Welcome everyone to One-Eyed Richmond's Tiger Forum Cheers from mightytiges and WilliamPowell.
A solid first Champs outing for Joe Berry who show cased the exiting and damaging package of skills he brings to a forward line. Started strongly in the first half, regularly leading up to the wings to get involved. Was quieter in the second but made the most of his opportunities to snag a couple of crucial goals and finish with three for the game.
FJ is the only one that makes sense.
One of Metro's best on the day, Harry Oliver showed both his attacking and defensive potential here. He spent a decent amount of the game matched up on the red hot Leo Lombard and kept him relatively quiet while picking his moments to run off and create with linking run and penetrating disposal.
The wet conditions made it tough for flair players like Kako, but he still managed to flash moments of his talent, and was relatively clean with the slippery ball.
Playing predominantly forward, Gerreyn showed how dangerous he can be as a threat in the air and on the ground. At 199cm he's still capable of swooping on loose balls to create scoring opportunities for himself or his teammates with lovely skills by hand or on either foot.
Bo Allan's size and power through the midfield proved too difficult for South Australia to handle. There's not a lot of subtlety to Allan's midfield craft at this stage, but he's super competitive and crashes through bodies taking the footy with him or creating space in his wake. His bone crunching tackles were also a feature.
Another strong performance from Urquhart who was the heartbeat of the WA midfield as they upset the hot favourite SA. He was the largest stoppage influence on the ground, his size and explosive movement difficult to deal with. He was able to find space and use hit long penetrating kick to pump the ball inside 50 11 times for the match.
Sid was quieter this week disposal wise along with a number of his SA teammates as they took a surprise beating from WA. The positive is that he appears to be elevating parts of his game each week as he regains full match fitness following a long injury layoff. After an improvement last week his stoppage work was better again here, and he showed more intent to chase and apply defensive pressure around the contest. He seems to be setting himself up for a strong finish to the season.
There was a lot to get excited about with this performance by the 197cm key forward Charlie Nicholls. He moved super well, presenting all over the ground and drawing the footy. He competed well in the air, always at least halving the contest and providing his smaller forwards with ground level opportunities. He dropped some marks that he would expect to clunk, but his hands became increasingly sticky as the game progressed and he gained in confidence. The one area for concern would have to be his set shot kicking which has been wayward through the Champs series so far.
Pass, surely there is better out there
Wayward kicking.Sounds like John Butcher haha.Some blokes never get better so I would be wary.
Zak seems to be a footballer in search of a position, or perhaps just an old school utility that can play very well no matter where he is on the ground. He started this game in the floating/intercepting defensive role that we've seen him playing the last month or so at Talent League level, but with the Knights getting overrun through the midfield he was enlisted to help onball in the third quarter. He responded with a big term, finding the footy and surging his team forward, getting involved in multiple scoring chains and even getting on the end of one himself.
And just like that we have a new pick 1 contender. Sam Lalor playing his first game back in the Talent League since returning from a long injury layoff to start the season demonstrates that every part of his game is in tip top condition as he turns in possibly the best performance of the season. Powerful, brutal, attacking and clean, he was strong overhead, hit up targets over all distances by foot and absorbed contact to release teammates with long creative handballs. The most impressive thing of all might have been his bruising tackles.
Lalor is a very solid player, my issue with the highlights that I've seen he is always by himself at stoppages. So that's a bit of a question mark in terms of how well rounded he is as a mid. Lots of players can rack up big numbers when you are unopposed, but he certainly finds the footy and has a crack.Josh Smillie has always been my choice, but Jagga is going to be a really hard player to not pick. He just finds a pissload of the footy.
In conditions more suited to his game than Metro's wet opener Sims was able to show what he's capable of in that modern forward/ruck role. He was a damaging marking threat all game taking several contested grabs, in particular when he was played deep forward where WA's key defenders struggled to deal with his size and strength. He could have had an even bigger day out if he'd been a little more accurate in front of goal.
One of the leading key forward prospects in this years draft pool Jobe Shanahan kicked a bag of 5 goals for his Pioneers team as they came up just short against the Stingrays by the slimmest of margins.
