They have been hugely disappointing. If Essendon can break out of their shell, Ridley is still taking most of the kick outs. Just has to start backing himself and his team mates with the long kicks rather than piddling around in the back 50. Whitfield I don't see turning it around - other than a couple of spike games.
News Injuries & Suspensions
- Thread starter PC
- Start date
Actually personally think the opposite.
Ridley looks completely disinterested, lazy and just over it. Not working at all to get extra touches, if he didn't have kick-ins he'd be averaging about 40 with his workrate. Also not positioning well defensively so he's rarely taking intercepts.
He could turn it around but nothing about how he's playing, or played the last 15 weeks of last season, suggests he really wants to. The bigger issue is the Bombers players seem to genuinely want the ball in the hands of Kelly and Laverde over him, the amount of times over the last month they've gone to those two ball stoppers instead of Ridley in better positions is, frankly, absurd. Throw in Redman, Hind and Heppell and it's a lot of sharing.
Whitfield on the other hand is actually scoring very well in DT, I can't actually fault his workrate, and we know he's capable of big games. My concerns on him are that he's never been that good a kick and he seems to be even worse this year and the coaches positioning. The biggest factor those is he genuinely seems to have lost his teammates, the amount of times they look him off in far better positions it's like there is a team order to not give him the ball and the way he still keeps working to be in the best positions suggests he's the only guy who doesn't know the team rule
Seriously though, I think they're both cooked right now. Too many guys scoring ~105 that have no good reason to bet against it continuing for two guys who are struggling to score 80 most weeks, that's a huge turnaround threshold. I just struggle to buy the story that 6 of Sinclair, Hewett, Sicily, Pendles, Short, Crisp, Dawson, Docherty, Stewart, Witherden, Dale, Hall, Cumming, Lloyd and Ryan aren't going to sustain somewhere in that 105+ region. That's 15 names that are all in the region.
The positive is that Whitfield and Ridley are capable. I traded Ridley out of rage, did the trade on Monday and haven't looked back (it's locked now), can't really do the Whitfield move at this point. They don't even have the bye to be able to dodge is the extra salt.
Ridley looks completely disinterested, lazy and just over it. Not working at all to get extra touches, if he didn't have kick-ins he'd be averaging about 40 with his workrate. Also not positioning well defensively so he's rarely taking intercepts.
He could turn it around but nothing about how he's playing, or played the last 15 weeks of last season, suggests he really wants to. The bigger issue is the Bombers players seem to genuinely want the ball in the hands of Kelly and Laverde over him, the amount of times over the last month they've gone to those two ball stoppers instead of Ridley in better positions is, frankly, absurd. Throw in Redman, Hind and Heppell and it's a lot of sharing.
Whitfield on the other hand is actually scoring very well in DT, I can't actually fault his workrate, and we know he's capable of big games. My concerns on him are that he's never been that good a kick and he seems to be even worse this year and the coaches positioning. The biggest factor those is he genuinely seems to have lost his teammates, the amount of times they look him off in far better positions it's like there is a team order to not give him the ball and the way he still keeps working to be in the best positions suggests he's the only guy who doesn't know the team rule
Seriously though, I think they're both cooked right now. Too many guys scoring ~105 that have no good reason to bet against it continuing for two guys who are struggling to score 80 most weeks, that's a huge turnaround threshold. I just struggle to buy the story that 6 of Sinclair, Hewett, Sicily, Pendles, Short, Crisp, Dawson, Docherty, Stewart, Witherden, Dale, Hall, Cumming, Lloyd and Ryan aren't going to sustain somewhere in that 105+ region. That's 15 names that are all in the region.
The positive is that Whitfield and Ridley are capable. I traded Ridley out of rage, did the trade on Monday and haven't looked back (it's locked now), can't really do the Whitfield move at this point. They don't even have the bye to be able to dodge is the extra salt.
Yeah, I can see your interpretation. I can't quite understand how much progress Essendon made last season, and how awful they have started this season - even factoring in injuries and a very rough draw. etc. and Ridley seems the epitome of the team. I don't think he looks uninterested, but he looks like his confidence is shot. He's not taking on the game, and neither are the rest of the team. Anyway. We'll see I suppose. We started badly last season - not this badly though. I think after 5 rounds we've barely put together 4 decent quarters of good football and that's only counting parts of quarters. It's very disappointing as a Member/Supporter. SC wise it's annoying. Even Parish, who I've been considering picking, doesn't look switched on, which for a professional sports team who have a had a relatively smooth - injury wise - preseason, is baffling. Nonetheless Essendon continue to baffle, especially those who watch them the closest.
Last edited:
- Joined
- 3 Jul 2017
- Messages
- 38,958
- Likes
- 126,621
- AFL Club
- Port Adelaide
- Joined
- 6 Jan 2013
- Messages
- 19,072
- Likes
- 80,330
- AFL Club
- Melbourne
Grundy out 10 to 12 weeks PCL per Sam Edmund Sen1116
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/WhateleySEN/status/1518771081846292480
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/WhateleySEN/status/1518771081846292480
