Player Watch #9: Luke Davies-Uniacke [Part II] - '24 SBM - [Ch9] LDU's camp 'working hard to get a deal done'
- Thread starter giantroo
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tazaa
Hall of Famer
The whole midfield is struggling.
Firstly the change in assistant coach has been detrimental.
Goldstein leaving also has hurt us.
LDU being out of form as well doesn't help.
Xerri is not going okay. At all. No tackles or clearance stats is going to disprove that the ruck and centre clearance stuff is piss poor.
If he was giving our mids first use and doing the bare minimum around the ground which is providing an aerial presence - then we would all be singing his praises.
The reality is unlike Goldi and McIntosh and McKernan - those footballers could give our mids first use and X is not elevating their games.
Players have too much control. The AFL talk this big game of equalisation, yet have this clause where players can simply choose who they want to play for.
Its broken.
Its broken.
- Moderator
- #1,704
Lol. I've been guilty of this too discussing valued players.
Let's take it as read that 99% of us would give him a 6 year+ warchest $$ deal to stay at North Melbourne forever if he wanted it.
But if he refuses to sign heading into 2025 we'd want to have done a hell of a lot of contingency planning to achieve thr best outcome for the club. That planning would've begun already.
I would much rather turn him into a Lever, May, Taylor or at the least future 100+ game best 22 players than get all giddy about whoever lines up with 2025 Band 1 compo.
- Apr 19, 2019
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- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
If a heart to heart has him express the desire for a trade then we facilitate it and then throw the kitchen sink at Yeo, who can lead our midfield for a few years while they develop.
interesting that Sam Jacobs just mention LDs importance of re-signing at North
tales129
Norm Smith Medallist
Xerri is a byproduct of the SuperCoach/fantasy era where he tons up and everyone thinks he’s great.
He’s dog shit and always has been and it’s making some of these high ceiling mids look ****ed
He’s dog shit and always has been and it’s making some of these high ceiling mids look ****ed
Thank you!
How does our tallest guy take one ****ing mark.
- Moderator
- #1,709
I think he has some potential but he's way overrated by some based on metrics.
In theory we have a statistically dominant ruckman and a troupe of elite young mids.
That'd explain our tons of inside 50s and constantly hitting our forwards on the chest each game then.
shintemaster
Brownlow Medallist
To my eye he's a solid ruckman at best currently. Letting the midfield group off the hook because he isn't brilliant is way too far for mine, if the opposition can rove to him at will then why the **** can't some of our players?
tales129
Norm Smith Medallist
Absolutely fair.
I should have rephrased that. He doesn’t help our mids offensively
Defensively that’s on them
Equalisation reminds me of those plastic bags you see swirling around the streets on a cold winter’s Melb day
tazaa
Hall of Famer
He's not winning the taps. And if for some reason he grabs it out of the ruck he's is then easily tackled.
You would love to play against our midfield right now. There is no flow and everyone is defensively minded because how could you risk running forward of the ball?
I'm not sure it's 99%, tbh. There's a lot of frustration at LDU lately, and any sign of not committing does make people throw their toys out of the cot. Let's not forget that our "Head of Football Talent" is the guy that got sucked into the media talk about a certain full forward being worth two first-rounders and got far, far less than that.
I just think the whole thing is utter madness. If you asked any NMFC fan if they'd be interested in a 25-year-old big-bodied midfielder with 100 games under his belt and who has shown he can be elite, they'd jump at it.
Yet here we are talking about draft picks.
You clearly have an agenda and are seeing only what you want to see. Here are ruck stats for the last 5 weeks ranked by hitouts to advantage. X isn't dominating, but he isn't our problem. Note that he is the youngest player on this list, playing his first year as No.1 ruck, and getting better by the week. In round 1 he only had one hitout to advantage, in the last two weeks he has had 26 - the highest in the comp.
He is grabbing it out of the ruck because he is being told to do that or hit it to his feet when he doesn't have a good option. Whenever the ball is tapped to space we are getting slaughtered because our mids are getting muscled out of the position. They are often being pushed under the ball and the opposition are controlling all this space around the contests.
Why is goldy so far ahead in rating points? Is it based on whole career?
I think the rating points section is bugged tbh it shows the same amount for both average and total for the year. Some weird champion data voodoo.
Is that tap to advantage statistic counting him grabbing it out of the ruck, before he turns it over?
If you can show me 59 odd examples of him doing that (i.e. how many taps to advantage Xerri has had so far this year) then I will concede that the negatives outweigh the positives.
No one is using him as a scapegoat for LDU. As I’ve said previously that his ruck work isn’t working for our current mids. It’s not giving them first possession, which we need at the moment. We’re playing with one senior mid and the rest are 19y/os against senior blokes in their prime
