Won't play R1 !!

[Mr X from the West]

not convinced fiora is bad yet, limited certainly, confidence player definately but he does have skills.

"Skills" are what X Clarke has.

Time and time again when Xavier is under enormous pressure in the traffic he is able to show clean hands and dispose of the ball to our advantage. He is simply great in this area (always has been) and MUST move to the midfield in the main season accordingly.

Fiora, on the other hand, panics and does not have clean hands. He is a flanker at best, and not in my best 22.

[Dan Warna]

not convinced fiora is bad yet, limited certainly, confidence player definately but he does have skills.

"Skills" are what X Clarke has.

Time and time again when Xavier is under enormous pressure in the traffic he is able to show clean hands and dispose of the ball to our advantage. He is simply great in this area (always has been) and MUST move to the midfield in the main season accordingly.

Fiora, on the other hand, panics and does not have clean hands. He is a flanker at best, and not in my best 22.

concur that x clarke is a league about fiora

it saddens me that such a talent as fiora can't perform regularly enough. We've all seen what he can do, sweeping 30 to 40 m handpasses to players in the clear, 60m passes drilling roo/fg/kosi on the chest, long goals from 50m plus, aerial marks to inspire, but those games and incidents are too few and too irregular IMO and concur he's not impressing in the preseason.

as for CJ, his handpasses are tickets for his teammates to the ambulance. He maybe a gun in the WAFL, and he may be a gun at collecting the ball, and he maybe fast, but his disposal is shocking and I'd be suprised if more than 50% of them are effective disposals.

[hAyES]

not convinced fiora is bad yet, limited certainly, confidence player definately but he does have skills.

"Skills" are what X Clarke has.

Time and time again when Xavier is under enormous pressure in the traffic he is able to show clean hands and dispose of the ball to our advantage. He is simply great in this area (always has been) and MUST move to the midfield in the main season accordingly.

Fiora, on the other hand, panics and does not have clean hands. He is a flanker at best, and not in my best 22.

Good post. X is the man you want delivering the ball inside 50 to the forwards, whereas when Fiora gets the ball he does the blind snap kick, which usually goes to the opposition. Fiora needs to start kicking goals to have a chance.

[Dan Warna]

not convinced fiora is bad yet, limited certainly, confidence player definately but he does have skills.

"Skills" are what X Clarke has.

Time and time again when Xavier is under enormous pressure in the traffic he is able to show clean hands and dispose of the ball to our advantage. He is simply great in this area (always has been) and MUST move to the midfield in the main season accordingly.

Fiora, on the other hand, panics and does not have clean hands. He is a flanker at best, and not in my best 22.

Good post. X is the man you want delivering the ball inside 50 to the forwards, whereas when Fiora gets the ball he does the blind snap kick, which usually goes to the opposition. Fiora needs to start kicking goals to have a chance.

CJ's hand passing and kicking are a quantumn below fiora's.

[Sobraz]

Not a fan of CJ's in regard to best 22, but he has pushed himself ahead of Fiora.. We all know fiora has the skills, all the physical skills atleast, but he is never going to grow the heart, and/or brain he needs to really succeed at the top level, and put his god given talents to good use.. He will always let himself, and by addition, his team down...

CJ has a real crack, Fiora doesnt..

Neither should be in the side come round 1, but CJ as an emergency is fine..

[Armoooo]

not convinced fiora is bad yet, limited certainly, confidence player definately but he does have skills.

IMO we have too many of these now, we have enough reliable players on the fringe that can come in and perform week in week out, IMO Fiora is Gawwwnnnn...

I would take a lot more from the form of his last 20 SENIOR games over three pre-season games any day of the week.

Your call that Fiora is 'gowwwwnnnn' is similar to Mike Sheean's Top 50 changing dramatically from end of season previous year....to beginning of season current year. Without the players in fact playing a senior game.

TBH I didn't think he was that great last year, one or two very good games, a couple more good games then a lot of mediocre games, if it were not for injury I would not have had him in our starting 22 all last year... now with the extra depth and developing youngsters we have I do not see Fiora playing more than 6 or 7 games this season...

[sunsaint]

Rix is gone, Fiora is gone, Blake is a possibility (not because he was terrible tonight or anything) and Raph is very unlikely...
I saw so little good from Raph tonight, choosing to punch instead of take an uncontested mark?!?! holding jumpers, hospital passes, the guy really needs to improve his decision making, X on the other hand was brilliant, this could be his break out year...

So your reason for Blake is?

s*** like him going to ground on the HFF when he went to pick up the ball because he thought he was going to be tackled.

That Neagle bloke was then allowed to snap an easy goal.

Therefore the reason is: Not good enough.


...How did you rate Milne's game tonight?

Milne was OK. He kicked 2. Tackled as good as I have seen him. Will play round one and if he is good enough will continue to play. And if you read the other guys comments he aid it wasnt about Blakes game tonight but he still may be dropped.

I thought Milne was pretty much non-existent.

Snapped a goal given to him by NDS. The other was from a chest mark (by memory)

But herein lies your problem: you only value effort by those who you rate. You discount Milnes goal becuase it was given to him by the star NDS, but did you manage to notice it was the hand of Rix that stopped the essendon handball that "gifted" the ball to NDS???

[Spinner]

Rix is gone, Fiora is gone, Blake is a possibility (not because he was terrible tonight or anything) and Raph is very unlikely...
I saw so little good from Raph tonight, choosing to punch instead of take an uncontested mark?!?! holding jumpers, hospital passes, the guy really needs to improve his decision making, X on the other hand was brilliant, this could be his break out year...

So your reason for Blake is?

s*** like him going to ground on the HFF when he went to pick up the ball because he thought he was going to be tackled.

That Neagle bloke was then allowed to snap an easy goal.

Therefore the reason is: Not good enough.


...How did you rate Milne's game tonight?

Milne was OK. He kicked 2. Tackled as good as I have seen him. Will play round one and if he is good enough will continue to play. And if you read the other guys comments he aid it wasnt about Blakes game tonight but he still may be dropped.

I thought Milne was pretty much non-existent.

Snapped a goal given to him by NDS. The other was from a chest mark (by memory)

But herein lies your problem: you only value effort by those who you rate. You discount Milnes goal becuase it was given to him by the star NDS, but did you manage to notice it was the hand of Rix that stopped the essendon handball that "gifted" the ball to NDS???

...You picked my post out from all those pages....I wonder why...

Excuse me why I elaborate....

Watch the video of that part of the play where Dal Santo is running into goal.

Notice Milne's HANDS up in the air calling, yelling rather, for the ball. Dal instantly listens and responds to the voice of his 'teammate' and passes the ball to Milne. (Do not underestimate the value of the 'voice' on a football field. Its very important.)

The pass wasn't 20m...It was barely a 10m pass. Dal Santo made an incorrect decision to pass the ball in that situation.

People like you only see Milne snag a goal. And it goes on the stat sheet. No one else seems to observe the goal as a lucky let off albeit because Milne was in an incorrect and worse off position considering the defensive pressure and length of the pass.

'Teammates' should have been calling for Dal to have a shot.

Not yelling for the ball, in a worse off position.

He does it every game. He will call for the ball in every position, rather than call for the ball when 'in' position.


...And just for your note....The Milne discussion in this thread ended pages ago. But thank-you for creating opportunity for me to further clarify my point.

[sunsaint]

Actually I was talking about Rix who also got a bagging a few pages back.
Agreed NDS should have had the shot, but he either:
1: was not confident
2: thought Milne was in a better position. (milne was front and center DNS was 30degrees
3: wanted to bring the forwards into the game.
We will never know the reason, but dont blame Milne for presenting himself, damned if he does damned if he doesnt.
But it in the end it was Rix's goal, followed his man Hille down into the forwardline and stopped the offensive rebound...

[CURLY]

I dont beleive it was completely Jones fault the u- turns he was performing. If theres no movement up the ground and hes forced to play on what can he do? With no Roo Kosi and G the forward structure was completey differant to any stage were likely to see during the year. Jones had two options kick the ball as far as he could more than likely to ther CHBor ruckmen in the hole or turn and run and hope than runners from behind come past to receive a handball. The like of Gram and Fiora should be running either side of him .

I cant believe you could defend that type of incident....

He didn't know what to do with it.....

I'm sure being pressured into a snap on the opposite foot by the man on the mark is much better than bombing it into the forward line to at least some contested situation.

.....lol.....Because there was no movement up forward.....Are you serious?

Very serious! What youve written above shows you agree with me. The point he didnt know what to do with it backs up my point about forward movement. Thanks for backing up my point by the way.