back off raph!

[steph]

for gods sake, all u people who constantly blame raph for our losses are seriously half wits!

raph got 20 touches, including 5 contested possesions, and punched above his weight all night. he provided great run and rebound from defence, but no one sees that, you just look for reasons to bag him. stop looking at his negatives and check out the good stuff hes done.

raph is a project player, who with a pre season and some confidence under his belt will become a star

the major problem players from last night were BIRSS and VOSS. Birss missed his targets at crucial stages and fumbled the ball more than ive ever seen, and voss registered 4 touches, and gave away a stupid 50 at a big moment in the game.

raph is no dud, and anyone who thinks he is, is dead wrong.

[RooandKosi]

Agree. He is an awesome athlete will smash it up next year believe me!!!

Him and Gilbert together omg!!!

[st_Trav_ofWA]

some ppl have one track minds and have to find a villan in every game

[LTN16]

for gods sake, all u people who constantly blame raph for our losses are seriously half wits!

raph got 20 touches, including 5 contested possesions, and punched above his weight all night. he provided great run and rebound from defence, but no one sees that, you just look for reasons to bag him. stop looking at his negatives and check out the good stuff hes done.

raph is a project player, who with a pre season and some confidence under his belt will become a star

the major problem players from last night were BIRSS and VOSS. Birss missed his targets at crucial stages and fumbled the ball more than ive ever seen, and voss registered 4 touches, and gave away a stupid 50 at a big moment in the game.

raph is no dud, and anyone who thinks he is, is dead wrong.

Agree with you there

A full pre season will do him good.

[bigcarl]

Agree. He is an awesome athlete will smash it up next year believe me!!!

Him and Gilbert together omg!!!

agree. raph could be anything. one completely out of the box provided he can get his attitude right, his work ethic going and his confidence up.

i have been wrong before, but i truly believe there is something special there.

[fonz_#15]

ohh sorry guys how dare i insult a player. He was one of the highest credentialed youngsters when we picked him up at what was it number 8 or 9 in the national draft. He is an underachiever to this point, more than happy to eat my words when he plays 200+ top games for us but i'm sick of sticking up for him.

[steph]

raph has played under 30 games and for being in the system as long as he has it shows he has had a shocking run with injuries

you cant just expect him to come into the side with such an interrupted start to his career and be playin top footy. he is showing signs of how good he is going to be.

im not one to have issues with people bagging players, there are many players i could go on all day about, but the slagging of raph needs to stop!

[TimeToShineFellas]

raph is a project player

So was Allan Murray.........

[steph]

lets not compare budge with raph.....budge was never gonna make it, he was hopeless, was kept for way too long by our past coaches......they are miles apart!

[Alfie Hewsdale]

Give Raph a full preseason and no injuries then stand back and watch out.
He is an outstanding talent.
People with a lot of egg on their face called for Goddard to be traded for three seasons.
Give the kid a break.

[mr six o'clock]

Clarke needs someone to get inside his brain and switch everything on.
He has got it all, he just needs it to all work together at the same time.

[Solar]

I thibnk people get confused on how the kid plays the game. He is less a hard at it stick to your man backman and more a bowden type. Can play on larger and taller players but slightly playing off them, then judging the ball better and either getting the punch in or taking the mark. He can be caught out if we turn the ball over coming out of defence but he is not alone in that, most backman that look to run off their players can be caught out that way.

Yes he dropped a couple of marks he should normally take but he was not alone last night. a good preseason for the first time in 3 years plus consistant game time to get used to playing within this current set up and you will see a very handy 3rd tall backman.

My concerns are about the midfield and forwards. The backs were awesome in the amount of pounding they copped last night.

[Superboot]

Raph had one of his better games last night.

Some very brave running the same way as the ball as it was being pumped into our defence.

He also looks much quicker than he did a month ago. He'll come good next season if he avoids injury.

[sackers5]

Agreed .... to the point that i was moved to join this forum just to get behind raph. The guy didnt play for a year and a half because of a serious back injury which could have ended his career before it got started. he has played 5 or so games this year and showed consistent improvement in all those games. A couple of areas which he needed to improve and has is his pace off the mark ( granted he still is not the quickest going around, but definitely improving) and disposal - last night some of his disposal and field kicking was superb. One that springs to mind was a kick out of heavy congestion in the backline to leigh fisher on the wing (which he dropped the mark), a perfectly weighted kick in between 3 eagles.

The one area which still needs more improvement is his aerial contests, he consistently tried to be third man up last night - he got to the contest however failed to clear the zone and his direct opponent - Rohan Jones consistently crumbed the packs. HOWEVER, this is a confidence issue - not a lack of skill. Before long we will see him taking marks over such packs.

Think about when BJ comes back and we have a fit and firing backline of maxxy, sammy fisher, r.clarke, gilbo, BJ, Goose (who was also not as bad last night as alot of people are saying) we are going to have some serious height and run coming out of the back half allowing Grammy (or gilbo) to push up into the midfield.

I think as St.Kilda supporters (and I have been guilty of this previously re: Fiora) are too quick to hang our own out to dry. We have some wonderful footballers and i can already see our luck turning. We have a great coach and I for one can definitely see we are heading in the right direction.

The only reason we lost last night (other than not making the most of our opportunities) was our lack of midfield rotations due to X, attard going down and ball carrying a injury.

Sorry about the long rant, but i needed to get that off my chest