Bryce Gibbs & Marc Murphy

[LP]

100% correct Shawny. To be critical of he or any other player for not living up to pick no 1 expectations is nonsense, they didn't pick themselves at 1, clubs did. If everyone on our list put in like Kreuzer does, we would win more games that's for sure.

Plenty of No.1 picks never make it to the level of Gibbs, Murphy and Kreuzer, they are fine the supporters are the problem.

Have a look at the stats, in most games this season the 1st or 2nd year kids are all in the bottom half of the analysis. Murphy, Gibbs and Kreuzer are all in the top half and comfortably so. The kids don't even out rate Daisy who is not as effective as Murphy and Gibbs!

Stats are not subject to someone's opinion. For example Kreuzer gets lambasted on here and other websites for not being a winning tap ruckmen. Liam Jones was lambasted on various forums for not beating Meesen in taps on Saturday's VFL broadcast. But reality is in their most recent games we either won or broke even in Taps to Advantage which means the 2nd efforts from those players are far more important than just the taps alone.

Gibbs gets judge a lot by TV supporters, go to game and watch him exclusively, the guy is elite at dealing with and defeating direct opponents. He is easily as good as Dangerfield, Greenwood, Cotchin, Mitchell, etc, etc.. His problem is he doesn't have another 4 or 5 effective mids around him sharing the load, and he doesn't have breakaway highlight reel pace. Cripps doesn't count as a load share because he's too slow and isn't involved in lead-up plays or the spread. Murphy is mostly an outside player, but a very good one. The only players who come close to giving Gibbs a chop-out are the Curnows and one is consumed by tagging and the other is a beginner.

So I can hear the "Can't hit targets" argument building.

To hit a target you have to know where and when the target will be so you can kick the ball in the right spot, with the right strength and elevation. That comes with familiarity, consistency and predictability from the forward of which we currently have zero! Don't swallow that BT media bullcrap about kicking to where they want the forward to lead, that's rubbish because you obviously cannot kick to a place the forward can't or won't get to in time! So what happens, the kicks are more often than not directed to locations that are safely within reach of the forward, and the defender!