Cotchin's stats this year compared to the rest of the afl elite are poor.
See http://www.afl.com.au/stats
His disposal efficiency out of the top 20 possession getters in the league is ranked only 17th - 60.4% DE, Stevie J 60.2%, Beams 57.3% and Priddis 52.5%
As for the comment he is carrying his team - Nathan Jones 67.8% and he is a man who is carrying his team.
Incidentall, Watson DE is 85.1%, Selwood is 78.7%
Clangers - he is equal first with 15 ie. 5 per game. Ablett is ranked the same.
Tackles - he is ranked 18th with 7 tackles, Rosa has 6 and Tyson 4.
Finally, carrying the team has nothing to do with set shots for goal there is no pressure and 30 secs to kick the darn thing- 1.1.OOTF (Out On The Full)
People need to take the blinkers off when analysing Cotch a bit - yes great player. But he has some faults - intensity is not one of them.
On field leadership - not yet there. Where are the rest of the leadership group though? Chapling was kicking it to the oppostion from 15 metres - that was stellar.
Firstly, let's not compare Cotchin to Nathan Jones. Nathan Jones is by no means a horrible player but he isn't in the same league as Cotch. Gary Ablett's isn't much higher at 64%. You mentioned Stevie J and Dayne Beams as having low DE% but I don't know about you but I'm sure any coach in the AFL would love to have either Ablett or Stevie J in their team regardless of DE%. If we are to look at round 3 in isolation because that was when RFC had to go Deledio-less. Cotchin's DE% was 67.9%. Ablett was 60.5%, Swan was 56.5%. Ablett put in a 3 brownlow vote performance and Swan battled in a losing side.
I also strongly disagree with no pressure from a set shot. How many times do you see Deledio and Martin bang it through the big sticks from outside of 50 but they pull it too far to the left/right when having a set shot?
I'm not saying Cotchin shouldn't strive to improve his kicking/handballing. I'm sure all footballers strive for this. What I'm saying is a player's DE% is going to drop when the team is losing and in Cotchin's case, when the entire team is getting hammered and you have to carry everybody you're not going to have an out of this world DE% (Issac Smith had 83% during the demolition of Freo). I'm a firm believer his DE% will rise if everyone else in the midfield put in some effort and not expecting Cotchin to do it all.
