U/18 Carnival

[Go_Dogs]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Did anyone get down today and have a look? Would love to see any reports if so.

[ledge]

Re: U/18 Carnival

All I know is vic country lost to Sa by a couple of points

[The Coon Dog]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Vic Metro: 2.3 5.5 9.7 11.8 (74)
Western Australia 2.2 5.4 7.5 8.7 (55)

GOALS
Vic Metro: Kieran Harper 4, Thomas Schneider, Thomas Liberatore, Ryan Lester, Cameron Guthrie, Dylan Conway, Josh Caddy, Brad Harvey
WA: Jack Darling 2, Shane Kersten 2, Alex Fasolo, Kieran Butcher, Liam McKenna, Tom Ledger

BEST
Vic Metro: Matthew Watson, Josh Caddy, Ryan Lester, Andrew Gaff, Kieran Harper, Thomas Liberatore
WA: Aaron Black, Steven Coniglio, Angus Litherland, Warrick Andreoli, Jack Darling





SOUTH AUST 2.1 3.4 5.4 8.7 (55)
VIC COUNTRY 2.1 4.6 5.7 7.9 (51)

GOALS
SA: Daniel Gorringe 3, Sam Gray, Matthew Rankine, Jared Polec, Jamie Solly, Sam Day
Vic Country: Josh Walker 2, Adam Treloar, Jed Lamb, Taylor Adams, Tom Lynch, Lucas Cook

BEST
SA: Brodie Smith, Daniel Gorringe, Jared Polec, Jarred Schiller, Sam Gray, Luke Davis, Patrick McCartny, Scott Lycett
Vic Country: Dyson Heppell, Shaun Atley, Adam Treloar, Jed Lamb, Mitchell Hallahan, Billie Smedts

[mighty_west]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Watched parts of both games on Foxtel, Metro defeated WA, Bennell was quiet, but one piece of play had the commentators excited, Wallis didn't play with his injured hand, Libba, not a dominant performance, but very workman like, 19 possies & a goal, just knows where to run, very good link player as well as the in & under stuff.

Impressed with Caddy, Harper & Gaff for Vic Metro.

Davis for SA reminds me of a young Steve Kretiuk, Day is a big unit, great, no, AWESOME leap, great hands, really impressed with Gorringe from SA.

Edit - Andreoli also impressed me, from WA, but went off with some kind of leg injury.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: U/18 Carnival

I went down there today specifically to watch Liberatore.

He didn't excite me as much as I hoped he would. He has the funny Simon Beaumont style long body with short legs.

He wins the footy by getting to more contests than other players, he is always on the move and runs hard. He didn't stray too far out of the centre square for most of the match, and while I don't remember any howlers, his kicking didn't stand out either.

He looked like he was playing his second game for the day. He looked exhausted from the start, obviously that's just his style, Bangar Harvey always looked like he had run himself to exhaustion as well, even at the start of games.

One tends to notice the flashy at the Nats, and the one thing Liber II will never be is flashy.


I only stayed at the second game until half time and except for the whole scoreboard thing, Country were about a 6-8 goal better side. This is one of those results that is very difficult to explain in footy, I would expect that by half time Country would have had nearly twice the I50's and 30-40 more possesions. The SA backline were pretty good but the number of errors and poor decisions Country made inside F50 cost them plenty.

Overall, I don't think this years batch can hold a candle to the last couple of years (based on the grand total of watching 5 quarters of footy!).


PS. Jack Darling = Leigh Brown.

[The Doctor]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Did anyone get down today and have a look? Would love to see any reports if so.

I happened to be in Geelong today so I dropped in for a look.

Usually at these games I end up co-incidently sitting near squwarking mothers from interstate who are unashamedly biased towards their team. This spot is usually on the side opposite to where most of the action is.

So after looking carefully for a quiet spot I naturally found myself surrounded by squwarking mothers from interstate who were unashamedly biased towards their team. Never mind. So I had a chuckle to myself and proceeded to watch the game which just so happened to be played mostly on the opposite side of the ground.

First up Vic Metro v WA.

A very scrappy game which was close for most of the day. The conditions were bitterly cold. It went goal for goal with the lead changing hands a few times until Metro got a break late in the 3rd and proceeded to win by around 3 goals. I went with the intent to watch the game rather than analyse players. But a few stood out

Matthew Watson - key defender for Metro. A beautiful mark and kick. Excellent size and I would back this young man in to be a long term AFL player

Jack Darling - key forward for WA. PLayed across half forward pushing up to midfield. Very strong in the aerial contest. Great mark and nice kick for goal. Has a Fevola-ish build.

Kieran Harper - half forward for Metro. Mid sized forward who was very creative and in my opinion the difference between the 2 teams. On the scoreboard at least he was. Kicked some fantastic goals in different circumstances and all in pressure situations. One to watch for sure.

Harley Bennel - midfield for WA. Thrilled me with his skills in the first half to which I declared to the squwarking mothers that he would play round 1 next year. The squwarking mothers then seemed to adopt me as their son as they came from WA. From that point on he made some costly decisions with the ball that cost his team a couple of goals. The good thing tho' was that he created the play to be in that position in the first place. Had one magnificent run from half back slicing through the midfield that resulted in a goal to a team mate.

Sidenote - very disappointed with Aaron Black from WA who played as a tagger on Gaff from Metro. Whether it was coaches instructions or not his hard tag was not in the spirit of junior football. He played the man and not the ball and it was disturbing to watch. in one incident the ball was 5 metres from him in the open and he was closest to it and he didn't even know it was there. He continually niggled, harrassed so much it was to the detriment of his team. I have no issue with tagging as it's part of the game but this was almost Bakerish.

So WA lost and the squwarking mothers ditched me from the family because it was obviously my fault they lost.

SA V Vic Country

There was a noticeable step up in the quality of this game compared to the first. A very exciting contest with SA getting up narrowly. The skills on display were terrific especially as some drizzle in the second half made things quite slippery. The players seemed to handle this quite well. SA were strong in key possies and around the flanks where as Country seemed stronger around midfield. The standouts

Number 40 for SA (Gorringe I think) - 2nd Ruckman. He was my man of the match. Great in the ruck but also ran to position extremely well. Pushed forward very hard often exposing his opponent and showed some great agility. Would have kicked 2-3 I'd say.

Sam Day - Key Forward for SA - outstanding footballer. would have to be a top 5 pick by my reckoning. Very tall and could take a great leaping mark. Actually he reminded me of Rob Murphy when he ran out to half forward with the way he spun around after a mark and played on moving the ball quickly. Very exciting prospect.

Lycett - 1st Ruck for SA - Dominated the ruck. THe Country rucks were smashed. Lycett's positioning at ruck contests was superb and almost always got first hand to it. Rested up forward and took a couple of marks. Looks the goods.

JOsh Walker - Key forward for Country. I thought was Country's best player. Marked very strongly and kicked a couple. Something always seemed to happen in a positive sense when he got involved. Unfortunately Country didn't go to him often enough. A costly mistake in my view.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Sam Day - Key Forward for SA - outstanding footballer. would have to be a top 5 pick by my reckoning. Very tall and could take a great leaping mark.

Had he held it, it would have been the greatest mark of all time.

[mighty_west]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Had he held it, it would have been the greatest mark of all time.

According to Shifter Sheahan, he recorded a higher leap than Nic Nat.

[GVGjr]

Re: U/18 Carnival

I made the trip down there today and thought the standard was pretty good given the conditions.

Hard to go past Doc's review

[GVGjr]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Some of the players that stood out today for me were:

Shaun Atley who is a good sized midfielder with plenty of acceleration and is a nice kick.

The highly touted Harley Bennell didn't get much of it but is just a cut above most other players with his skills, pace and potential.

Daniel Gorringe and Scott Lycett are great ruck prospects who offer a lot around the ground.

Matthew Watson, who has a key defenders position just stamped on him. Great height at 194cm, a thumping kick and has a rare ability for a key defender to get a lot of the ball. By the way, he also commits himself to apply tackles.

Josh Caddy is a terrific midfielder who can play in a variety of positions.

Kept a close eye on Libertore and he didn't disappoint and also had a good look at Billie Smedts who also performed well but it's hard to project where he might play at the AFL level.
Libertore might need to do some work on his opposite side but he is going to be a good footballer.

[LostDoggy]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Mitch Wallis?

[The Coon Dog]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Mitch Wallis?

Has a broken hand, so didn't play.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Thanks for the reviews guys, much appreciated.

I think we can declare with some level of certainty that Sam Day will be going to the Gold Coast, and Bennell will too.


Great to hear more positives regarding Watson, as I thought he was super impressive a few weeks ago. He's like a Dale Morris defensively, but with a Brian Lake ability too. It would be great to see how he'd go against some bigger bodies.

Harper is another who seems to have backed up with another very solid performance. He's a type I wouldn't mind us looking at.

Gorringe has been rucking in the seniors at SANFL level, and he's a beauty.




Doc and GVGjr, do you guys get the impression that the depth and quality of the draft field is actually fairly good?

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Last year Sam Blease jumped up massively because of his pace. I think a kid called Guthrie is very similar this year.

[comrade]

Re: U/18 Carnival

Last year Sam Blease jumped up massively because of his pace. I think a kid called Guthrie is very similar this year.

Guthrie was good, but Blease blazed that day (it was actually 2008). The crowd collectively gasped when he put the after burners on, similar to Gary Rohan last year.

Libba put in a good display and seems to have had a very solid carnival - he's so similar to Sam Mitchell the way he finds space in traffic, and pivots on his left: it's eery. It's a shame that Wallis missed, but he certainly lived up to expectations - averaging 30 touches in his 3 games which included contests against Vic Country and South Australia.

I wonder if we'll pick up any other kids that were on display yesterday - it's good to go back on watch after the draft. Last year we only had Tutty who played at the carnival.