Player Watch #26 Riley Collier-Dawkins

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TigerImposter said:
With young midfielders I like to give them two seasons at vfl before I can make an assessment on them.
Probably travelling worse than CEllis at the same time , but he doesn’t have a lot to make on. Let’s give him some time.
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definitely - but signs arent good - he's fit/healthy and had a good run during preseason, Im a little concerned now.
 
Waaaaay too early to even begin to question his input. You just have to remember how long have Egg and Bolton been on our list and keep the faith. Stack is an obvious exception to the rule, but our kids generally come good over time. I'm backing the kid in based on our team ethos and structure.... and I haven't even seen him play yet!
 
JAKLAUGHING said:
Maybe inside mid is not his best possie!
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I'm a little surprised that he hasn't been given a half back roll where he develop a bit like Naish, DerekES, even Corey Ellis (just for TI). Somewhere where you can be a little freer and more attacking, as that is a knock on him at the moment. Probably putting unnecessary pressure on him.
 

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No cause for concern for mine.

Would love to know his possession vs. disposal numbers for a comparison (they are not the same thing). I wouldn’t be surprised if he had high possession numbers but low disposal numbers.

Someone above said the phrase ‘hunting the ball’. The four or five times I’ve seen RCD this has not been an issue whatsoever. He goes after the ball in contested situations better than the majority of first year players I have seen. His intent is right up there. Why his numbers are down but shouldn’t be a concern for mine are for the following reasons:

- his tank isn’t good enough. This is why his disposal numbers are heavily weighted towards contested possessions over uncontested possession. He gets no ball on the outside.
- the above also has an impact on the amount of contests he gets too, and when he does get to the next contest, he’s blown up so his impact is minimised.
- our VFL team compliments our AFL team in game style. I don’t have team-by-team VFL stats available, but going by our AFL stats we have the lowest possession counts of all teams, including contested possession counts.
- he is more baby deer than footballer at this point. His understanding of how to properly use his body- and more importantly the timing of body work - is poor. In comparison, Jack Ross was the most advanced first year I’ve seen in a while. RCD early doors let his opponent dictate body position, now it’s about the lack of understanding of when to nudge/ lean/ go/ stay that unfortunately only comes with experience.

A couple of pre-seasons and RCD will be an important cog in our midfield. Unlike say CEllis (whom admittedly I was a longtime fan) RCD shows intent to find the footy in the contest. If that wasn’t there, then the bust label would be applicable.
 
Shazza_ said:
u serious ?
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RockJobster0312 said:
No cause for concern for mine.

Would love to know his possession vs. disposal numbers for a comparison (they are not the same thing). I wouldn’t be surprised if he had high possession numbers but low disposal numbers.

Someone above said the phrase ‘hunting the ball’. The four or five times I’ve seen RCD this has not been an issue whatsoever. He goes after the ball in contested situations better than the majority of first year players I have seen. His intent is right up there. Why his numbers are down but shouldn’t be a concern for mine are for the following reasons:

- his tank isn’t good enough. This is why his disposal numbers are heavily weighted towards contested possessions over uncontested possession. He gets no ball on the outside.
- the above also has an impact on the amount of contests he gets too, and when he does get to the next contest, he’s blown up so his impact is minimised.
- our VFL team compliments our AFL team in game style. I don’t have team-by-team VFL stats available, but going by our AFL stats we have the lowest possession counts of all teams, including contested possession counts.
- he is more baby deer than footballer at this point. His understanding of how to properly use his body- and more importantly the timing of body work - is poor. In comparison, Jack Ross was the most advanced first year I’ve seen in a while. RCD early doors let his opponent dictate body position, now it’s about the lack of understanding of when to nudge/ lean/ go/ stay that unfortunately only comes with experience.

A couple of pre-seasons and RCD will be an important cog in our midfield. Unlike say CEllis (whom admittedly I was a longtime fan) RCD shows intent to find the footy in the contest. If that wasn’t there, then the bust label would be applicable.
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Bravo ,, well said 100% correct
 
Very easy to look at the stats sheet and start questioning his value, but lets just wait until the weekly write up on the VFL players before passing judgement, given I doubt anyone actually attended the game yesterday with the senior game on at the same time. With the outs from the VFL side he could well of been playing up forward most of the game, given Moore Chol Soldo & Miller are not playing VFL and CCJ has been playing first ruck. We we re thumped in the VFL yesterday kicking only 6 goals for the game so there might not have been the opportunity for him to get involved in much of the play in the F50. The other possibility if that he was asked to play a tagging role to learn some defensive aspects, if they believe he is lacking in that area of the game.
 
I think rather than look at the stats sheet each week and look to define the player by his weekly return, or confirm our pre-conceived ideas by the same process, it is better to consider what a young developing player has so far shown he can do, and what he is yet to show he can do.

Collier-Dawkins has shown at VFL for sure he can play games at this level in the midfield and get 18 or so possessions, 10 or so contested possessions, lay big tackles and at times good numbers of them, impact on results in tight matches, and in patches look really strong and powerful around the footy.

He hasn't yet shown he can perform consistently against all comers, or adapt to other positions, or get good numbers of uncontested possessions.

You don't have to be able to do everything well in a footy team to be useful, you just have to at least find a role for the things you can do well. It is not really obvious what role RCD could play at AFL level or whether he will make it to that level, but calling a player like this a bust at this point denies these things:

- players can improve sharply once even one single factor like fitness improves,
- a player's impact can improve by finding an appropriate role, and as a player like Liam Jones has shown, their favoured role isn't always an obvious one,
- players can improve steadily over a number of years through a range of things, skills, strength, fitness, knowledge, experience, appropriate role, etc

We mostly do not know which ones will improve to a sufficient level to be consistent AFL players and which ones won't. If we think we can tell in advance just by a bit of casual observation or by reading a few basic possession stats we are as dumb as the scouts in the moneyball story.

One thing I really like about what I have seen from Collier-Dawkins is as a first year player he looks very powerful around the ball at times. We know he has that. So it is just a matter of waiting patiently to see whether he can develop enough game around it to make the grade.
 
His uncontested numbers are purely because he has no tank. Watching his junior years he definitely has outside zip to be able to be better in this area. I reckon he will serve 2 solid years in the VFL (possible debut next year) and then we can better judge. The knock on him has always been his low numbers and drifting out of games. The Corey Ellis/Ben Lennon picks were huge blunders by the club but strangely enough not so much because those boys weren’t talented because they were but just didn’t develop in our system. I just hope this one doesn’t turn out this way.
 
Have watched him a bit and agree it’s a tank problem... he goes hard and can win a ball no problem about it. Maybe his intent is too great at this point for his tank to keep up.

Think he will be a good player in time.

I watched the first half of the game before heading to the pub to watch the big boys on TV (got their 10 minutes into the game - was already over at that point!!).

We struggled comparatively (maybe it’s Whitten Oval?), and just had that off smell that the AFL guys get in those big losses. Fly was yelling some hard truths to players from the touch line... but I was probably closer than usual to the bench so not sure if it was out of the ordinary!
 
I normally would look at these VFL numbers and be concerned - even for a first year player. Having said that, this is not the case for RCD.

I don’t know, he mentioned that he had a sudden growth spurt so that’s sorta changed the way he needed to play and it’s clearly taking him time to adjust to his new height as well as our gamestyle + facing bigger bodies. So, I don’t think his numbers in the first year are definitely going to be an accurate representation of how he’ll end up playing.

However, if he has a second or third full pre-season and his numbers don’t pick up then I would start to get concerned. I’m confident that it will pick up though
 

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Player Watch #26 Riley Collier-Dawkins

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