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AFLW 2024 - Round 10 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
This is where you have it totally wrong. He no more deserves time than Eddy, Armitage, Heyne, Peake, Clarke, Stanley, Steven or any other team member.No doubt that Blake has credit in the bank and as the opening line of the OP states, I would think any calls for his head would be ridiculous. My main point is that it takes time to accumulate credit in the bank and given that Dawson is in his 2nd season with us and playing in a pretty tough spot on the park he deserves time, especially when no obvious replacement is putting their hand up.
Anyway on the whisper side of things, I have heard that Raph is becoming very homesick, and that a mutual decision may be made at the end of the year.
Yeah that's pretty much it, Blake has more credits in the bank than Dawson so people are less prone to criticising him.
Dawson has been pretty poor all season and has pretty much used up any credits he built up from last year. Blake has been consistently good for a couple of years now and rarely plays a bad game. Everyone is entitled to the odd bad game, like Blake had against Richmond, it's when you have a number of bad games in a row that people start calling for a player's head.
The other difference between Blake and Dawson is that Blake always tries 100% and plays with desperation and intensity, something I'm not sure you can say about Dawson. There have been times this year where Dawson has looked half asleep and disinterested and conceded some easy goals as a result.
Most supporters can accept players being beaten by better opponents, like Blake was on Friday night, if they are giving 100%. If they get beaten when they aren't giving 100% or aren't switched on then supporters are going to be more critical.
Raph's decision making is appalling. Please dont start about me or others baggin him for no reason, just watch him play, he may be effective (in segments) but he gives away a regulation two goals a game directly from his appalling decision making.
I have also noticed players hesitating to share the ball with him this year. This is not good.
Anyway on the whisper side of things, I have heard that Raph is becoming very homesick, and that a mutual decision may be made at the end of the year.
I disagree handpass or running the ball out seems to be the primary options from my observations.By the way, the first option a lot of the time in today's footy is kicking it long
WHAT? are you serious? I have never seen Raph receive a hospital pass from anyone, not saying it hasn't happened but certainly not common enough for it to be an issue as you suggest. I have seen Raph give two hospital handpasses in the last few gamesOften Raph gets the ball in general play, also commonly in congestion (hospital balled by Goddard being the most common)
Maybe, but he sure lacks accuracy.Raph lacks penetration in his kicking.
Sorry if I have misrepresented what you have written or taken it out of context. I only quoted those parts of your text because they were the parts I wanted to reply to.Simon Templar, way to selectively quote me.
Yes I understand that & that is exactly how I interpreted it.When I used the hospital idiom, I didn't mean physical harm, but putting a bloke under pressure.
I guess to mention my suspicion that Goddard has little affection for Raph in that context wasn't entirely appropriate. The rest I stand by.
At the risk of keeping the debate going, I've always thought that (despite being one of our best players) the Red Bull is one of our worst exponents of the handball in traffic. I'm happy for him to kick blindly (preferably towards the line or letting one of his torps loose) rather than handball blindly when in the defensive 50!
So we're agreed - BJ should never handball.
Add to that list Jimmy Gwilt.
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