Jim Park Medal 2016

[crashlander]

That's really good stuff Crash, didn't look at it that way and you are right.

Yeah, but, being a teacher, I talk too much. Occupational hazard. And Now I write too much. A poster called 'Wallsy' claimed that I acted too much of a sage: well, the worst jibes have some truth in them. Maybe I am King Monkey, the Great Sage equal of Heaven! Maybe I am just some SF fan with delusions of grandeur. And I'm even stuffing up this thread with irrelevancies. But I'll get back on topic soon!  

[crashlander]

Right, back on topic at last! Can't police that if I can't do it myself!

Rd: 7 Carlton vs Collingwood
Our first win over the Ancient Enemy in years and much appreciated it was. Just as appreciated was the fact that we produced an excellent team performance with a LOT of players standing up when it was required.
The rating for this game came in at 9.16, the highest we have recorded for quite a while (since Juddy was getting 3 Brownlow votes most weeks). That represents something between a B and a B+.
This round last year we had about a dozen very dissatisfied voters. This time we had 26 voters and they voted early. We had 12 players receive votes.

Votes:
Gibbs, Bryce 339
Simpson, Kade 244
Casboult, Levi 227
Cripps, Patrick 224
Docherty, Sam 180
Curnow, Edward 71
Murphy, Marc 24
Rowe, Sam 22
Everitt, Andrejs 15
Byrne, Ciaran 12
Kreuzer, Matthew 10
Lamb, Jed  3
Kerridge, Sam 2

The votes were very evenly spread among the top 5 players, but after that not many players got a mention.

Progressive Voting:
987 - Cripps, Patrick (0)
918 - Gibbs, Bryce (0)
908 - Docherty, Sam (0)
902 - Simpson, Kade (0)
836 - Murphy, Marc (0)
716 - Curnow, Edward (0)
682 - Thomas, Dale (0)
592 - Weitering, Jacob (0)
385 - Wright, Matthew (0)
253 - Kerridge, Sam (0)
251 - Casboult, Levi (0)
200 - Byrne, Ciaran (0)
139 - Rowe, Sam (0)
93 - Phillips, Andrew (0)
79 - Plowman, Lachlan (0)
72 - Graham, Nick (0)
61 - Kreuzer, Matthew (0)
57 - Curnow, Charles (0)
33 - Sumner, Liam (0)
28 - Jamison, Michael (0)
19 - Boekhorst, Blaine (0)
16 - Everitt, Andrejs (0)
15 - Tuohy, Zach (0)
11 - Lamb, Jed (0)
11 - Armfield, Dennis (0)
9 - White, Simon (0)
6 - Buckley, Dylan (0)
4 - Jones, Liam (0)
3 - Whiley, Mark (0)
3 - Walker, Andrew (0)

It is VERY even at the top, with 4 players between 900 and 1000 votes. Again, we had a change of leader. That trend looks like continuing.

[madbluboy]

Curnow should be much higher. Murphy has stunk it up this year.

[crashlander]

Curnow should be much higher. Murphy has stunk it up this year.

Your opinion: as such, fair enough.
I do not totally agree.
[1] Curnow: At 700+ votes he is one top game from outright leadership. That isn't bad at all. And he does have good competition this year. A LOT of guys have been playing well and playing consistently. Then you look at his style of game: it doesn't get the pundits as well as some others do. It is not a criticism of Curnow, but he does a lot of things that are not always that visible. Other guys stand out more.
It can be accurately said that Curnow has been one of our most consistent and well performed players this year. Hs contribution is up there with the 'stars' on our list.
[2] Murphy: He may not be at his best; certainly he was not in the first few weeks. However, he is getting better and being a lot more consistent than he has been for some time. He may not be standing out as much, but his contributions have been important and crucial. In fact, I do not expect Murphy to stand out as much, as other players have been taking up their share of the load. That is a real positive for us: we are not dependent on the form (or otherwise) of a small group of players.
I could not say that he was 'stinking it up'.

[PaulP]

Your opinion: as such, fair enough.
I do not totally agree.
... ............................................
That is a real positive for us: we are not dependent on the form (or otherwise) of a small group of players.
I could not say that he was 'stinking it up'.

Agree crash.

[DJC]

Agree crash.

I agree too. 

Curnow's hard work negating an opposition star and winning his own footy is often overlooked but I think the votes reflect his contribution fairly well.  Murphy has had issues like staples in his head but has played great footy when needed as you would expect from a Carlton captain.

[cookie2]

@ Crash

I think our core group of senior players is generally beginning to show a lot more in terms of effort and leadership Crash, led by Simmo, Gibbs, Murph and including Ed Curnow. This is a significant factor for future success under Bolton and I'm encouraged by it. Looking forward to today's game where hopefully it will continue.

[ElwoodBlues1]

Degree of difficulty for Murphy vs Curnow is much higher IMO...being captain as well as a playmaker is a harder gig than being a pure tagger IMO...
I agree Curnow has played well this year but he doesnt have a player sitting on him every game like Murphy does nor is he expected to provide any real drive or creative stuff. The best taggers are the ones that can get the tagging job done and hurt the other team when they get the footy...

[crashlander]

Round 8: Carlton vs Port Adelaide
One of our more impressive performances in recent time: we managed to hang in there with lots of injury problems and came back where we haven't been able to in recent times. Most of our players made a decent contribution, even those whose got beaten early in the game.
The voting public appeared to appreciate it as well: we over doubled the number of voters compared to this round last year. That is positive to start with. The overall rating, 9.54, was the highest for quite a while. That is between a B+ and an A-.
15 players managed votes this week. And a LOT of guys managed Honourable Mentions.

Unfortunately we also suffered a number of injuries that may have a serious effect for a number of weeks.

Votes:
Docherty, Sam 364
Kreuzer, Matthew 298
Gibbs, Bryce 296
Rowe, Sam 119
Simpson, Kade 103
Cripps, Patrick 89
Murphy, Marc 72
Curnow, Edward 38
Sumner, Liam 24
Plowman, Lachlan 10
Everitt, Andrejs 4
Lamb, Jed 4
Armfield, Dennis 4
Jones, Liam 4
Wright, Matthew 2

The top vote getters were reasonably close. This shows that we don't appear to depend on a single player, but now have a core group who perform most rounds. We haven't seen anything like this for quite a while.

Progresives:
1272 - Docherty, Sam (0)
1214 - Gibbs, Bryce (0)
1077 - Cripps, Patrick (0)
1005 - Simpson, Kade (0)
908 - Murphy, Marc (0)
753 - Curnow, Edward (0)
682 - Thomas, Dale (0)
592 - Weitering, Jacob (0)
387 - Wright, Matthew (0)
359 - Kreuzer, Matthew (0)
258 - Rowe, Sam (0)
253 - Kerridge, Sam (0)
251 - Casboult, Levi (0)
200 - Byrne, Ciaran (0)
93 - Phillips, Andrew (0)
89 - Plowman, Lachlan (0)
72 - Graham, Nick (0)
57 - Curnow, Charles (0)
57 - Sumner, Liam (0)
28 - Jamison, Michael (0)
20 - Everitt, Andrejs (0)
19 - Boekhorst, Blaine (0)
15 - Lamb, Jed (0)
15 - Tuohy, Zach (0)
14 - Armfield, Dennis (0)
9 - White, Simon (0)
8 - Jones, Liam (0)
6 - Buckley, Dylan (0)
3 - Walker, Andrew (0)
3 - Whiley, Mark (0)

Docherty and Gibbs moved out a little in front, but a good game from any of the others could change that pretty quickly. The other thing of note is the consistency of a number of our players this year.

[townsendcalling]

Interesting how Kerridge was hot property preseason (and has continued to work extremely hard) but it's Matthew Wright who is 130 points ahead of him.  I really like Wright. He's honest and hard at it.