2025 Pre-Season chat

[Mr Meow]

What if I told you Jhye Clark played more games and got more touches in his second season than either Joel Corey or Jimmy Bartel?

That's why I'm never keen to write off players early.

I'm more than comfortable saying "I've yet to be completely sold", but 22-24 is when a lot of these players start excelling. They need 50 senior games in their preferred position. If they aren't good or lucky enough to ever get those, it's a different problem. But it's one thing that has made the Bruhn hyper criticism a joke. At GWS he was a peripheral forward flanker. He's had 36 games/2 seasons in his primary position. Yet a few have tried to write him off from as soon as 5 games into that phase. So yeah, incredibly foolish to do the same with Clark. He has time on his side and needs to have another 20, 30, 40 senior games pumped into him on the proviso his VFL form warrants it.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Everyone is saying Edwards or Molier but I thought it was Knevitt

Looked taller than knevitt to me.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

I'm not sure why the negativity about Clark. He has had low numbers but also low ToG% and his involvements to me looked mostly pretty good. Effectively his first year last year. I mean not guarantees we get a player here but I think he's going OK. Big year for him.

It's not an issue unique to Clark IMO.

Guys like SDK, Henry, Neale, & Bruhn still get chastised from time to time despite proving they can actually perform at AFL level.

Atkins, Parfitt, Guthrie (x2), & Miers similarly in their early days, and who could forget the infamous Brad Close "shimmy" argument that went on for months on end.

Point being, that while there's probably a squeaky gear or two that have gone overboard at times, it's more just par for the course with how things go here, and how players are evaluated.

It can get annoying, but it does help the character of the board for mine. Too much of the same repetitive negativity or positivity does just turn into white noise eventually.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Clark in the backline should not happen ever imo. He'll be a decent midfielder either in seniors or vfl but put him in the backline and I think you'll get Tom Ruggles.

He's much better than ruggles and will play a lot of games but I agree midfield suits him better I'm just not sure he has the tank for it yet.

 

[Mr Meow]

He's much better than ruggles and will play a lot of games but I agree midfield suits him better I'm just not sure he has the tank for it yet.

The way Clark might break into midfield, once his tank is sufficient and his frame has filled out, would be Bowes shifting to half back or wing (replacing Duncan/Tuohy) and then Clark takes Bowes' midfield rotation. Around that time Dangerfield would probably also be out of the side and our midfield group may be something like Smith, Holmes, Bruhn, Dempsey and clark.

 

[CatRiot]

Do our players do this sort of stuff anymore?

Need Mitch Knevitt doing this stuff, in true Norman fashion.