Player Watch #38: Tristan Xerri - signed thru '29 - 2024 All Australian squad member - runner up '24 SBM

[Epictetus]

In 5 minutes yesterday Shannon Neale, 3cm taller, 4 years younger, showed more than both of them.

Agree, and they wheeled another kid a few weeks ago who looks better again. Can't even remember his name.

Xerri cares and tries hard. So he gets a pass from me. That's just where we're at.

 

[Passmore]

He's a BFNAAK, competitor and seems a good guy so criticising him isn't from some agenda.

But I think people are either looking at stat sheets or just liking the "idea" of building around a strong emerging ruckmen when they talk him up.

Watch the games, a few dissenters were right - that's not to say it won't improve. But there's no cohesion, he actually roots up as many plays as CCJ.

We have 2x 200cm guys hitting their peak years, neither of whom can play as AFL forwards with any reliability and neither can set up any kind of consistent runs of play even against other fledgling rucks.

In 5 minutes yesterday Shannon Neale, 3cm taller, 4 years younger, showed more than both of them.

**** me, when I saw Neale I thought who is this beast and where'd they pluck him from.

21yo (soon to be 22), 4th year in the system. Looks like a proper AFL sized man. Our 21yo's are generally still built like kids.

What the **** do they feed them? That'd be the first thing I'd be looking at.

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[My Left Foote]

I don't mind Xerri, all he has to do is get us through the next couple of years while Goad comes on because once he does Goad will go past Xerri at a rate of knots both literally and metaphorically.

 

[Passmore]

Agree, and they wheeled another kid a few weeks ago who looks better again. Can't even remember his name.

Xerri cares and tries hard. So he gets a pass from me. That's just where we're at.

The campaigners have a conveyor belt of big meat axe talls and blokes with long hair and headbands.

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[King Corey]

The campaigners have a conveyor belt of big meat axe talls and blokes with long hair and headbands.

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They don't mind the odd Cat B success story either. campaigners.

 

[Amicalola]

Makes far too many mistakes, but is probably the best player on our team at redeeming himself through second efforts (reflected in his high clearance and tackle stats, but poor 'most other' stats). I am interested to see if he gives up and the second efforts fade off, or if his craft improves and he becomes a beast. Could go either way imo, but unlikely to stabilise in the middle.

 

[ChairmanZia]

Let's work on assets we have at the club and let them realistically grow. The biggest problem we have at the club for the last 20 years have been us trying to deliberately push to being a team good at the 'in and under' hence we draft players who were all solid but nothing brilliant. As a consequence, we had a very one pace team that could get us to 8th but never good enough to challenge.

At least now, we are having a team that has greater level of dynamism with skill sets more relevant to the modern footy.

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

Doesn’t gel with the midfield as it’s set up.

His ruckwork is inept.

 

[TheRealCrazyQ]

A Somalian outhouse toilet has better taps than him at the moment.

Hey! How dare y..

Yeah, true.

 

[MagicalRoos]

Hey! How dare y..

Yeah, true.

Apologies Q, I was going to say I’d rather be tapped by Diddy rather than X at this point but that was one hyperbole too far.

 

[Poopybum22]

Significantly improved this year but his tap-work is not to the advantage of our midfield. Completely lacking synergy.

No rush to sign him given he has another year. A long term deal is ridiculous.
2 years max.

 

[amaz199]

I think his tap work being suspect is prompting him to take possession instead. It's not working.

But I can't get mad at the bloke because he's putting in big shifts and keeps on going. You kinda feel sympathetic for him. He's a victim of the lack of leadership around him and he's doing all he can do for the team.

 

[The Dougster]

I think his tap work being suspect is prompting him to take possession instead. It's not working.

But I can't get mad at the bloke because he's putting in big shifts and keeps on going. You kinda feel sympathetic for him. He's a victim of the lack of leadership around him and he's doing all he can do for the team.

He's become predictable in the ruck contests so needs to think his way around that. A few grabs would be nice too. He's got areas for improvement but I believe he's been a big plus so far this season. Adds toughness.

 

[perplexed]

Crikey. A few going way over the top here. Of all the players to knock, X should be near the back of the queue. He is regularly winning hitouts, laying quality tackles and winning getting clearances. He's had a pretty good start in his first year as No.1 ruck.

Yes, in his tapwork, he has no chemistry with the mids at the moment; this will develop over time. But saying that is all his fault is just nonsense. The midfield should be setting up to take advantage of his strengths and where he can reliably hit the ball and defending against his weaknesses. Why aren't they? Who is coaching them? He seems fairly predictable in that he hits the ball to his feet more often than not. Yet it seems that most weeks the opposition is better at roving to X than we are.

Who is our stoppage coach? Do we even have one?

 

[TheRealCrazyQ]

Apologies Q, I was going to say I’d rather be tapped by Diddy rather than X at this point but that was one hyperbole too far.

Lol, I would have laughed, still.

Hope you been well.

 

[Event Horizon]

Crikey. A few going way over the top here. Of all the players to knock, X should be near the back of the queue. He is regularly winning hitouts, laying quality tackles and winning getting clearances. He's had a pretty good start in his first year as No.1 ruck.

Yes, in his tapwork, he has no chemistry with the mids at the moment; this will develop over time. But saying that is all his fault is just nonsense. The midfield should be setting up to take advantage of his strengths and where he can reliably hit the ball and defending against his weaknesses. Why aren't they? Who is coaching them? He seems fairly predictable in that he hits the ball to his feet more often than not. Yet it seems that most weeks the opposition is better at roving to X than we are.

Who is our stoppage coach? Do we even have one?

There is no method to his tap work. You can’t read what is unreadable. X himself doesn’t know where it’s going, how can others?


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[FootySmartSimpson]

Don’t change Big Footy.

The amount of b*tching on here over the last four years about how weak as piss Goldstein is in the contest and how un-physical he was…

We now have the physical ruck you wanted, and you are turning on him like a pack of wolves despite his weaknesses being known from the outset.

Just baffling…

 

[perplexed]

There is no method to his tap work. You can’t read what is unreadable. X himself doesn’t know where it’s going, how can others?


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If that is the case then we should at worst be breaking even at clearances when he wins them. Why are we getting slaughtered?

 

[Event Horizon]

If that is the case then we should at worst be breaking even at clearances when he wins them. Why are we getting slaughtered?

Probably because our mids are smaller and still need some assistance. In a pure 50/50 contest we win less than the opposition


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[Makeshift Park]

If that is the case then we should at worst be breaking even at clearances when he wins them. Why are we getting slaughtered?

Ricks shinboner blog post this week has the best answer to this question.

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/ricks-analysis-the-shinboner-blog.1213127/post-83137605

 

[Val Keating]

Doesn’t gel with the midfield as it’s set up.

His ruckwork is inept.

I’m trying to work out if it’s his ruck work, our our mids… but whatever it is it’s not working atm. Lost count of the amount of times he taped it straight to the oppo on the weekend.

It’s something they should be able to work out because the hardest part is winning the tap, he’s got that covered, now to work on the next step and get it to the blokes in the North jumpers.

 

[perplexed]

Ricks shinboner blog post this week has the best answer to this question.

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/ricks-analysis-the-shinboner-blog.1213127/post-83137605

That is a good analysis but I think blaming it on X is misguided.

Having a look at the still



Rick attributes much of the blame to Xerri's positioning. To me that is the least of the issues here. How could X have been positioned and where could he hit the ball that would be to our advantage? Geelong own all the dangerous space. The best he could do is grab the footy or hit it to his feet.

 

[Makeshift Park]

That is a good analysis but I think blaming it on X is misguided.

Having a look at the still

View attachment 1961843

Rick attributes much of the blame to Xerri's positioning. To me that is the least of the issues here. How could X have been positioned and where could he hit the ball that would be to our advantage? Geelong own all the dangerous space. The best he could do is grab the footy or hit it to his feet.

I don’t think anyone’s arguing that Xerri is single-handedly responsible for our poor clearance rate lately, are they?

The midfielders have been making X’s job harder than it needs to be.

 

[Colby Cheer Squad]

That is a good analysis but I think blaming it on X is misguided.

Having a look at the still

View attachment 1961843

Rick attributes much of the blame to Xerri's positioning. To me that is the least of the issues here. How could X have been positioned and where could he hit the ball that would be to our advantage? Geelong own all the dangerous space. The best he could do is grab the footy or hit it to his feet.

100% this. If you had the best tap ruckman of all time - Polly Farmer, John Nicholls, Mick Nolan, Simon Madden, or Dean Cox... I'm not seeing any one of them tapping the ball into the advantage keyhole that our mids have established in that example.

 

[perplexed]

I don’t think anyone’s arguing that Xerri is single-handedly responsible for our poor clearance rate lately, are they?

The midfielders have been making X’s job harder than it needs to be.

There was a bit of a nonsensical pile on a couple of pages back. He was both too predictable and nobody including him knew where he was hitting it. The bloke isn't Max Gawn but he clearly has some strengths that we aren't taking advantage of because of our poor setups and our mids getting easy shoved aside.