In Defence of Jacko by 79Vintage
To add to the effusive support of Cazzesman, people say Jacko is slow, but he does anticipate and sets off on a lead to the ball before his opponent. And he always keeps up with his opponent through sheer determination & I have never seen him passed by an opponent in a chase for a ball. In my opinion what he needs to do is harness his enthusiasm and use his engine more wisely, so he can develop more speed, rather than trying to do everything like he attempted in the U18's & hopefully he'll do that by being set in a certain position and given clear direction in how the coaches want him to play - a positive for him is he was a role player for the Knights this year and is very capable of being given a specific job.
He ws taken in the Rookie draft, so he obviously has areas of improvement, but after last years U 18 Carnival when he played against the best U18 talent, I made the assessment he just has to be told that the things he does without an opponent he can do to win contest ball, to me he was a different player when he had the run of the ball to when an opponent had the run of the ball. I don't think he's a shirker, he just lacked the confidence in himself to win the run of the contested ball. To my eyes, if he learns to do this, I think he could turn into a very good player aka Melbourne's Brad Green, who by the Melbourne site is 184 cms???. At this stage, someone couldn't assess what deficiency Jacko could fill on our list, but in the best scenario he could fill many - run with, link, inside running, medium marking forward. Or at worst he could be out the door within a year - which with his attitude I personally doubt.
As to next year's draft, um, apart from Gibbs, who I haven't seen but have only read about, with a year to the draft the next five best prospects are all talls, and that's pretty clear to me. So if a pacy midfielder with skills is available & Gibbs is gone, do we recruit to type and not on a best talent available policy? Personally, after analysing our list, which I'm meaning to post, I'm of the opinion we have most position bases covered, but as said above it's our quality that needs assessment, which can only be done in time, & as much as it looks at the moment that we need two pacy midfielders with skill, more definitely we need a quality versatile tall match winner. I don't think we have a definite match winning tall on our list, in a speculative assessment I think we need a quality tall to allow our other young talls to develop playing their natural games under less pressure - this way we'll get the best out of tem & they'll avoid the pressure that a Livingston & Thronton have been put under.
One of the reasons why I was so adamant that we secure Murphy at about Round 15 last year, was that his evasive and delivery skills once he won the contested or stoppage ball, would draw and isolate defenders from his Carlton teammates and thus allow our other midfilders to play their natural games. ie Stevens to run an inside line - Bentick to work on the inside & kick the ball long under pressure - Walker to play the Mcleod role that many people crave. I think Murphy's contribution will make our midfield growingly effective, maybe to the point where people may say we need one extra class midfield addition and not two. To me, our list needs on going assessment, it's not as simple as saying after a disappointing 2005, that we need two instead of one pacy skilful midfielders. By the way, that's the optimistic assessment.
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