Will Thursfield [merged]

[Smokey]

I do think you are underating him. He hits targets and is very smart with the ball when he gets it. He is not the fastest in the team but hey you need many types of players not just runners. Think we will have to agree to disagree on him as I think he is a gem.

Yeah, I'm not saying he is no good, I just think he will need to evolve if he is to become a 'good' player or better.  I'm just worried that when you dig underneath the hope and the hype that all he actually does well is contests (Jake King anyone?) and in the modern day elite team this type of player is a liability or a passenger .  And I will be very happy to be proven wrong but if he becomes a 'good' player then I'll bet anything it's because he starts to do the things he doesn't do currently.

[Infamy]

Yeah, I'm not saying he is no good, I just think he will need to evolve if he is to become a 'good' player or better.  I'm just worried that when you dig underneath the hope and the hype that all he actually does well is contests (Jake King anyone?) and in the modern day elite team this type of player is a liability or a passenger .  And I will be very happy to be proven wrong but if he becomes a 'good' player then I'll bet anything it's because he starts to do the things he doesn't do currently.

Couldn't disagree more. Not every defender needs to be an attacking defender, every side needs at least one decent stopper who's primary role is to simply shut down his opponent and then feed the ball to one of the runners to rebound the ball.
Will has shown the ability to run off his opponent but when you are standing a guy like Lloyd, you don't run off him to deliver the ball up the ground as you get killed on a turnover. You stay on your man and let the others clean up.

[Smokey]

Couldn't disagree more. Not every defender needs to be an attacking defender, every side needs at least one decent stopper who's primary role is to simply shut down his opponent and then feed the ball to one of the runners to rebound the ball.
Will has shown the ability to run off his opponent but when you are standing a guy like Lloyd, you don't run off him to deliver the ball up the ground as you get killed on a turnover. You stay on your man and let the others clean up.

Tell me the name of one Geelong defender that only plays that role - or one Hawthorn defender, or one Bulldog defender for that matter?  All the best spoilers in those good teams become creative linkmen as soon as their team has possesion in the backline.  Even slow old farts like Milburn.  I remember a free kick to Brian Lake in the Doggies forward 50 that had a significant impact on our season - I'm not confident Thursfield would even know where our forward 50 is.  These teams run off a Matthew Lloyd all day because he is not quick and not defensive - they back themselves and their team mates by taking the game up to the opposition at every opportunity, placing enormous and continual pressure on said opposition.  McGuane is doing it more and more, Moore does it, but I rarely see Thursfield do it and all I am saying is that unless/until he does, he will not make it as a good or long term senior AFL footballer - all I see at the moment is potential.  Just my opinion.

[tigersalive]

Couldn't disagree more. Not every defender needs to be an attacking defender, every side needs at least one decent stopper who's primary role is to simply shut down his opponent and then feed the ball to one of the runners to rebound the ball.
Will has shown the ability to run off his opponent but when you are standing a guy like Lloyd, you don't run off him to deliver the ball up the ground as you get killed on a turnover. You stay on your man and let the others clean up.

Tell me the name of one Geelong defender that only plays that role - or one Hawthorn defender, or one Bulldog defender for that matter?  All the best spoilers in those good teams become creative linkmen as soon as their team has possesion in the backline.  Even slow old farts like Milburn.  I remember a free kick to Brian Lake in the Doggies forward 50 that had a significant impact on our season - I'm not confident Thursfield would even know where our forward 50 is.  These teams run off a Matthew Lloyd all day because he is not quick and not defensive - they back themselves and their team mates by taking the game up to the opposition at every opportunity, placing enormous and continual pressure on said opposition.  McGuane is doing it more and more, Moore does it, but I rarely see Thursfield do it and all I am saying is that unless/until he does, he will not make it as a good or long term senior AFL footballer - all I see at the moment is potential.  Just my opinion.

Bulldogs: Dale Morris  (But will probably be AA regardless)
Hathorn: Trent Croad and Steven Gilham
Cats: Harry Taylor doesnt attack much but not really one from Geelong's team.

[Smokey]

Bulldogs: Dale Morris  (But will probably be AA regardless)
Hathorn: Trent Croad and Steven Gilham
Cats: Harry Taylor doesnt attack much but not really one from Geelong's team.

I don't agree with these so lets have a closer look.

Thursfield averages 9.3 disposals, 3.1 marks, 1.2 tackles and has never scored in his 40 games.
Morris averages 12.0 disposals, 4.2 marks, 2.6 tackles and has scored 1 goal 5 behinds in his 85 games.
Croad averages 14.8 disposals, 5.6 marks, 1.2 tackles and has scored 189 goals 158 behinds in his 182 games.
Gilham averages 13.3 disposals, 5.8 marks, 1.1 tackles and has scored 2 goals in his 50 games.
Taylor averages 15.8 disposals, 4.8 marks, 1.4 tackles and has scored 3 goals in his 19 games.

These figures clearly show that Thursfield does not get as 'involved' in the game as any of the others and the fact he has never scored indicates he never places himself in a scoring position ie 'involved by linking up and creating options forward'.  If he did start to run, back himself and play a more creative role then you would see his stats jump up significantly because he has currently achieved them by being a spoiler in it's purest form.  Teams demand more input from defenders now than just pure spoiling and that's why I say he will not make it if he doesn't add more strings to his bow.  And on top of that, Thursfield has the worst frees for/frees against ratio out of all these comparative players (he gives away more than 2 for every 1 received - Croad is the only other one who is negative, he gives away about 1.7 for every 1 received) so you could mount a strong case for him being a borderline liability, especially when you consider almost every free he gives away is in a scoring position.

[tigersalive]

Bulldogs: Dale Morris  (But will probably be AA regardless)
Hathorn: Trent Croad and Steven Gilham
Cats: Harry Taylor doesnt attack much but not really one from Geelong's team.

I don't agree with these so lets have a closer look.

Thursfield averages 9.3 disposals, 3.1 marks, 1.2 tackles and has never scored in his 40 games.
Morris averages 12.0 disposals, 4.2 marks, 2.6 tackles and has scored 1 goal 5 behinds in his 85 games.
Croad averages 14.8 disposals, 5.6 marks, 1.2 tackles and has scored 189 goals 158 behinds in his 182 games.
Gilham averages 13.3 disposals, 5.8 marks, 1.1 tackles and has scored 2 goals in his 50 games.
Taylor averages 15.8 disposals, 4.8 marks, 1.4 tackles and has scored 3 goals in his 19 games.

These figures clearly show that Thursfield does not get as 'involved' in the game as any of the others and the fact he has never scored indicates he never places himself in a scoring position ie 'involved by linking up and creating options forward'.  If he did start to run, back himself and play a more creative role then you would see his stats jump up significantly because he has currently achieved them by being a spoiler in it's purest form.  Teams demand more input from defenders now than just pure spoiling and that's why I say he will not make it if he doesn't add more strings to his bow.  And on top of that, Thursfield has the worst frees for/frees against ratio out of all these comparative players (he gives away more than 2 for every 1 received - Croad is the only other one who is negative, he gives away about 1.7 for every 1 received) so you could mount a strong case for him being a borderline liability, especially when you consider almost every free he gives away is in a scoring position.

Arent we rating Thursfield's year, not career?  ??? ???

How about we do it on real terms and rate a year like the thread says so if you want to because a stats man do it on the relative terms of the thread. 

There is no way possible Croad would have averaged 15 possessions a game this year.

[Smokey]

Arent we rating Thursfield's year, not career?  ??? ???

How about we do it on real terms and rate a year like the thread says so if you want to because a stats man do it on the relative terms of the thread. 

There is no way possible Croad would have averaged 15 possessions a game this year.

I am rating Thursfield's year.  My point in my original post was that I rated his season 4.5/10 based on my belief he is one-dimensional and doesn't do anything much else than spoil in a contest.  I then said he would need to learn new skills (add more strings to his bow) if he wanted to survive going forward.  I would think that all this was very much on the topic of the thread.  When my opinion was questioned I raised the point that other good teams don't have this type of player on board and when some names were mentioned I gave some facts to support my point.

Thursfield's stats have hardly improved from last year to this and that is a concern to me because I think he needs to be improving significantly each year as a kid otherwise he will not make it.  Hence, my rating of Thursfield's year using this season's, last season's or any other season's stats is 4.5/10 with this comment - if he doesn't develop his running, creating and involving then he will not play out a long or successful career.

[tigersalive]

Arent we rating Thursfield's year, not career?  ??? ???

How about we do it on real terms and rate a year like the thread says so if you want to because a stats man do it on the relative terms of the thread. 

There is no way possible Croad would have averaged 15 possessions a game this year.

I am rating Thursfield's year.  My point in my original post was that I rated his season 4.5/10 based on my belief he is one-dimensional and doesn't do anything much else than spoil in a contest.  I then said he would need to learn new skills (add more strings to his bow) if he wanted to survive going forward.  I would think that all this was very much on the topic of the thread.  When my opinion was questioned I raised the point that other good teams don't have this type of player on board and when some names were mentioned I gave some facts to support my point.

Thursfield's stats have hardly improved from last year to this and that is a concern to me because I think he needs to be improving significantly each year as a kid otherwise he will not make it.  Hence, my rating of Thursfield's year using this season's, last season's or any other season's stats is 4.5/10 with this comment - if he doesn't develop his running, creating and involving then he will not play out a long or successful career.

You gave career stats instead of yearly stats when we are discussing players YEARS.

If you are going to analyse Thursty's year and compare it with stats from those I nominated do it on the same terms as you rate his year, by the year, not by their career.

Surely you understand your inconsistency there?

[Smokey]

You gave career stats instead of yearly stats when we are discussing players YEARS.

If you are going to analyse Thursty's year and compare it with stats from those I nominated do it on the same terms as you rate his year, by the year, not by their career.

Surely you understand your inconsistency there?

I only gave stats when it was suggested that the current good sides had players of similar ilk - I used stats to point out why I disagreed.  I rated his year much lower than most of the other posters and I felt obliged to explain why.  I rated him that way because of what I perceive to be a significant deficiency in his game.  Rating the stats year by year will not prove anything but when I have been asked to back up what I believe his deficiency was this year (and has been since he started) then the stats are very relevant.

[Infamy]

Player role changes though, for example, Croad became the Hawks stopper this year and averaged 10.5 disposals. Previously he's been a much more mobile player, even playing forward, but this year he is their main key defender. He's a 182 game 28 year old veteran too.

Thursfield has been our stopper from day one, has only played 40 games and is only 22 years old. Give the kid a break.
He's shown that he can get a bit of the ball especially last year with games towards the end of the year in their high teens. Strangly Will didn't have his best year this year, even with more support, but he's still well on track to be a 10 year defender for us.

[mightytiges]

The Hawk defenders are hard to compare to as they push up to form the 15-man Clarkson cluster and deny the opposition forward 50 entries so they're less concerned about manning up on their direct opponent. If you break through the cluster often enough as we did to them in round 20 turning their own cluster back onto them then you can score pretty easily.

As for Thursty he plays more like a Max Hudghton and Croad as Infamy said. Had a fairly good year doing well containing the leading up tall forwards like a Lloyd but needs to leave the big lugs to Moore or McGuane and he got chopped up by Mark Johnson in the freo game.

[WilliamPowell]

5.5/10

Struggled at times during the year...

2nd half I thought his form dropped away

[Ekto]

Tigeriffic.

[one-eyed]

This isn't on the net so I typed it out.

Fishing for a new angle
By Craig Hutchison
Herald-Sun 09 NOV 2008, Page S06

EVEN at 22 and with only 40 games and four AFL seasons under his belt, Richmond defender Will Thursfield is thinking about life after football.

Thursfield, a key to Richmond's much improved defence in 2008, has started work with a fishing charter business as part of the AFL Sports Ready/AFL Players Association Next Goal program.

"I met Andre (Lindsay), the skipper down there (at St Kilda Pier), and I've been working throughout the break and on days off whenever possible,'' Thursfield said.

"I go out on the boat and teach people how to fish and prepare food and prepare all the fishing gear and learn about the industry.''

The program has resulted in more than 200 AFL players taking job placements since its inception in 2002 and has included stars such as Shane Crawford (who has worked at Freedman Brothers Racing) and St Kilda gun Sam Fisher (Sandhurst Golf Club).

Thursfield believes the program not only benefits footballers with outside skills, but provides an avenue to life outside football.

"Footy doesn't last that long and it's good to have an outside interest, and then have something to fall back on when you finish,'' he said.

"It's not only good on the after-footy stuff, it's also good just to get away on the day off and do something different.''

And the career move is proving popular with teammates -- Thursfield took a bunch, including Graham Polak, fishing last week.

"I took out five (Richmond) boys last week and two of them didn't catch a thing, but everyone else caught about 10 each,'' he said.

Polak and ruckman Adam Pattison did not catch a fish.

"Graham's going really well, he's back doing some training and he's looking fit,'' Thursfield said.

[Bene Boy]

footy and fishing  what a life