nightcrawler wrote:
Gee Deluca has had some mileage out of that game. Everyone only remembers it because we all like beating Essendon* so much.
I've got some stats for you, try:
8 goals from 22 games in 2004 (and we weren't that bad that year)
6 goals from 11 games in 2005 (which if you take out the Dons game is 3 goals from 10 games, and 1 from 9 if Verbs is correct)
0 goals from 2 games in 2006
He can have all the mobility, height and reach advantage in the world but he doesn't or can't use it. You can't really make a case that he's stretching defences and bringing other forwards into the game either cause he's only getting about the 4th or 5th best defender anyway.
Kennedy is 195cm and knows how to use it. That is going to stretech the opposition a hell of lot more than a 202cm forward who can't hold his feet in the contest and takes less marks in a game than Fisher takes in the first quarter.
Swing that axe Denis.
NC, remember that it wasn't me who raised the stats. You never say never unless you are sure (which usually means checking the facts before you post. Using "rarely" would have been the way to go. This isn't just pedantry - statements like that tend to become accepted as fact if not challenged.
But stats need to be treated with care anyway. For instance, the stats you have set out regarding Archie's 2004 stats don't tell us how much time on ground he had, or what his role was during those games. Remember that he was a rookie in that year, and I doubt that he spent much more than half of the time on ground, and Lance spent a lot of time up forward then. He was also being tried out as the relief ruckman and was even tried out in defence. He certainly didn't spend any time playing at FF and didn't play as a conventional CHF inside 50.
His stats in 2005 also don't tell the picture of his battle with injuries. After playing all 22 games in 2004, he had a stress fracture to one foot which literally crippled his preseason. I was surprised he was able to make it back for Rd 1. But the injury caught up with him by Rd 10. A scan showed he had sustained the same injury in the opposite foot after the Adelaide game, and he was out until Rd 22. A good case could be made that he was restricted in most if not all of the 10 games he played at the start of the year by the lack of a preseason and the common phenomenon of placing undue stress on the other leg when you are recovering from an injury to the leg.
Then you come to this year, and the mission he is set is not ideal for goalscoring. He is set the task of running outside 50, and most of his possessions are not within goalscoring range. This takes advantage of his mobility and takes into account that his strength is not in contested marks or body-on-body contests. If he was doing this against Pagan's wishes, then he would not be a "Pagan love-child". So we know this is the task he is set.
I am just about the leader of the Archie fan club. Mostly this is because of what he might become, rather than what he has shown us already. But he is still young by the standards of tall players. He may well mature into a devastating weapon, more likely as a forward but perhaps also as a ruckman.
But even I would agree that his performances don't cut it at the moment. He is out of form. His strengths (mobility and exceptional ability below his knees for a big man), deserted him in Freo. Fortunately, he still continues to present himself as an option, whereas other players try to avoid committing themselves when they don't have the rub of the green. So he may be able to pull out of the form slump in the seniors if he is given the chance.
If I were Pagan, I'd send him back to the Bullants this week. Santy can play as the 3rd running tall and deserves the opportunity as much as Archie. Kennedy is a physical sort of player unlike either of them (although Santy may add this to his armoury as time goes on), and I would see scope for Archie to play alongside him rather than competing with him for the CHF role.
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