Lay off Cogs

[Bulluss]

I wish people would get off Cogs back and give him a break.

He has had a fantastic season given the little amount of work that he was able to do during the pre-season.

He would have played at a min. 80% of the year on the ball running his guts out week in, week out.

Unfortunately his lack of conditioning hasnt allowed to perform at the great heights we expect of him every game, but hopefully he will be able to take part in more of the fitness/running work this pre-season and we should start to see him improve his explosivness and also penetration by foot next season.

Same goes for Tucky, this is pretty much his first season of AFL footy and he too has player a min of 80% of his game time on the ball. It is a long season and he will be all the better for it next year.

Go Tigers

[om21]

I know what you are saying Bull and your right to some degree. The flip side is that this guy is paid what $250k a year to do what he does? Ok....that is a hell of a lot more than me.....Now I am a full-time IT consultant, my job is to keep my skills up to date....if I dont, I become useless.

Cogs is a full-time footballer....and before I continue this is directed at ALL our stuffing players....how these players CANT F$CKING KICK when all they do is kick the footy EVERY day is beyond my brain....No pressure half the time and his disposal is shambolic.

I dont question his endevour or his fitness, I will drill him for his kicking though.

[letsgetiton!]

I know what you are saying Bull and your right to some degree. The flip side is that this guy is paid what $250k a year to do what he does? Ok....that is a hell of a lot more than me.....Now I am a full-time IT consultant, my job is to keep my skills up to date....if I dont, I become useless.

Cogs is a full-time footballer....and before I continue this is directed at ALL our effing players....how these players CANT F$CKING KICK when all they do is kick the footy EVERY day is beyond my brain....No pressure half the time and his disposal is shambolic.

I dont question his endevour or his fitness, I will drill him for his kicking though.

thats exactly what ive been trying to explain and say

[mightytiges]

Cogs' kicking has been off this year but let's see how he goes after a full pre-season behind him. Most of our midfielders  are experiencing either their first full season of AFL or in Cogs case a full season after practically a year off. Not surprisingly they're struggling towards the end of it. It doesn't help them either that our depth is still poor so the workload is greater than it should be compared to the better sides.

I know what you are saying Bull and your right to some degree. The flip side is that this guy is paid what $250k a year to do what he does? Ok....that is a hell of a lot more than me.....Now I am a full-time IT consultant, my job is to keep my skills up to date....if I dont, I become useless.

IT (programming specifically from my own experience) you can learn as an young adult from scratch and once you have a strong understanding of the fundamentals you can pick newish things up relatively quickly. In footy IMO if you don't have the co-ordination to kick a footy by the time you're in your mid-teens it will never come naturally which is most important at AFL level as under pressure you must rely on your instinctive skills and execution.

It is amazing how many footballers make it right through to the AFL yet have a dodgy kicking technique. You could understand it if it was only a player's non-dominant side that was iffy but a number of players struggle even on their dominant foot . You would think as a recruiter/spotter one of the first things you would concentrate on when looking at youth level matches is whether a kid has a proper kicking technique and good penetration (say 50m) at least on one side of his body. Modern footy is mostly about precise flat disposal by foot; not up and under floating mongruel punts.     

[letsgetiton!]

mt,
if iut were the start of the season one could use the "excuse " of a pre season, but ite the end odf the yr, he is fit and strong and the errors he keeps producing have nothing to do with pre season or fitness. they are fundememntal skill errors, errors which he is meant to be eradicating as he has been training and playing all yr, the problem with rfc is that jmediocrity has been ok for yrs, so we have judged cogs on his ability ti get the ball but not his ball use,  he and sugar are in the same boat, and the clange rrule should be changed as 75% of the time they both get the ball they do not hit a team mate , they may not hit an opponent but their poor disposal eventually creates a turnover and costly ones too. they should all be considered ineffective disposals and clangers but they are not.

look at how th edogs skill level has imoproved accross the board, our players , except 4 the kids have no more room  4 improvement

[mightytiges]

Mopsy in another thread summed up more succintly what I was trying to say - "Having come off the physical and mental torment of his injury problems and the shortened pre-season forced upon him, (Cogs) would be feeling pretty well stuffed by now".

look at how th edogs skill level has imoproved accross the board, our players , except 4 the kids have no more room  4 improvement

Sure Cooney is a young star but the Dogs improvement in the past month has mostly come from their 21-24 year old players (Birss, Boyd, Cross, Harris, Guido, Gilbee, Hahn, Hargrave, McMahon, Murphy, Morris, Skipper) finally all hitting their straps at once plus getting their best 22 (minus Darcy) back on the park. Scotty West (not a reliable kick either) had 32 possies, Brad Johnson 28 and Grant kicked 6 while Griffen only got 6 touches on the weekend while Ray didn't play. Not knocking those kids but that's not why they smacked the Eagles. Bloody Geischen and Frawley's recruiting means we have very few blokes in this age bracket that should of been coming through now. Cogs, Tuck, Hyde, Newman, Krakouer, Rodan and Pettifer are about it and 2 of them hardly played AFL last year and one missed all of this year .  We are behind the Dogs in terms of the quality and quantity on our list in this crucial age bracket. It's going to take the whole 5 years of Wallace's reign just to fix up the mess left by his two predecessors. As the old saying goes - it's hard to soar like an eagle when you work with turkeys  .

[Bulluss]

I dont deny that Coggers disposal this year has been ordinary, but as others have said i think its an achievement in itself that he has played everygame this season.

Give him the benefit of another pre-season and if all goes well he should be back to his best next season!!!

[WilliamPowell]

I dont deny that Coggers disposal this year has been ordinary, but as others have said i think its an achievement in itself that he has played everygame this season.

Give him the benefit of another pre-season and if all goes well he should be back to his best next season!!!

Believe me that's what I am hoping for Bull. Hoepfully that will include more skills session like what the other blokes did last pre-season so the kicking side of thngs wont be anissue either

[JohnF]

I can't understand what has suddenly got people's goat about Coughlan's kicking. His kicking has ALWAYS been dodgy, not just this year.

Like MT, I also don't think you can really improve skills like kicking past your early formative years. Sure, you can improve a little with dogged determination, but not much.