Toast 11. Matthew Priddis (2006 - 2017)

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Round 1: Matt Priddis vs Red-shirt away team.

The red-shirts looked like they were happy to just make it back to the shuttle with all their bits intact, so the challenge level was low. Yet Mighty Matt worked tirelessly throughout, accumulating 28 possessions, laying 5 tackles, getting into space and linking up plenty, cracking the ton in all fantasy formats, along with kicking what Bill Lawry would no doubt have called "The finest helicoptor goal from outside 50 you'll ever see my friend!", but which the AFL highlights reel described as "Priddis Scrubber Works". Pillocks.

All in all a good first up hitout which will no doubt continue annoying all those delusional reprobates who believe the team would be better off without Matt in the heart of our midfield.
 
Round 2: Matt Priddis vs Disgruntled Eagles fans.

In a game where the Eagles won by 93 but still managed to play poorly, Matt missing the occasional target brought on the ire of the fan community despite a team high 9 tackles, proving once again that there's just no pleasing some people.

24 disposals, of which 15 were kicks revealed the source of the problem. With no pressure to speak of from Melbourne for long periods, Matt just got into a little too much space and tried a few too many kicks. Surely things will rectify in the coming weeks against opponents that are actually trying.
 
Round 3: Matt Priddis vs St Nick the holiday elf *and* more disgruntled Eagles fans.

With the Eagles finally running into a team that seemed interested in the 4 points on offer and struggling a bit, the angst brigade were out in full force early in the week right up until it became apparent that there were going to be free spots in the side for all their love children thanks to an unhealthy dose of injury and suspension. Still though, I missed the game thanks to a poorly timed nephews birthday party, so did my boy have a shocker?

First stop, the SuperCoach score. Priddis had the 2nd highest score for the Eagles, having been just shaded by big Cox, and that score was a very healthy 120. However that's not the be all and end all with plenty of examples of random spud footballers popping out big SC scores when everyone thought they were horrible, so I figured I'd better check with a couple of guys that watched the whole game....Adam Simpson and Alan Richardson.

West Coast vs St. Kilda (AFLCA player of the year coaches votes)
10 Priddis (WCE)
4 Darling (WCE)
4 Dunstan (StK)
4 Montagna (StK)
3 Cox (WCE)
3 Ray (StK)
1 Glass (WCE)
1 Rosa (WCE)

Yeah baby....not just one but both coaches thought Mighty Matt was BOG.

Best.
On.
Ground.

Taste it.
 

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Round 4: Matt Priddis vs The Audacity of Hope.

If the Eagles were ever going to come a cropper, it was going to be when we took half a team to play Geelong in Geelong. Yet still supporters carried hope in their hearts that a combination of the new coach/gameplan, reserve players hungry for senior football, and Matt Priddis still alive in the heart of the midfield could pull off the unlikeliest of victories, or at least keep the game close.

And so it came to pass that as Geelong stood on the throat of that hope till it passed out, that the mob turned on our mop haired midfield hero as he put in a poor game by his standards. My boy failed to back up his clear best on ground performance from round 3 (a paltry 21 touches and 5 tackles, which was equal best for tackles in the side with Scott Lycett?!?), despite the stats making it look like we had at least 15 passengers.

Too slow, too one dimensional, can't kick blar-de-blar-de-blar...Mighty Matt has heard it all before and will once again heroically shield his softer team-mates from rampant criticism from a jilted, crushed and broken-hearted public who are intent on carrying on like the before shot of a johnson and johnson baby shampoo commercial.

Matt will now get back to setting an example for his team-mates on the training track, while Eagles fans continue futilely trying to out-cry Carlton supporters.
 
Round 4 addendum : Matt Priddis vs Gastro

It has been revealed that Matt's below par performance on the weekend was due to having to fight off a nasty virus as well as the whole Geelong team. While Matt Rosa spent the game damaging the Doulton, Matt puckered up like a steel trap and got on with the job.

The tireless workers at the Matt Priddis institute were able to get this exclusive photo of his hotel toilet after the match:

images
 
Round 5: Matt Priddis vs The Turncoat in Teal.

It was galling enough when Brad Ebert left the Eagles, a team who had drafted him with a late first round pick, just so he could play for the team that his entire extended family had played for. It chafed when he somehow learned how to kick straight (some of the time), and it caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth when he was instrumental in Port pilfering the 4 points last Saturday.

Matt's performance was mixed. He racked up 33 touches at 63% D/E, kept his kick to handball ration very healthy in terms of many handballs and few kicks, and when he did turn it over it generally didn't lead to an opposition score (this I paid attention to as I sat in the crowd). He also picked up 2 votes from Ken Hinkley in the AFLCA coaches player of the year award. However this is BigFooty, and right here his performance was bad enough to add 30 pages to the "It's all Matt's fault for winning the ball and why isn't he Chris Judd anyway?" thread.

Early predictions are the thread could reach 100 pages by Tuesday if we manage to lose to Carlton. Thursday if we win. Monday if Priddis is KO'd in the first quarter and Hutchings gets an entire game in the guts. Basically that sucker is going to keep on keeping on regardless of what happens Saturday arvo.

So Controversial has Matt become that I'm half expecting him to take Shuey out with a chair-shot pre-match and then defeat Dom Sheed in a buried alive match in the locker room at half time. But he won't, because heel turns are for guys like Ebert.
 
ZergMinion said:
Round 5: Matt Priddis vs The Turncoat in Teal.

It was galling enough when Brad Ebert left the Eagles, a team who had drafted him with a late first round pick, just so he could play for the team that his entire extended family had played for. It chafed when he somehow learned how to kick straight (some of the time), and it caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth when he was instrumental in Port pilfering the 4 points last Saturday.

Matt's performance was mixed. He racked up 33 touches at 63% D/E, kept his kick to handball ration very healthy in terms of many handballs and few kicks, and when he did turn it over it generally didn't lead to an opposition score (this I paid attention to as I sat in the crowd). He also picked up 2 votes from Ken Hinkley in the AFLCA coaches player of the year award. However this is BigFooty, and right here his performance was bad enough to add 30 pages to the "It's all Matt's fault for winning the ball and why isn't he Chris Judd anyway?" thread.

Early predictions are the thread could reach 100 pages by Tuesday if we manage to lose to Carlton. Thursday if we win. Monday if Priddis is KO'd in the first quarter and Hutchings gets an entire game in the guts. Basically that sucker is going to keep on keeping on regardless of what happens Saturday arvo.

So Controversial has Matt become that I'm half expecting him to take Shuey out with a chair-shot pre-match and then defeat Dom Sheed in a buried alive match in the locker room at half time. But he won't, because heel turns are for guys like Ebert.
Click to expand...

Either all that or Ebert actually understood our coach was a stubborn clown who no longer understood what a decent mid looked like ... ;)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Round 6: Matt Priddis vs Darth Malthouse and the VISY Empire.

A long time ago in a football season far, far away, Possibly our greatest player ever succumbed to the dark side and left us for the promise of all the 3rd party deals he could get away with at the time. However with Apprentice Judd missing due to a freak speed related hamstring (an injury never likely to strike the humble hero of this thread), the Navy Blues were ripe for the picking until Jack Darling went to the media and told them the Eagles would feel distraught if they lost this gimme of an away fixture against a hopeless team.

Carlton started like a team that read the papers that week and it took all of Matt's vast powers of innocuous accumulation to drag us back into the match, and with Matt's disposal approaching the upper reaches of kind-of-ok we stormed back into contention in red time in the first 3 quarters, before almost blowing the match wide open at the start of the last, but for some appalling shooting at goal which kept Carlton in with a sniff....Sniff it they did as they stormed back to hand us one of our most embarrassing losses for some time.

Our loyal supporters banded together in these dark times and headed straight to the "It's all Matt's fault!" thread to sink in the boot, only to be foiled once again by the AFLCA coaches votes where Matt was given second best on ground by one coach and 3rd BOG by the other, once again suggesting that Matt's going to be with us for a while yet.
 
Round 7: Matt Priddis vs The Pit of Despair

As the purple flogmuppets from Freo (phraseology borrowed from preview thread) cut the Eagles derby head-to-head lead down to 3, depression really started to set in. Even the "stick the boot into Matt" thread has become subdued as once staunch enemies now just sit around hugging and crying on each-others shoulders* as Matt's Mighty Eagles now sit with a rather dire 3-4 record.

However, while the team is in the toilet, and pretty much everyone (my boy included) were beaten by their direct opponents on the weekend, Matt is at least trending in the right direction. 7 kicks and 17 handballs is where we want to be in the kick/handball ratio stakes, and as such Matt's D/E was a season high 75%. Matt also contributed an equal game high 5 clearances and a game high 8 tackles, showing once again that they're going to have to carry him out of the joint in a box before he'll stop trying.

* - May not be actual reason thread is subdued. Could also be because everyone is dizzy after 100 pages of going around in circles**

** - Ok...that might not be the reason either
 
Round 8: Matt Priddis vs West Sydney High School Seconds

GWS were always going to have a hard time matching us in Perth, and when they decided to leave some of their better players back in Sydney rather than forcing them to play injured the die was well and truly cast. Josh Kennedy kicked 11, Mighty Matt had 13 clearances and Mark Lecras forgot that if you're going to bump school-kids, you should aim lower and got rubbed out for a week.

Matt had pretty much the perfect game for his skill-set. 6 kicks (one of which was a perfectly weighted kick to Shuey in the forward 50 in the 1st, and another being a snapped goal), 20 handballs, 84.6% D/E, 7 tackles, 5 free kicks for and the aforementioned 13 clearances. Doesn't get much better than that for my boy. Ignoring for the moment that we were really just bullying a weak and under-strength team, it continues a trend in recent weeks for Priddis to favour the handball and improve his disposal efficiency, keeping the howlers to a minimum. The real challenge will be to repeat these numbers over the next 3 weeks after the bye when we play teams that will be pushing for the upper reaches of the top 8. Many here believe Matt can't do it, but I have faith in our hero and will back him in to perform again when the heat is on.
 
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