Player Watch #11: Luke "Two Dogs" McDonald (Part II) - Roo til end '26 - 2023/24 co captain w/ Jy
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- Nov 14, 2010
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Yep he was good then not sure what’s happened since
He used to be breaking through tackles, accumulating and making good decisions
Now does none of the above
tazaa
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I’m in my 30s with banged up knees and nowhere near the level of intensity required to remotely impact a game of Aussie rules football, yet even I’d fancy myself playing on McDonald any weekend.
Sure he’d take a few marks and run off on me on occasion, and get it 40 times but you bring that elite park footballer mentality and hone in on his weaknesses and you’d back yourself in to kick 2 or 3 on him easily. Lack of awareness, long winding woeful kicking action resulting in turnover and the always looking to absorb the tackle first means you’ll get a few looks in. He’s a forwards dream at EDFL level imagine what his opponents think week in week out at the top.
AND HES ****ING CAPTAIN
If we are being serious we only have to look at his physique and how he presents at the club. He’s 28. He is meant to be at the peak of his powers. He’s now spent 10 years plus in the system, not including his rookie year training with Weribee in 2013 and the campaigner looks like he’s never seen the inside of a gym and his diet consists of a smoke and a big M for breakfast followed by hot chips and a pie for lunch.
**** this standard off and start to take this caper seriously please North ffs
I can’t stress that the change room is full of young footballers at the club trying to find their feet and their place within the four walls of the club. So whilst they work on getting better, getting fitter and implementing a gameplan, they are naturally going look to the leaders and experienced guys for guidance, for mentoring and for reassurance.
I don’t blame the group for voting in this bloke as captain.
He loves the club, been there ages and says all the right things.
But the lack of consistency applied to the form of the older guys is setting a terrible example.
There are frustrations. Dropping Goldi round 1 and Cunners round 9 is a step forward.
But players like McDonald and Ziebell need to be made accountable. We are going down the wrong path if we’re sitting 17th and having lost 13 games in a row and not punishing poor performances.
Clarko/Ratts need to wrestle back control of the culture because the current one reeks of failure.
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He was good. But football as a standard was a terrible, slow, low-scoring affair. Perfect for an intercept mark to have an impact.
He needs to have some pride and do what rich and Gunston did. He’s an absolute spud atm. Also watching him trying to break tackles is a comedy show
You're the only supporter I've ever come across who treats his football team with all-out nationalism. Calm down. This isn't a country that we're retaking from a fascist regime. Snoz isn't going anywhere and frankly I don't think calls for his firing are justified. Gavin Brown, maybe. But we've done the whole clean out thing several times in the last seven years. It hasn't served us well.
First and foremost this coming off season, we should be focusing on fitness. Not far behind that is the recruitment of some quality defenders. Not far behind that is a focus on the psychology of the blokes at this club that seem resigned to losing most weeks.
In the meantime, I cannot see any reason not to experiment with the backline and see what different blokes can produce, because LMac's embarrassed himself in recent weeks and JZ's not as impactful as he was earlier on.
It's very rarely as bad as it seems. If last year's North played against this year's Adelaide in Adelaide, the margin would've been 140. A lot of us are ignoring the depths we're trying to claw our way back from. With broken fitness, broken training standards, a broken mentality, a broken list manager (no, not Snoz), a broken coach during the hub, a micromanaging coach who sowed division, and the existence of several players who no other club would recruit, the hole we're in is almost bottomless. Let's not throw everything out of the cot. It needs to be a gradual build up, and from what I've seen this year, that's what's happening. The club's taking shape bit by bit. Cutting steps with a pickaxe rather than throwing a rope to the top of the hole in a hail Mary hope that someone at the top is gonna grab it.
I was also a big fan of Atrosedes' teachings fwiw
[QUOTE="Reminds me of jmac like that. Hangs kicks up and they get picked off”.[/QUOTE]
JMac was a much more reliable kick than LMac. Also knew when to leave his man and attack from half back. All in all, JMac > LMac.
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JMac was a much more reliable kick than LMac. Also knew when to leave his man and attack from half back. All in all, JMac > LMac.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
So far the umpiring for a VFL game has been very good.
Posting this purely VFL-related comment in the LMac thread is the most cutting insult that anyone's come up for him so far
Sign of where he belongs
Speaking of VFL Archer gives me LMac vibes.
Difference we didn’t pay Pick#8 for him.
Difference we didn’t pay Pick#8 for him.
I just can’t tolerate him anymore, he has to go somehow, someway, because he’s never getting dropped, he’s a bloody co-captain and he’s in our backline and he’s way past old enough to know this is as good as its gonna get with him. That’s too many factors to know that any persistence at this juncture is blind foolishness and I can’t see ample justification for him, he had one, count it, ONE good year and it was enough. Which is typical for this club to consider a certain effort for a certain time is good enough and we won’t call on it again and McDonald is a player that embodies that, takes things only so seriously and considers the output ‘good enough’.
It’s not, I’m tired of seeing it.
It’s not, I’m tired of seeing it.
- Oct 5, 2005
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He won the team vote by either one or two votes from memory. We'll never know, although there's a chance the coaches would have made it just Simpkin if it went the other way.
Clarko said he generally didn't like co-captains, then made them both captains ...
- Feb 23, 2010
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Mate Rich and Gunston did not come forward and ask to be dropped. That was the biggest PR piece pf crap I’ve seen. They were pulled aside by Fagan who said ‘you’re cooked and offer nothing, but we’ll spin it for you’ and boom here we are.
Put it frankly, Lmac should just be dropped. Plain and simple. No PR around how he came forward and humbly asked for Perez to step in for him.
blackshadow
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Was Atrosedes a Greek philosopher?
- Mar 12, 2016
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Yeah he was who can see thru the PR BS of this club I think his real name is Kane Cornes who I’m led to believe gave us a massive bake today about how we as a club is travelling.
We were continually sweating about when he would return in 2021 because he was crucial to our backline and injured for a while. We had very few players in the back half that could cover our defensive deficiencies at the time and Lmac was in much better form than he is now.
The backline has changed significantly since then and we've also got a largely different midfield setup that doesn't need Lmac in there either. It's hard to say this but Lmac's impact is not significant enough to hold his spot and I think eventually, he will have to make way. He's 28 and not gonna be below 30s for long.
It's a shame that his entire career only has one season (and a few excellent lockdown games) of great form where he had his best season in terms of distributing and taking the onus on himself. He really did have a good year in 2020 and I even went back to watch a few replays. He's in the middle shrugging tackles and dishing it off, he's taking kick-ins lace out, he's distributing off half-back to a receiver and doing all the good stuff. His 1%ers were through the roof that year. This should've really happened 4-5 years before Shaw gave him the freedom to do so.
Lmac hasn't had much to celebrate for the majority of his career and was taken at a pick far too high then got the absolute worst development curve of any AFL player being neglected as a back pocket defender for years. That is ****ing shithouse from the footy dept regimes at the time when he really should've been given more opportunities to shine.
The more I look at the Bard era, the more I think we should've given some of those young boys some genuine exposure in their preferred positions when our form was so up and down. Such a missed opportunity.
If Luke's career ends at it's current trajectory, I won't blame him as much as I blame the club for not taking his recruitment and development seriously enough because his draft profile demanded that investment (it's seriously incredible we didn't give him more exposure in the middle). We are our own worst enemy when it comes to butchering development and Lmac is a perfect example.
Lmac's career should now be a transition period where he would've probably had 3-4 seasons of great footy in his preferred position but now he's slowly going to hand the keys to the next group. Not like it is now where he's still playing the same old role and the same old style that's rotted his ability as a footballer.
It's tragic. He's a better developed player under any other club.
Iam happy for him to be captain OF THE MAGOOS.
I hate to say this about one of ours but he is a “dumb” footballer. Every footy club has one. He is hard at it so gets a game. But just bangs it on his boot, panics and HBs to nowhere. Often caught in wrong spot especially for groundballs. Goes when he shouldnt and then waits when he should go. Its stuff you let through for sub 30 gamers but they listen and learn. He hasnt learned and he looks like he doesnt listen. A hb captain should be the on field coach. Sees the field. Feels the game. Runs structures. I really see a player who hasn't learned any healthy instincts and is often the problem with the structure - not the solution. If he plays because he is captain, then play him as pressure forward maybe where he can attack footy and player - problem is he cant kick for goal or hit a HB. Or wing but that keeps someone else out. The calls for him to move on ball have always been off - he has no skills of a modern afl on baller and definitely no elite qualities and too many deficiencies. Atm he is in a position where we need to start transition (which he kills) and where defensive mistakes kill us. So play a transition starter - a la sheezel, thomas - maybe goater here - or a stopper like archer even dawson. Either would be better than someone who is doing neither.
Compare his progress to Sicily taken in the same draft in the 30s and also a captain now,
gokangas
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Yep - Luke had a shocker. As bad a game as I have seen from him. Is it just form? Does he just need a break? Not sure what to do with the captain.
