marking this year is as bad as it’s ever been, certainly with us.
But to argue with you a little… I don’t reckon we’ve been bombing high and long all year, I reckon it’s something that’s crept back into our game over the last 3 weeks. But his contested marking has been poor all year.
Edit: I’m no hater of 2MP, in fact I’m the opposite of that.
Completely concur on the last three weeks part.
Especially because I’ve only noticed it for two, and it always takes me a week.
Hi, Hind, hi.
Lol.
I heard a rule today that I think is spot on, clubs trade for B grade and draft A grade. I think Essendon is doing it completely the wrong way round. 2MP is a second string forward, he needs a gun (Caddy?) to take the best defender because he can’t take a contested mark on anyone with any skill
He actually looks better as a key back atm than a forward. He’s slow around the ground aswell and doesn’t make enough contests. It’s been so disappointing watching him get shoved out of contests and outmarked.
It looks like its basically been between 1 - 1.5 per game most of his career
So basically, Even if he started taking one (or some weeks two) contested marks a game he’d be at his average.
Would taking one more contested mark a week make a huge difference to his output? Id be interested to know what contested marking looks like across other key forwards, if you have that data
I’ll get some proper data later, but 1 per game would make quite a difference.
League leaders are Curnow and McKay with 2.6 and 2.5.
Our leaders are Ridley with 1.7, and McKay with 1.3.
Unfortunately i just dont see it with 2MP to be consistently good. Lots of guys have 1 good year in their careers then dont do a great deal. Tom Mcdonald kicked 50+ in a year once. Didn’t josh Jenkins too? Im sure there are heaps of examples.
I know we’ve talked about this before but im near on certain we’ll never see a 50+ year out of him again. He’s just a good ordinary player who had an out the box year once.
He has a role to play heading forward, and he can be better, but we desperately need a better key forward than him
Jack Anthony kicked 50 one year
Yep, we each see this one a bit differently.
For the record Jenkins kicked 62 one year, but he also kicked 40+ five years in a row. I’d love those goal kicking numbers from Pete!