(05-27-2019, 02:29 AM)WASurfer link Wrote:LP...that wasn't a knock on Cripps and he's the only one with captaincy credentials on our list....by a long, long way. It was more about the fact that the coach and the game plan seem lost on the players at the moment and it's boiling over. If we don't fix it then Cripps will be the next Free Agent we're talking about and no one would begrudge him leaving and heading home to play for someone like West Coast who can offer him the chance to play in a premiership....something we're light years away from. He's busted his @rse for the club since the day he walked in and is virtually carrying us this season.....that's simply not sustainable.
A problem we have at the moment is Cripps opponent, they run off him unhindered, and it's very hard for the captain to tell the kids to chase when he's jogging along behind the play pointing! How good he is otherwise makes no difference when they are all playing in survival mode!
I would not be surprised if that was part of the argy-bargy going down on the boundary! Fwiw, in previous games I've seen Simmo and sMurph having similar arguments with Cripps, SPS and Walsh, that appeared to be about a lack of accountability or poor positioning. I gather there was no argy-bargy with SPS yesterday, at least about his tackling!
In my opinion Doc was a clear choice, but I'd have given a player like Weitering or maybe even Jones the dual captaincy or VC! :o
I think we needed a Maxwell type captain, not an Ablett Jnr messiah type captain, the thing is Cripps has nothing more to give as he already gives 100%, and when he's captain it actually detracts from his game! We needed a captain who can tell a kid, one of Cripps team mates, what's what when they don't fly the flag or give Cripps a chop out. At the moment Cripps would actually have to ask for assistance, and there is no way he will do that, he'll just keep bashing himself against the wall!
All we are doing to Cripps is putting him to the torch, and opposition teams know it! So now we've got a bigger problem, how do we fix it without fecking it up?
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"