Glenelg v Eagles 24 April Stratarama stadium

Went and had a look at our U18s for the fourth time this year.
Defeated Glenelg who were above them on the table. Again they played a very good brand of football, very, very similar to what the league plays. It was a very good team effort. Kade Herbert and Brodie Mair were excellent. They still have some very good players missing, Oscar Pearce CHB, Charlie West CHF, Tyler Welsh FF, Rome Burgoyne HBF interceptor and distributor and on baller Jet Hasting who is in Melbourne with PAC participating in a footy carnival where last match he got BOG.

Other good U18 news is that the Eagles have seven in the now reduced U18 state squad.
Pat Weckert, Callum Fairall, Pat Toole, Tom Luck, Tyler Welsh, Rome Burgoyne and Kade Herbert. The last four are under agers and will be eligible next year. Of the seven under agers in the squad four are Eagles. Just like the way the Eagles are going about their business.

Anyone have any idea of who is in and who is out of the 9 players on the bench

Re Wimpy: Sadly, how many of these kids go on to play league for us. We are truly becoming a feeder competition for the Great AFL

whybother wrote:Re Wimpy: Sadly, how many of these kids go on to play league for us. We are truly becoming a feeder competition for the Great AFL

Great is not a word i would use for the overblown afl

For me, the most important  U18s for the Eagle's next 2 years are the underage "talls" coming through
Welsh (almost certain to be gone AFL in 2025), Luck 197cm, West 195cm, Oscar Pearce 194cm.
Luck, West and Pearce are possibly going to give the Eagles good service beyond 2025

My "great AFL' was meant to be sacastic.

Premiers wrote:For me, the most important  U18s for the Eagle's next 2 years are the underage "talls" coming through
Welsh (almost certain to be gone AFL in 2025), Luck 197cm, West 195cm, Oscar Pearce 194cm.
Luck, West and Pearce are possibly going to give the Eagles good service beyond 2025

Like your post "Premiers". There seems to be a few more talls around in our juniors than previously. My view is that if we keep on developing our juniors to a high level we will lose some to the AFL but also have some that go on to be really good SANFL league players. I feel the talent is widely spread in our U18s this year, that gives us a better chance of getting players through to our league team. Previously we've had good top end talent that get drafted and bottom end talent that doesn't make the grade. By making sure we have a good spread of talent it will ensure more get through to league level.
Lukas Cooke at 6'4" to 6'5" could be one of these players, he was a good U18, let's hope he develops in to a useful tall.

Being very selfish I hope Luck, West and Pearce are good but not quite good enough to make the AFL.

Looking at the App score Cameron is kicking goals in the seconds

I can see , Mawson,  D’Aloia,Nicholls named in the 2's.

Also Sam Nicholls in 2nds which makes it likely that Knight and Collier-Dawkins are in the league team.

Apologies, Goddy, I missed your mention of Sam Nicholls.

I’m goddy11 wrote:I can see , Mawson,  D’Aloia,Nicholls named in the 2's.

Oops I should’ve checked who was out .these came up on Facebook 

We’ll have 2 other debutants tonight joining Riley Collier-Dawkins…

200cm ruckman from the Box Hill Hawks David Brinker-Ritchie, and Eagles junior from Henley Lukas Cooke will hit the big stage against Glenelg in our blockbuster ANZAC Day Eve match from 7:40pm.

Go well boys!!!

#EaglesWWTFC #TogetherWeFly2023

Just a guess but I think the other 2 to miss out are Toumpas and Menzel. Menzel because Weckert is in.

Cameron had kicked 5 goals so far

goddy11 wrote:Just a guess but I think the other 2 to miss out are Toumpas and Menzel. Menzel because Weckert is in.

Looks like I'm wrong. Lukac and Weckert out.

Another thumping at the bay. If we’re not on 100% they punish us every time.

Rusty or plain not good enough? I guess time will tell.

Aerie wrote:Another thumping at the bay. If we’re not on 100% they punish us every time.

Rusty or plain not good enough? I guess time will tell.

Spoilt my evening. Was waiting all day to watch the game. Our delivery was poor. Their defenders marked everything. Our lack of height was telling.

That was a shambles of a train-wreck. Back to basics I think. Our attack could start by being a lot more defensive to keep the ball in the forward line. Too many players just went "missing"

Recruiting players will be hard if we end up near the bottom of the ladder. Which players want to come to a bottom team. Will money buy you a premiership. Looks like it might for Central Districts. Have we got that Money??
We need to climb the ladder and finish near the top

We will play better with increased game time and fitness into Collier- Dawkins, Knight, Menzel and Toupas who have missed at least 6 weeks of tough footy.
However, having missed the 3 pre-season recruiting targets of a mature, strong ruckman, a tall 195cm key forward and a key tall 195cm backman, this season was always going to be "developmental". I can still enjoy while the boys continue to have a "crack" at it. It's later in the season when we're 3 wins and 10 losses, morale drops and intensity lessens that it's hard to watch.

Beating Norwood easily may have given us a false sense of a good season.

[quote="Columbo"]The Good:
Mitch Hardie - had we won all 3 games he'd probably have 9 votes in the Magarey so far
Rowey - Working hard but having him in the middle means he isn't up forward
David Brinker Ritchie - Won the hit outs, had 10 touches, thought he tried hard all night.
Luke Beecken - like his ability to kick long goals, best game for a while IMO

The not so good:
only 5 contested marks for the night, compared to 21
the delivery to the forwards and our ability to keep the ball in our 50
being able to hold only 1 of their 3 forwards
the last quarter.

"Columbo" liked your short concise summary.
Was full of admiration for David B-R, with a very limited preparation (didn't arrive to late January), and battling injuries, his effort was great.
This season there's not much we can do to improve our aerial situation, convincingly beaten in the air in our last two matches. The Eagles must find better ways of delivering the football. Our very intensive fitness efforts were nullified by playing five whose preseason's were nobbled by injury.  
Maybe we have to take a chance on some positional changes. Would like to see Beecken play on a wing or maybe Williams play there and move Joey to a HBF.
Definitely was Beecken's best game for quite awhile.
What happened to our enthusiasm, hardness, aggressive attitude and skilful play that killed Norwood?  
Let's hope we can get a fit and settled team very soon.

In failing to meet the recruiting KPIs of a couple of key positions and ruck we were always going to struggle this season against teams with the 'big blokes'. Fresh from coming off South we ran into Glenelg who with their marking power up front was always going to be tough. Unfortunately for us the talls in their backline also dominated taking many marks against our mid forwards

We were the better side from about the last half of the first quarter until about 10mins into the second but all downhill from there unfortunately.

Still, there are always some positives in adversity. I thought Brinker-Ritchie showed a bit in his first game although as others have already mentioned on here, he just needs to get involved around the ground even if it is a tackle here and there. Knights got better and better as the game went on after a rusty start - it will be handy when him, Rowe and Hardie are all up and firing. Beattie just shows glimpses every now and then and you can see he has class. I feel he's wasted on the half forward line and would like to see him playing a full game on a wing soon. And yes, Beecken played very well. The challenge for him is to maintain the consistency rather than having a few quiet follow-up games. In theory he SHOULD be a very good player on the wing but has previously been tried there and just hasn't been able to find the ball. I think the club should keep persisting though.

Hopefully Weckert is available this week. I've noticed since Sheedy took over as Coach that our club seems to suffer an unusually high number of injuries at training midweek. Something to look at there?