Jason Blake

[Otiman]

If half of the side put in anywhere close to the effort and intensity Blake does every week, we'd have 3 flags in the past 5 years by now.

[Little Dozer]

Bless him for having a go and putting in 100% but he is no bloody good. While he remains in the team a premiership is a million miles away.

[fonz_#15]

he has a crack and he deserves his place in the team.

if you dont appreciate the role he plays, you have no clue.

[ratismeat]

snore...

[S.A Saint]

a few posters are saying that at least he has a crack and and puts in the effort. If i ever had the change to play for st kilda i would as hell have a crack and put in the effort. We cant just have players in the side who just give effort and offer no skills. We would have a team full of Lewis Roberts Thompson F*** me dead.

[Teflon]

a few posters are saying that at least he has a crack and and puts in the effort. If i ever had the change to play for st kilda i would as hell have a crack and put in the effort. We cant just have players in the side who just give effort and offer no skills. We would have a team full of Lewis Roberts Thompson F*** me dead.

the question is : would he get a game at Geelong? (thats J Blake Im talking about..)

[S.A Saint]

teflon i dont believe that he would get a game at Geelong. He is just not up to the skill standards to play the game and the worst player at Geelong would certainly not be the worst player at st kilda with their skill level in fact they would be mid range

[vacuous space]

Corey's disposal is better than any inside midfielder at St Kilda.

Even now, when they're flying and we're struggling, we have one inside midfielder whose disposal has been worse than Corey's - Luke Ball. If skills were the only thing that mattered, Pendlebury would have beaten Selwood by a mile. The only Geelong player I would rate among the most skilled at his position is Scarlett. The rest do it on effort and teamwork and would look a whole lot worse at other clubs.

Armitage was grossly unfit and quite undisciplined when he was recruited...

He was in the elite in terms of beep test and agility when he was drafted. His problem was his second efforts were near non-existent and he would drift out of games. He had the fitness base but he wasn't ready to make the jump from AFLQ to AFL last year. I still am not sure about his consistency. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this week, but he's been up and down since the NAB cup.

It is just when you so many of those players (Blake, Dempster, L.Fisher, Maguire)...[/quote]

Fisher was an elite ground level player when he played in defence. He hasn't been able to move that to the midfield. Maguire was elite in the air before his leg injury in terms of spoils, marks from opposition and contested marks. He hasn't been the same since the leg. Blake's nowhere near as bad as what he cops on here. He's adequate. He doesn't make near as many costly mistakes as his rep. Dempster hasn't shown much. I'd much rather see him out and Leigh moved back into defence.

[Sobraz]

cant believe what im reading... Heart can only take one so far... Fact is, Blake's skill level is not upto AFL... He may have the occasional good game, but the bad far outweighs the good..

Clearly the guy has some football ability, and things can now and then go his way, but 8 times out of 10 they dont, and all in all he is a liabilty in the side..

Quite simply, he cant hurt teams often enough.. he does not have enough weapons in the cabinet, be it marking, kicking, tagging etc... He is ok at all, good at a few, great at none..

Not to mention his kicking for goal is shocking... evident in the first shot for goal v Port on sat night.. would have been a good start to the game.. Ofcourse, as we predicted at the time, he missed... what a shock..

Good servant, but for mine, I would drop him this week, and delist him at the end of the year...

[BAM! (shhhh)]

St. Kilda has been among the best teams in the land with Jason Blake getting a game, including wins in finals. That they didn't take the final steps was not a result of Blake failing.

While the continual obsession with list and selection is relevant to winning, it's not the be all and end all. The characteristics of teamwork, support, effort, etc. etc. that St. Kilda needs mroe of are what Blake exhudes every week. When someone can force Blake out of the team, then the writing will likely be on the wall for him much as it was for Voss, but with a coach who seems to feel there are places for both Blake and Dempster in the 22, I'm not sure whose going to force him out. Raph Clarke?

[mischa]

Agree with the OP. Get sick and tired of ppl using Blake amongst others as scapegoats-it's boring. He isn't THE REASON we are losing. Part of it maybe-but there are 21 other players!

[Spinner]

If half of the side put in anywhere close to the effort and intensity Blake does every week, we'd have 3 flags in the past 5 years by now.

That made me laugh.

[Spinner]

If half of the side put in anywhere close to the effort and intensity Blake does every week, we'd have 3 flags in the past 5 years by now.

That made me laugh.

How would 22 players continuously falling to ground at even the smallest sign of a contest 'win' a premiership?

[Red]

I can't believe people always blame Blake. When he is out of the side and

we lose who are we going to have a go at next.

Maybe we should be looking at a no2 draft pick who can't kick over a jam

tin or a no 1 draft pick who has never delivered or a no 13 draft pick who

only knows how to go at one pace.

[evertonfc]

Can't believe the support this guy gets.

And to compare him to Josh Hunt is comical. I've seen Blake repeatedly back out of contests - I think it was Gary Lyon labelled one of his efforts against Geelong as the 'softest thing I've seen on a footy field'.

I'd quite like Josh Hunt, actually. He can kick. He is clean by hand and foot and finds a target. Has a reasonable degree of speed. Would crack most team's best 22.

Blake wouldn't be in the best 22 at any team in the competition.

These are his on-field attributes:
Positive:
- Reasonably durable.

Negatives:
- Horribly slow
- Horrible disposal
- Inept football brain
- Prone to making shocking errors when he gets fatigued

(But he's not versatile, as some like some think. To be versatile, you need to be able to play multiple positions well. He can't play any positions well.)

He's probably a really good bloke - I won't argue with that. But at the end of the day, there are a multitude of players who we could choose ahead of him.

Some of them may not be neccesarily better than him right now, but at least they usually possess some sort of untapped potential, or at least appear to improve with game time. Gram, S Fisher and Baker are all players who improved from average players to important players with game time.

For example, if Lyon wants a second ruckman, we'll lose nothing by putting Ben McEvoy in the middle.

If he wants a tall midfielder who can tag, Sean Dempster has a far better track record.

If he wants a 'link man' who roams around without an opponent (as he often did in 2007), I'm sure we'd be much better served by having someone who can use the ball - like Brendan Goddard (heaving knows we've got 1001 running defenders).

At the end of the day, I'm sure Blake is a great bloke, but he makes so many mistakes when he has the ball that he is a borderline liability. That he now appears to give weak physical contests is also an issue.

He wouldn't get a game for Geelong. He'd be delisted at the end of the year. If we're fair dinkum about improving our skill level, I'd cut him loose, too.

People say Blake gives 100% - but doesn't every player? Ultimately, I have to believe that every players gives their all, but it's just that some don't have the requisitie skill to have the required impact at this level.

You can't have 22 stars each week that's true, but if you find obvious leaking holes in the ship, you've got to plug them.

[Red]

[quote="evertonfc"]

Blake wouldn't be in the best 22 at any team in the competition.

Interesting since he is in ours - we aren't in the competition.

[Sobraz]

Can't believe the support this guy gets.

And to compare him to Josh Hunt is comical. I've seen Blake repeatedly back out of contests - I think it was Gary Lyon labelled one of his efforts against Geelong as the 'softest thing I've seen on a footy field'.

I'd quite like Josh Hunt, actually. He can kick. He is clean by hand and foot and finds a target. Has a reasonable degree of speed. Would crack most team's best 22.

Blake wouldn't be in the best 22 at any team in the competition.

These are his on-field attributes:
Positive:
- Reasonably durable.

Negatives:
- Horribly slow
- Horrible disposal
- Inept football brain
- Prone to making shocking errors when he gets fatigued

(But he's not versatile, as some like some think. To be versatile, you need to be able to play multiple positions well. He can't play any positions well.)

He's probably a really good bloke - I won't argue with that. But at the end of the day, there are a multitude of players who we could choose ahead of him.

Some of them may not be neccesarily better than him right now, but at least they usually possess some sort of untapped potential, or at least appear to improve with game time. Gram, S Fisher and Baker are all players who improved from average players to important players with game time.

For example, if Lyon wants a second ruckman, we'll lose nothing by putting Ben McEvoy in the middle.

If he wants a tall midfielder who can tag, Sean Dempster has a far better track record.

If he wants a 'link man' who roams around without an opponent (as he often did in 2007), I'm sure we'd be much better served by having someone who can use the ball - like Brendan Goddard (heaving knows we've got 1001 running defenders).

At the end of the day, I'm sure Blake is a great bloke, but he makes so many mistakes when he has the ball that he is a borderline liability. That he now appears to give weak physical contests is also an issue.

He wouldn't get a game for Geelong. He'd be delisted at the end of the year. If we're fair dinkum about improving our skill level, I'd cut him loose, too.

People say Blake gives 100% - but doesn't every player? Ultimately, I have to believe that every players gives their all, but it's just that some don't have the requisitie skill to have the required impact at this level.

You can't have 22 stars each week that's true, but if you find obvious leaking holes in the ship, you've got to plug them.

agree 100%.... great post... for some reason, many on this forum believe stating that Blake isnt good enough and shouldnt be in the side is a slur on him as a person...

fact is, as a footballer, he is not upto it... effort and 'great bloke'-ness aside, his time is up..

[vacuous space]

These are [Blake's] on-field attributes:
Positive:
- Reasonably durable.

Negatives:
- Horribly slow
- Horrible disposal
- Inept football brain
- Prone to making shocking errors when he gets fatigued

Blake hasn't been anywhere near as poor with his disposal as Jason Gram or Brendon Goddard the last couple of weeks. He's been more reliable than either Leigh Fisher or Sean Dempster as well. Milne's right up the top of the league in disposal clangers. Luke Ball has also been far more prone to turning the ball over. Blake's hardly our biggest concern right now. But he's routinely the target for many on here when things start to go wrong.

[evertonfc]

These are [Blake's] on-field attributes:
Positive:
- Reasonably durable.

Negatives:
- Horribly slow
- Horrible disposal
- Inept football brain
- Prone to making shocking errors when he gets fatigued

Blake hasn't been anywhere near as poor with his disposal as Jason Gram or Brendon Goddard the last couple of weeks.

Gram hasn't been great with his kicking for a few weeks.

Blake hasn't kicked well for a decade.

I'm extremely critical of the way Gram's played in 2008, but you sense he has the capacity to be a huge contributor to our success.

And comparing his kicking to Goddard - give me a break.