Your kidding yourself.
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Yep, heās 20. Have faith. This isnāt an issue around a lack of talent.
Not at all unfortunately
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Canāt remember him playing more than 75% game time at vfl reserves. always see him back and forth between bench and field.
I agree houli. Itās a fair assessment. No one will give him more credit if he becomes a consistent senior footballer than me. He has oodles of talent, thatās not the issue. I donāt think his body and the way he applies himself will allow that to happen though
Was it about this time last year you described our #1 draft pick as an over-rated midget?
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Yep.
He finished second behind Merrett for tackles.
Vast improvement on past years.
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Even as a u18, francis struck me as a confidence player. Not just over the course of a season or a streak of matches, but even in the course of a single game. If he got on a roll he could become unstoppable, but if his opponent got on top of him he could tend to disappear unless he was shifted to a new opponent or position to give him a fresh run at it.
From the outside, and purely judging on training reports etc, it looks to me like his confidence and morale is in the crapper right now, and the longer he stays on the list and watches blokes go past him, the worse that is going to get. I still think he COULD be a very good player if the switch flicks in his head at some point, but I honestly donāt know what the secret to doing that is. Heāll have been deluged with sports psychs, mentors, well-meaning advice, visualisation, tough love, and god know what else over the past year, but for some people that can sometimes be counterproductive because when youāre down on yourself it can all start to sound like people just telling you āwe know that youāre brokenā
My gut feeling is that heād more likely to not make it than make it, at this point. but he remains a talented kid and even a big game in VFL round 1 could turn it all around for him massively by giving him some belief.
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I was and remain concerned about the balance of our midfield in terms of size and queried the penetration in his kicking. No issues with his commitment to get the best out of himself though and he is clearly a very clever player. Fair play!!
If itās my opinion you donāt rate then fair enough, but my earlier post on Francis is more than just a reflection of my own external reading of him at training and in games etc but more so from my discussions with a recruiter friend who was at Essendon for many years up until 2017 and also a few VFL players I know who play at Essendon.
Hey, they best thing is the ball is in his court if he wants it badly enough. I just donāt think he is mentally in the right place to develop the habits needed to make it. It would require a dramatic change which is far less likely than likely unfortunately.
How does one acquire sustained levels of belief?
Why do you hate Francis so much?
Because I am a fundamentally flawed and vicious personality.
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If I knew that, Iād be lying on a private tropical island somewhere being served cocktails by bikini models while watching my shares in Sustained Levels Of Belief Pty Ltd going gangbusters on the stockmarket.
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Yeh but thatās what everyone was saying last pre season with jobe, hepp, parish and merret and only one of them performed to the expected level.
Of those guys as full time mids you basically have:
Unproven, unproven, average in 2017, gun, unproven and unproven as full time mids. Zaka i would say is a b grader and our second best midfielder if played right on the ball.
Anyway there is a lot of talent there but if some of these guys actually stand up as reliable mids that will be the difference between really contending or not. Unsure if that will happen, hopefully it will.
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Fair enough.
I was just wondering if you were a bit prone to making the early call in favour of the darker side. For some reason, your comment about McGrath last year stuck in my mind as I thought it was a bit harsh on a kid that hadnāt even played his first game.
I too have concerns about Francisā progress to date, but remain hopeful they can get him right, physically & mentally, & that he hangs in there to give himself a chance to show us what he can do because, if he can, he could be a massive weapon for us.
It just takes a lot longer for some, so Iām keeping the faith.
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At the end of the season these players were āA Gradeā or āeliteā being within the top 10% Champion Data ratings for the position they are classified in ( a 2 year average).
Zerret, Saad, Tippa, Stringer, Fanta, Daniher. add in Hurls, who surely must be an A grader: he was AA.
Thats 7 A grade players and yes, Zaka is B grade.
OK, I know Champion data is BS, so does anyone have a better objective measurement to use?
As a matter of interest, here are the numbers of elite players at each club at the beginning of 2017
Adelaide 4
Brisbane Nil
Carlton 2
Collingwood 2
Fremantle 3 ( incl Bennell: a real problem.)
Geelong 5
Gold Coast 3 ( Ablett is no longer elite)
GWS 6 ( incl Devon Smith, is no longer elite )
Hawthorn 5
Melbourne 2
North Melb 1 ( Goldy)
Port 3
Richmond 3 ( not incl Dusty)
St Kilda 1 ( Montagna)
Sydney 5
West Coast 6
Bulldogs 6
So Essendon now has probably the most A grade players ( based on their position) of any club.
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Thatās interesting. Also, if Smithās loss of elite status was due to games missed by injury, and if he can regain that form, that gives us 8.
No McGrath? Hooker is A Grade, and my dark horse is Gleeson or McKenna to take another step.
Chris, come back to reality mate, we are nothing until we win a final.
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Absolute hunger to have it, potential will only take anyone so far. Then, you have to do all the little things and work incredibly hard. In an AFL life, you have to be lucky to stay on a list long if you canāt produce the goods. Although, there have been some who have.
He has had an awful couple of years. Whether he can rise above his loss and make it work for him, remains to be seen. I hope he does.