I agree with him. I thought the club rushed in too quickly to use him as one of their main marketing faces. He hadn't done enough yet, but I suppose it's all about the looks. Anyway it put extra pressure on that he didn't need.
Or even want.
Like everyone else I saw the signs earlier this year that he might have been finding some early career form, but they were just glimpses more than anything. For the second half of the year, (and most of his short career) he has not been accountable to his opponent. He has been towelled in the midfield and his direct opponent keeps getting possessions at will. He covers a fair bit of ground I suppose, but he was puffing so hard on Sunday that it was preventing him from going in for second efforts. I'm sick of the injury excuse- if he's injured he shouldn't be in the midfield. I've gotta say I haven't been impressed with his body language and his attitude lately either.It seems he doesn't care. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose watched Coggers and thought 'where is your mind at the moment lad'
Look, maybe Coughlan is right, football isn't the most important thing in the world, but if you are going to take your $400K,play 15-18 games a year for the mighty tiges with passion, I want to see nothing left on the field.
Never thought I’d have to see the day when I read something like that about Cogs. Just a couple of things though, without wanting to sound like I’m making excuses for him. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but apart from a few games in the middle part of the season, I don’t know that he’s been spending as much time in the midfield as people think. He’s been given other less taxing roles and had his training modified, to some degree, to ease the load for him, recently. I could be wrong here too, but I think it’s more like $300k, if you can believe the papers; not that it makes any difference to what we should be able to expect from a player though.
Anyway, no doubt he’s struggling in some way. Whether we can put any or all of it down to injury, or whether it’s something else entirely, who knows, but it doesn’t excuse the attitude. And if you’ve noticed that about him then maybe others may have too.
This is where I sometimes wonder whether it’s the footy club who doesn’t see what’s happening or the player who just doesn’t want to know about it. Clubs shouldn’t be expected to hold players’ hands 24 hours a day, but they shouldn’t throw them in the deep end and then let them drift aimlessly through these sorts of challenges either. Which is what seems to be happening here, to some degree at least. Maybe I’m completely on the wrong track, but you just have to wonder sometimes.
No doubt, all players go through highs and lows, and this is probably no big deal and nothing that couldn’t be easily and quickly nipped in the bud, if there is anything there.
While the injury gives Cogs an excuse, to some degree, as it would be frustrating to deal with, it doesn’t excuse or explain the other signs that you pointed out, that are probably more worrying, because once the attitude falls away it generally affects everything else. The sooner you see the warning signs, the quicker something can be done, if necessary. And I don’t know that we’ve been too good in that department in the past.
Regardless of who the player is, my main concern is that we get a player to a level where he’s playing reasonable football and then, for whatever reason, his career levels out or he just goes backwards. The most obvious early signs of decline generally seem to be the attitude and, while I don’t want to sound like I’m making something out of nothing, this is where I’ve had my doubts, over a number of years, about our Club being able to get a player to a level that’s above average.
Obviously, a lot of it comes back to the player himself but, at the same time, I wouldn’t like to think we’re going down the same track here, where a player has played his best football before his career has barely started, when we didn’t need to.
