Elijah is with Carlton now - so AFL will automatically give him a 4 year suspension
Then Carlton call in their lawyers - suspension reduced to 2 weeks
Senior 20. Elijah Hollands
- Thread starter Aphrodite
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Elijah is with Carlton now - so AFL will automatically give him a 4 year suspension
Then Carlton call in their lawyers - suspension reduced to 2 weeks
Robertio
Spotswood Guinness Bar manager
Welcome to the Blues Elijah, I'll judge you from what you do from today onwards.
- Dec 26, 2017
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Omen - Charlie a bit of a ratbag before he joined his solid citizen bro at Blues
A few thoughts on Hollands. He's a big bodied mid which is not something we need HOWEVER, what he will do for us if he plays at a high level and goes past some of our other big bodied mids is open the door for trade capital. The club will be hoping we get to the end of 2024 and be unable to fit all the big bodied mids into the team and have them playing good AFL level footy. Will give us serious trade currency.
Will Hollands be an upgrade on Kennedy, Hewett etc? Hard to say, they are good ball winners. What Hollands has over them is two way running and better leg speed. He's also a better kick than Hewett. So I think if he can get his ball winning and inside game to that level but also bring two way run to the side then we have an upgrade here. Lack of speed is a big issue inside for us but lack of two way run is as big if not bigger with Cripps, Kennedy and Hewett not two way runners and given a licence to either run back or park forward of the ball. Hollands looks like he may have the tank and the leg speed to run both ways but we will see. The second big bodied mid in there also being a two way runner with a little more leg speed, that's a big upgrade for us.
Where else he fits in well is as a forward/mid. We put a couple of players into this role in Cuningham and Fogarty who are pretty low level and it improved the side a lot. If Hollands can play this role at a high level then that improves us even more so. It has been a hole for us for a long time and Austin has seen Hollands as the player to fill it.
The follow on effect of having this extra rotation is pretty big. Cerra for example. Cerra is not a grind it out all day player in the midfield. He seems to drop off fitness wise pretty easily. He's a better player when he gets to spend a bit of time forward and/or on the bench. So I can see Hollands and Cerra spending time forward. Could even add Cripps into the equation for some forward time. That really helps the midfield as a group.
Is he a professional off field? The cocaine epidemic is a problem. It's this generation's young, dumb, entitled fad for immature young adults. A lot of young people do it despite it being illegal, banned for athletes and not good for you. Drugs have been around forever and these points have never stopped a large portion of people dabbling.
The fact is if you have the opportunity to have this as your job, get paid what you are getting paid and an opportunity to get ahead in life you have to take it. In a world where cost of living is a massive issue, affording property is an issue, you get an opportunity to leapfrog those issues by earning a good AFL wage for 10+ years and set yourself up for life, you take it. This is not an average job. It comes with more money than most but also more responsibility. You aren't getting paid to just play football, you are also getting paid to represent a league (the game) and a club and make money for those organisations as well. If that means keeping your nose clean, you just do it or you go do something else where it doesn't matter if you do drugs. Earn some shitkicker wage, go back to not being able to afford all the things we are all struggling with.
I don't think that will be a problem. We're a mature club with a decent culture. I'd like to think we are in a position where taking guys on who have problems is no problem for us. We can't have a no dickheads policy forever while clubs like Collingwood and Richmond don't and keep winning premierships. Seems to be one of those things you have to be able to do to get that premiership edge. Fill a team without restrictions.
Looking forward to seeing what Hollands has to offer as a Carlton player. You put on the Navy Blue, you come to a big club with high expectations. A club that has just played in a preliminary final and is hungry to go to the next level. It's time to grow up, work hard and represent the AFL, Carlton FC and the game the best you can.
Will Hollands be an upgrade on Kennedy, Hewett etc? Hard to say, they are good ball winners. What Hollands has over them is two way running and better leg speed. He's also a better kick than Hewett. So I think if he can get his ball winning and inside game to that level but also bring two way run to the side then we have an upgrade here. Lack of speed is a big issue inside for us but lack of two way run is as big if not bigger with Cripps, Kennedy and Hewett not two way runners and given a licence to either run back or park forward of the ball. Hollands looks like he may have the tank and the leg speed to run both ways but we will see. The second big bodied mid in there also being a two way runner with a little more leg speed, that's a big upgrade for us.
Where else he fits in well is as a forward/mid. We put a couple of players into this role in Cuningham and Fogarty who are pretty low level and it improved the side a lot. If Hollands can play this role at a high level then that improves us even more so. It has been a hole for us for a long time and Austin has seen Hollands as the player to fill it.
The follow on effect of having this extra rotation is pretty big. Cerra for example. Cerra is not a grind it out all day player in the midfield. He seems to drop off fitness wise pretty easily. He's a better player when he gets to spend a bit of time forward and/or on the bench. So I can see Hollands and Cerra spending time forward. Could even add Cripps into the equation for some forward time. That really helps the midfield as a group.
Is he a professional off field? The cocaine epidemic is a problem. It's this generation's young, dumb, entitled fad for immature young adults. A lot of young people do it despite it being illegal, banned for athletes and not good for you. Drugs have been around forever and these points have never stopped a large portion of people dabbling.
The fact is if you have the opportunity to have this as your job, get paid what you are getting paid and an opportunity to get ahead in life you have to take it. In a world where cost of living is a massive issue, affording property is an issue, you get an opportunity to leapfrog those issues by earning a good AFL wage for 10+ years and set yourself up for life, you take it. This is not an average job. It comes with more money than most but also more responsibility. You aren't getting paid to just play football, you are also getting paid to represent a league (the game) and a club and make money for those organisations as well. If that means keeping your nose clean, you just do it or you go do something else where it doesn't matter if you do drugs. Earn some shitkicker wage, go back to not being able to afford all the things we are all struggling with.
I don't think that will be a problem. We're a mature club with a decent culture. I'd like to think we are in a position where taking guys on who have problems is no problem for us. We can't have a no dickheads policy forever while clubs like Collingwood and Richmond don't and keep winning premierships. Seems to be one of those things you have to be able to do to get that premiership edge. Fill a team without restrictions.
Looking forward to seeing what Hollands has to offer as a Carlton player. You put on the Navy Blue, you come to a big club with high expectations. A club that has just played in a preliminary final and is hungry to go to the next level. It's time to grow up, work hard and represent the AFL, Carlton FC and the game the best you can.
Reckon the club does any media with Elijah like we normally do for new players or keep him away from any of that for now?
BlueBlood15
All Australian
- May 25, 2020
- 643
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- AFL Club
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Another benefit around bringing Elijah in is that he could help bolster a slight gap on our list. Since the 2019 draft, we haven’t been very heavily involved at the pointy end of the draft. Across the 2020 and 2021 NDs we only took C Durdin, Carroll and Motlop as second round picks. This is fine because the trades where we gave up the early picks (Saad and Cerra) were very good. However, it means we need to find more creative ways of bolstering this 18-21 age bracket. Bringing in the former pick 7 from 2020 for a packet of chips due to some off field issues is a way to do that. There’s no guarantee it succeeds but this is a calculated bet with a high return and very low downside given the small price we’ve paid for him.
Coke has become extremely common. It appears to be normalised and amongst the current young generation.
Going back to the early 2000s when i was 18 it was drinking. Alcohol was cheap, a lot of people went out, went to the pub, drinking culture at sporting clubs was massive. Drugs existed but as you said, it was mostly a little bit of weed. We had heard about pills but it was seen as more of a city thing and specific to certain venues and music genres. The government went crazy taxing alcohol and over a 10 year period it doubled in price. Over that period pills replaced alcohol consumption, people would go out drink a little and pop something. As the price of alcohol rises and rises and cost of everything else rises as well coke turns up and becomes the replacer or assisting thing for alcohol. It's become so common it's been normalised. I haven't touched it but I am still involved in local sport and you have a night and it's there, everyone has it, the 20 somethings are full of it.
As the government pat themselves on the back for the wonderful job they have done at reducing alcohol consumption in the country we now have this instead.
AFL players would want to be like all the other young people their age and carry a bag of coke with them when the go out because that's what people do now. It's that common, they wouldn't feel they are doing anything wrong because it's been so normalised. It's a problem.
I'm not worried about this at all with Hollands. If you try to avoid young people who do coke you'll be left with very little to pick from. Players are drafted too young, it's up to the clubs to sort this out.
With such a continually young list it would be like schoolies 52 weeks of the year. I am confident that in a good environment he will thrive. His brother seems one of the most grounded kids we have had through the door.
Hopefully he's not dependent on the substance and we don't end up with another Angwin type, with so much potential but other factors stop him from fulfilling it.
We've taken a huge risk as a club here, and doesn't help that Smith gets publicised on the same day too.
Hopefully being caught is the right kick up the backside he needs to shake it out of him, and welfare wise having his parents and family nearby will greatly be the support he needs. This will be a big test for our club to see if we have truly in fact finally hit that level of professionalism where we can get this kid back on track.
We've taken a huge risk as a club here, and doesn't help that Smith gets publicised on the same day too.
Hopefully being caught is the right kick up the backside he needs to shake it out of him, and welfare wise having his parents and family nearby will greatly be the support he needs. This will be a big test for our club to see if we have truly in fact finally hit that level of professionalism where we can get this kid back on track.
A quick trip to Ireland has also helped on this front…
It's a good point. Usually by the time people reach 25+ they tend to settle and that is where a lot of our list is. Plus even when you look at our younger guys, most appear clean-cut types. Obviously, appearances can be deceiving but Walsh, Cerra, Motlop, Durdin, Carroll, O.Hollands, Binns all come across mature for their age almost to the point of being boring lol.
It is amazing how clean cut our list is perceived. We've now lost Fisher who had some visible tatts. Guess we only have Williams now with obvious ones.
If Elijah ends up getting a sleeve and goes to Bali can we just trade him to Collingwood?
thylacine60
Post-Human
- Banned
- #317
"justice" sort of needs to be done as well as be seen to be done. If there was any real justice my first sentence would spend a good amount of time in grammar jail for example.....
Maybe Elijah could move into the Walsh household with Charles and Chugga....I reckon there's a bedroom that may have recently become vacant
He's also now in his home state with family close by and his brother on the same team. Reckon this will be another Charlie Curnow moment when we look back and say great recruiting by the club.
Could be pretty funny - Paddy “discovers” a passion for death metal & industrial dub step which gets cranked up the night before Carlton games.
The other boys hire a cleaner to work nights before Saints game & Walshy suddenly decides to do adhoc renos too
Owies is not on your list - but I value him because he has a bit of white line fever (in a good way
)!!!Has a bit of mongrel, likes getting in the face of opponents and giving stick to oppo crowd.
Don’t know how Elijah rolls - but we could do with a bit more mongrel in our squad.
If he turns out anywhere near as good as Special Fried then we are getting a good one.
I think his “mental security” would be: pull your head in, do the work, contribute to the team/squad and you’ll definitely get more contracts.
Ball is in Elijah’s court - go for it young man.
Good for toothaches
