J Blake

[congorozides]

I was at the game on Friday and was watching Jason Blake intently . Blake on Cousins was a joke move by the coaches. Having a big engine is not enough if u just run around following a guy 2 metres behind and then are too stupid to hurt them when we have the ball. He may as well have been a camera man because he wasnt in the play, just watching it from behind.

At one point Cousins got the ball and ran 20 metres and kicked in the forward line while Blake was 50 metres away on the wing looking around for Cousins. There was a turnover amd the SAints won the ball and started moving it down the wing towards where Blake was. Instead of taking the opportunity and presenting himself because he was free and 50 metres away from Cousins to hurt them on the rebound. He started lokoing for Cousins ad ran away from the play to go and stand next a now walking Couins who was 100 metres behind the play.

Unbelievable! He was ineffective when they had it (50 metres from COuins) and worse whenwe had it on the rebound (started running away from the play).

Im afraid Blake is not there. Too short to play Ruck. Too slow to play midfield and not good enough to play key position. He is nearly everything but actually nothing.

[ausfatcat]

well the bonus is he didn't gift the opporsition a goal this week from a easy turnover.

[congorozides]

well the bonus is he didn't gift the opporsition a goal this week from a easy turnover.

true. We may as well recruit Craig "Buster" Mottram. Tall and has a massive engine.

[Duggie]

I noted at the time that Cousins was rather quiet for the first half of the game. Would like to watch it again.

[congorozides]

I noted at the time that Cousins was rather quiet for the first half of the game. Would like to watch it again.

Cuz was quiet early. But when the game was there to be won he turned it on. You have to play 4 quarters to beat the eagles. Not one .

[Dan Warna]

that was a criticism of the team in the early part of the season.

we would dish the ball off and then go scrag the particular player we were tagging when we had possession of the ball.

no one one would run to advantage when we had possession.

our defence would hold the ball up, dish it off then they would reload and have another crack.

Sure it was part of the 'learning' process, but we lost games to this 'learning' process early in the season.

Was it worth losing games to 'learn' the strategy? I guess 2008 is the answer to that.

perhaps blake was given a job to do, and told to do it.

I much prefer blake when he plays the jim stynes role, and stands in the middle of teh ground and blocks their attacks, or marks in the middle of the ground and kicks to the forward line.

he seems effective at that role.

[barks4eva]

Great post Con and most observant

I watched Blake with interest last year and he was about as accountable as Enron

Fair Dinkum


Opposition ruckman were in the best players nearly every week running aound by themselves

but Blake got his 15 odd disposals which we were all supposed to be getting a semi over, only problem was Blake wasn't hurting the opposition but the 20 odd FREE possessions his direct opponent was getting was largely contributing to who got the four points

So much for playing on Cousins, he was 5 metres away on the other side of the bounce most of the time, great tagging job, NOT

Blake is not accountable and never has been, unco, can't keep his feet, even gave away a 50 metre penalty against the bulldogs when he grabbed the guy with the ball, when he lost his balance trying to run around him from behind> FAIR DINKUM

His monumental stuff up against Collingwood handed momentum back to to the opposition, helped them get on a roll when we were nearly 4 goals up and was probably the single defining moment in that game

In the end we lost the game and this has probably cost us a place in the finals

Blake's mistake was the turning point

You're only as strong as your weakest link and we have far too many


Blake makes dumb decisions, has no skills, is not accountable and quite frankly is a complete waste of space, taking a position in the team that would be better filled by a young kid like Ferguson who might actually develop into a decent footballer

We will never win a premiership with liabilities such as Jason Blake in our team

The sooner we have a coach who wakes up to this fact the better

[barks4eva]

I much prefer blake when he plays the jim stynes role, and stands in the middle of teh ground and blocks their attacks, or marks in the middle of the ground and kicks to the forward line.

he seems effective at that role.

The only Jim Stynes type role Blake's ever played is to give away STUPID 50 metre penalties such as when Stynes ran through the mark in the 87 preliminary final


FAIR DINKUM

[Dan Warna]

I much prefer blake when he plays the jim stynes role, and stands in the middle of teh ground and blocks their attacks, or marks in the middle of the ground and kicks to the forward line.

he seems effective at that role.

The only Jim Stynes type role Blake's ever played is to give away STUPID 50 metre penalties such as when Stynes ran through the mark in the 87 preliminary final


FAIR DINKUM

was that a 50 or 15m under the rules at the time?

[st_Trav_ofWA]

just to take this on another tangent for a min i saw a replay of the game over the W/e and i notices how oiled up ben cousins is after half time did anyone else notice this ? he looked like he had a whole bottle of bayoil on each arms and it got me thinking what are the rules to this ?? surly a player puttin oil on his limbs is a unfair move as when the oppersition go's to grab them well they are slippery and have oil on their hands so the chance of them cleanly grabbing the ball is then also impeaded ??
its just very strange ben was the only one to be slathered with oil it looked like he was ready to be deep fried !?!

[snoopygirl]

Pretty sure it was a 50 Dan Warna. Isn't that the first year the rule was changed from 15 to 50?

[Dan Warna]

At first, Stynes was a slow developer but the Melbourne coaching panel's perseverance with him paid off when Stynes made his senior debut for Melbourne in 1987. In the 1987 preliminary Final Melbourne were leading Hawthorn with a minute to go when the Dubliner made the mistake of running across a free for the opposition. His error resulted in a 15 metre penalty which Gary Buckenara goaled after the final siren for a two point win.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Stynes

wasn't sure so I wiki'd it.

no doubt the jim stynes fan club edited it recently to change history

FWIW there was at least 1 season where the umpires could call either a 15m or 50m penalty but it was considered too confusing, by todays standards it would be par for the course.

did notice one 50m we got was about 25 and one was about 70m.

[snoopygirl]

Cheers Dan. Remember listening to that match on radio, especially that incident. It may have only been 15 mts. Don't think it would have mattered, the Hawks player (name escapes me) would have kicked it from anywhere.

[congorozides]

that was a criticism of the team in the early part of the season.

we would dish the ball off and then go scrag the particular player we were tagging when we had possession of the ball.

no one one would run to advantage when we had possession.

our defence would hold the ball up, dish it off then they would reload and have another crack.

Sure it was part of the 'learning' process, but we lost games to this 'learning' process early in the season.

Was it worth losing games to 'learn' the strategy? I guess 2008 is the answer to that.

perhaps blake was given a job to do, and told to do it.

I much prefer blake when he plays the jim stynes role, and stands in the middle of teh ground and blocks their attacks, or marks in the middle of the ground and kicks to the forward line.

he seems effective at that role.

Decision making is often the difference between players and I have no idea how you coach that. With some players you need to keep it simple but Blake's decisions making is his weakness. Really lets himself down. You can almost the see the cogs ticking over and he tries to figure out what to do. A guy with a similar physical make-up like Sam Fisher seems to do the right thing 90% of the time. Maybe Sams brain functions a little better.

On a different note - I was quite impressed by Feguson. I thought he looks worthy of persisting with given the departure of Maxy and Voss from our back-line.

I also couldnt believe how tall Brent Saker is. He is a 6'4 running midfielder. Freakish.

[Life Long Saint]

Buckenarra.

He would have been kicking from well outside 50 but the 15m penalty made it a 40m kick. Gimme for him.

Pity really as that decision gifted Carlton the grand final. Melbourne would have been a real show that year.

[gosaintsgo]

just to take this on another tangent for a min i saw a replay of the game over the W/e and i notices how oiled up ben cousins is after half time did anyone else notice this ? he looked like he had a whole bottle of bayoil on each arms and it got me thinking what are the rules to this ?? surly a player puttin oil on his limbs is a unfair move as when the oppersition go's to grab them well they are slippery and have oil on their hands so the chance of them cleanly grabbing the ball is then also impeaded ??
its just very strange ben was the only one to be slathered with oil it looked like he was ready to be deep fried !?!

My daughter noticed this at the beginning of the game too - she thought he looked like a glazed crispy creme donut - i thought it was very funny.

One thing I noticed about him was how smug he is. The guy is just so full of himself. I know he's a great player but the fake smile just drives me insane.

[Dan Warna]

we have to be very careful of what say about cousins, but yeah, he seems arrogant.

its an amazing recovery from someone who was in distress in teh first half to recover so dramatically...

I remember seeing maguire unwell, reiwoldt hurling in previous seasons and they are hardly unfit players.

[HSVKing]

Obviously no one in this thread saw the tactics that were used by the Eagles players in the 2nd half.

For the first half Blakey did a brilliant job on Cousins.

In the second half, if you had watched closely, the Eagles players blocked Blake when he and Cousins ran to the ball, letting Cousins get a break and run away from him...

Honestly, great coaching by Worsfold, it was a set move to do this, and it worked.

Blake was doing his job, and doing it well... just needed our other players to counter for the blocks that were being set to take him out of the match.

[Dan Warna]

tbh I didn't notice it, but it was raised elsewhere in another thread that got shut down because of abuse.

having seen this strat a few times over the years, I would be inclinded to believe the person who raised it.

I do remember the first time it came into the press was when we were using it in 04, till it got umpired out. a full expose was done in the hun with arrows and everything.

I used to watch out for powell or baker stepping in front of the player running past and cleaning up their tagger

it was sweet.

shortly afterwards we started giving away free kicks as umpired declared illegal shepherd ><

[woooosaints]

is there a point rubbing oil on yourself or does it just make him look good?

[sunsaint]

Great post Con and most observant

I watched Blake with interest last year and he was about as accountable as Enron...... only problem was Blake wasn't hurting the opposition but the 20 odd FREE possessions his direct opponent was getting was largely contributing to who got the four points

It might be just the way I look at things but,
Perhaps you answered our own rant there, if dal santo was as good at effecting the outcomes of games as cousins is, some people would not be picking on blake week in week out when we lose.

[congorozides]

Obviously no one in this thread saw the tactics that were used by the Eagles players in the 2nd half.

For the first half Blakey did a brilliant job on Cousins.

In the second half, if you had watched closely, the Eagles players blocked Blake when he and Cousins ran to the ball, letting Cousins get a break and run away from him...

Honestly, great coaching by Worsfold, it was a set move to do this, and it worked.

Blake was doing his job, and doing it well... just needed our other players to counter for the blocks that were being set to take him out of the match.

Maybe, But if u can see the passage of play im referring to in the 3rd quarter when blake was 50 m off cousins and then decided to run back away from the play to find cousins you will see what i meant. was nothing to do with any blocking tactics. blake was just running alone 'where the ball aint" with a confused look on his face. Once he realised he had lost cousins and that the ball was coming back straight for him and he was completely alone , he should have presented and created the loose man to make cousins accountable rather than being a dead loss by running back to stand next to a walking ad recovering cousins who was clearly out of position after his previous burst. Not really doing a good job IMO.

I mean i certainly dont blame the loss on Blake. But he seems to not have learnt how the game is played in tyerms of when to do certain things and when not to.

[Unforgiven]

Not that sharpest tool in the shed, but has his spot in our best 22 at the moment anyways. In my ideal team he would be in our top 25. With Goddard inplace of Blake in the roles he takes.

[spert]

In a nutshell, our midfield got kicked again when the game was there to win, Blake or no Blake.

[Oh When the Saints]

They don't call him the "Space Cadet" for nothing ...

He destroyed Crawford against the Hawks (another endurance midfielder like Cousins).

Consequently Lyon used Blake on Cousins ... fair enough.

Up until half-time, it was working beautifully, although I suspect that was more because our midfield was on top generally.


After half-time, Cousins started to beat Blake, with Eagles players shepherding and blocking for Cousins to get a clear run ....


Attard was injured and Baker was a victim of corruption.


I asked what other options Lyon had to put on Cousins in several threads.


Despite the plethora of budding coaches on saintsational, all I got was one answer from mad saint guy.

He suggested Montagna on Cousins .... which may have worked, but would have meant losing the run and carry that Joey gives ...

So it was a possible move, but would have been a defensive one.


I repeat ... what other options did Lyon have?


The only one I can think of is Gilbert, who would have had the pace to go with Cousins.

But he was doing okay on Judd, so it was risky to make that move ...