Axel Foley......Your Time Is Now.

[Tigers of Old]

You don't know what you have till it's gone...

Amen to that.
Get well soon Cogs..and get to work GM & FJ.

 

[Rayzorwire]

How do you reckon the Saints will go without Hayes? We'll miss Coughlan.

Saints are already missing him a lot eh Dyer? They have a little more to replace him with than we do...but not much more.

Don't understand this critisism of Foley. Compare his stats to a guy most believe to be our best onballer/clearance getter ie. Cogs.

Despite playing one less game and getting probably only 60% of the game time Cogs does, he is the equal or better of Cogs in many areas. Foley is significantly higher in clearances than Cogs. In other words he is a very good player given his stats are based on significantyly less game time than Cogs gets.

Now i'm not saying he is better than Cogs, but give the boy his dues: he's played 17 games compared to Cog' 83 .... he stacks up pretty well.

This pre occupation with size is frustrating. Over the next year or two he could quite possibly develop into a 25-30 possesion a game player. Surely there is a place for a couple such players in each AFL side.

I agree he can become a good clearance player Azz and is already part of the way there, but he needs to be REALLY good to pay his way because of his size. You can't put him in defense because he'll instantly become a 'go to' matchup in the air. His opponent (if the coach had any smarts at all) would drag him straight to the goalsquare and then our structure needs to be instantly reshuffled all over again. They used to target Tivendale for the same treatment, and he'd be better in the air defensively than Foley I'd imagine...purely because of his height.

Why can't Weeble be rested in the forward pocket? It's not as if we seem to have any decent crumbers down there ATM.

Not enough spare forward slots really Anduril. Throw in a FF, CHF, Pettifer and Brown, that leaves only 1-2 spots a game for the likes of Tambling, Krakouer, Hyde, Meyer etc - who have all shown a bit more natural crumbing ability, and are potentially less likely to be beaten in the air IMO. Then we have the games where we play a tall in the FP as well as FF and CHF - even less room to rest a guy like Foley.

 

[osakabull]

I would like to see Polo or raines in the middle.Polo is pretty tough and has this uncanny balance and ability to handball while he is being tackled.This is very important IMO.He also seems to have a tremendous physique for this early period in his development.Only problem is he doesnt have a penetrating kick to my eyes.The problem with putting Raines in the midfield is it takes away from our backline drive and we cant afford it.

 

[Disco08]

I agree he can become a good clearance player Azz and is already part of the way there, but he needs to be REALLY good to pay his way because of his size. You can't put him in defense because he'll instantly become a 'go to' matchup in the air. His opponent (if the coach had any smarts at all) would drag him straight to the goalsquare and then our structure needs to be instantly reshuffled all over again. They used to target Tivendale for the same treatment, and he'd be better in the air defensively than Foley I'd imagine...purely because of his height.

He's a centimetre shorter than Daniel Kerr and 2 shorter than Sam Mitchell. Against most teams there'll generally be a match up for him on a 180 or less type guy that isn't too much of a mis-match.

Scoop, Hurn hasn't won a clrearance in 4 games. Not saying he won't in the future but he wouldn't help at all right now.

As I said before, Deledio is the player we need to look at to start contributing a large number of clearances (he's already doing pretty well at it), if not this year, then certainly next year. If you look at the top players in this catagory, they're not just the in and under type, they are the best players in the game. If Deledio is going to take the next step into the upper tier of AFL players (and become a truly valauble player for us), improvement here is crucial.

 

[checkside]

The only game Foley has really got a lot of game time was against Sydney and he got 8 clearances then. I think they should give him two games in a row of 80+ minutes in the middle to see what he can do.

 

[Rayzorwire]

I agree he can become a good clearance player Azz and is already part of the way there, but he needs to be REALLY good to pay his way because of his size. You can't put him in defense because he'll instantly become a 'go to' matchup in the air. His opponent (if the coach had any smarts at all) would drag him straight to the goalsquare and then our structure needs to be instantly reshuffled all over again. They used to target Tivendale for the same treatment, and he'd be better in the air defensively than Foley I'd imagine...purely because of his height.

He's a centimetre shorter than Daniel Kerr and 2 shorter than Sam Mitchell. Against most teams there'll generally be a match up for him on a 180 or less type guy that isn't too much of a mis-match.

Fair point Disco, but a few centimetres is a lot at top level...plus it means you have to really go looking for a matchup. Invariably, when you find that matchup, with the exception of Mitchell and perhaps a couple of others, then you reach a pace problem...most that height are nippier than Foley. I hope he'll become the sort of inside ball winner we desperately need, certainly has the ability. I just started out my contributions to this discussion by highlighting why he spends so much time on the pine and gave reasons why he'll probably spend a bit of time there even years down the track.