Traded Blake Acres

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A solid but underwhelming game against the Dogs last night, disposal appeared to be a lot cleaner than last week. Still seems to be building after his long layoff.
Disadvantaged by being played out of position, such as being forced to ruck, due to questionable team selection - but he can hardly be blamed for this.

22 disposals, 4 marks, 3 tackles.
 

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Injury crippled what many had hoped would be a year of significant growth for talented Western Australian Blake Acres, as persistent groin problems led to a two-month period of no football.

His best game by far came in the Round 1 win over the Lions, when he racked up 30 touches (12 contested) at 85%, laid four tackles and slotted a classy goal.

But despite Acres’ injury-plagued season, Sexton believes his best is still ahead of him.

“After a very, very strong pre-season, Blake unfortunately had a pretty inconsistent year with his body,” he said.

“His good footy involves really strong running and really strong contest, and he had a good run of senior selection later in the year because of his size and his ability in tight.

The silky ball-user with the big tank has traditionally been deployed as an outside runner, but limited personnel in the back half of the year saw him spend increased time on the inside.

“Probably for the first time in his career, Blake had an extended run as an inside mid, so that might have been a bit of a glimpse into the future as far as where we see him providing the most value.

“He’s a flexible player, but we’re keen to see him develop as a real inside bull.”


Go Saints
 
The countdown is on to Dan Hannebery's arrival at St Kilda, with his new teammates holding high hopes for what the former Sydney star will offer.

The three-time All Australian is in the process of moving his life back to Melbourne after finishing up in the harbour city.

Saints midfielder Blake Acres is hopeful Hannebery will provide a boost on and off the field.


"Hannebery will bring a lot of experience for us," Acres said.

"Guys like Hannebery are going to help everyone out a lot, I think.

"I suppose he plays that wing, inside-mid role, so I'll be looking to get to know him really well and work with him a fair bit in the pre-season.”



Acres, 23, has backed coach Alan Richardson and his new team to take the Saints a step forward in 2019.

"We've brought in, I think, four or five new coaches now, and we'll bring in a few draftees in a few weeks," he said.

"We all trust Richo, we all know he knows what he's doing, and I think this year he's got a great support group with all the new coaches.

READ: Ratten excited by Saints

"We've got to hold up our end of the bargain as well and perform each week, and he’ll give us every opportunity to do that.”

Acres expects to be a part of the St Kilda side that takes part the side's first JLT Community Series practice match against North Melbourne at Werribee's Avalon Airport Oval on Saturday, 2 March.




Go Saints
 
R2 Essendon versus St Kilda @ Marvel Stadium
Ess 0.2 4.5 7.8 9.11 (65)
StK 2.7 7.9 8.12 10.16 (76)

It was good to see Blake in the team after his interrupted preseason. Even from the third level behind the goals at Marvel he looks a big fit unit. Sure he was a but rusty and the stats are not sensational. Six kicks, 6 handballs with 5 contested possessions, one tackle and a couple of clearances. 68% game time, only Dunstan had less. Four 1%ers shows the effort is there. Marshall (5), Battle (5) and Brown (11) the only players with more than four. Then there was that time when he outmarked three Bombers in the centre square and ran away from them.

He will be better next week and the week after that ...
 
R3 Fremantle versus St Kilda @ Optus Stadium
Fre 3.2 6.2 9.2 11.5 (71)
StK 1.1 5.3 7.8 9.12 (66)

I have only seen parts of the game and haven't been able to catch up on the replay yet.

So what can I say about Blake's game on Sunday? The stats don't look great. Only five kicks and three handballs but good DE (87.5%) and he is too big to only take one mark. Five hitouts and 3 tackles aren't too bad, depending on how much time he spent in the ruck and three 1%ers is up there with quite a few other players (maybe they all need to lift. Freo had six players with more than three 1%ers). Nathan Brown is the only St Kilda player with more than three 1%ers and he had 12!

I see lots of comments in the autopsy that he is lazy, doesn't care or doesn't play with enough intensity. As I said i can't comment on that as I haven't seen the whole match but I'm hoping he is still finding his feet after an interrupted preseason. In any case if he does get picked for next week he needs to improve. We are developing a bit of depth in the squad and can't carry people on reputation or potential. Everyone needs to put in and if Blake can't or won't do it then he'll find himself with a long stint at Sandy.
 
R4 St Kilda vs Hawthorn @ Marvel Stadium
StK 3.2 5.5 8.9 10.14 (74)
Haw 3.2 6.5 10.8 10.9 (69)

Good return to form by Blake on the weekend. As others haunted in the Match Report thread, it certainly helps when he is playing more in the middle of the ground than mostly as a forward. His stats were good - 14 kicks, 12 handballs (6 contested), 88.5% DE, 7 marks, 3 1%ers and 6 inside 50s. Only one tackle though so room for improvement there.

A few nice things in the first half. Pinpoint pass between two Hawks down the line in the first and seeing Sicily ended up on his arse when he tried to rough up Blake in the second. His third quarter was the best. At one point he took a handless from Seb and ran through the centre past a few Hawks before hand balling to Gresh in the clear. He then had to ruck for a sustained period while Roma was off with the blood rule. Didn't win many hitouts but wasn't disgraced either. Towards the end of the quarter he took a contested mark just on forward 50 and then casually played on and stabbed a low pass off one step to Bruce for a goal. In the last he played his part again with the highlight play - contesting the ruck against McEvoy from a boundary throwin then running off for the handpass from Seb who had gathered the ball on the ground then completing a 1-2 with Sincs and launching the ball into the dangerous spot 20m out from goal where Lonie earned the dodgy free kick we were owed.

Hopefully his match fitness is returning (75% GT) and we can expect more like this for the rest of the season.
 
Thanks Armitage2Riewoldt

Acres - Sincs 1-2

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Blake Acres vs Melbourne

10 kicks , 9 handballs , 5 marks , 6 tackles and 1 goal

Blake was a good player in a team effort which beat Melbourne by 40 points. I think over the last two weeks he has established himself back in the side hopefully for the season.
 
Brains Trust66 said:
Blake Acres vs Melbourne

10 kicks , 9 handballs , 5 marks , 6 tackles and 1 goal

Blake was a good player in a team effort which beat Melbourne by 40 points. I think over the last two weeks he has established himself back in the side hopefully for the season.
Click to expand...

Thanks BT for filling in while I marvel from afar at another good Acres performance but more importantly another good consistent Sainters performance.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
R8 StK versus WCE @ Marvel Stadium
StK 2.1 4.5 6.8 10.10 (70)
WCE 3.3 5.6 11.8 12.16 (88)

Blake did some nice things. A long run with a couple of bounces in the first and a very Acres-like casual short stab to a leading forward in the third (I think). His stats aren't too bad 10 kicks and 8 handballs incl 7 contested at 83.3%. He had 5 marks, 3 tackles and 4 Inside 50s. 72% game time is at the lower end of the ledger. Perhaps this is a reflection of him being relief ruckman and needs more recover time on the bench, in any case I would like to see him on the ground for longer.

Negatives: No goals, no 1%ers and no hit outs (very difficult to get a hit out when the ball is not being bounced).
 
R9 Coll versus StK @ MCG
Coll 3.1 6.2 11.4 17.10 (112)
StK 1.3 4.9 9.11 10.11 (71)

Very average performance by Blake this week. Five kicks, eight handballs, five contested possessions. 69.2% DE isn't too bad and at least he had five tackles and two 1%ers but he just didn't get enough of the ball or have much impact when he did get it.

I'm not very good at following individual players and noting what they are doing especially off the ball. I'm a bit like a little-leaguer in that regard, all of my attention goes to the ball so I don't relay pick up what position Blake is playing at any point in the game other than the obvious mismatch in the ruck against Grundy. So I take some heart from others who say on the review thread that he is being played out of position and is being wasted in the forward pocket when he isn't doing the relief ruck work. I still have my doubts though. I believe Blake is too good a player to continue to play games and have so little impact. I not saying he is anywhere near the quality of Dusty, Gazza or Danger but they have impact when they are played forward. If the coaches are going to continue to play him forward then he needs to find a way to get into the game. Of course it may not all be his fault given our delivery into the forward 50 but something has to give. I am a firm believer that the coaching staff know where players play their best football and barring certain personnel shortages pick players to play in their best positions. Either he learns to impact games wherever he is played or he'll play a lot of games for the Zebras.
 
R10 StK versus Carl @ Marvel
StK 2.2 5.7 8.10 9.14 (68)
Carl 3.4 5.4 6.6 8.7 (55)

Is Blake Acres a David Rhys-Jones type of player? I'm not saying he is as good as Rhys-Jones but Rhys had this knack of gliding around the field at what looked like half pace but was a very effective player. At his best he could sense a tackle coming and evade it. I can see some of these traits in Blake.

Today he had 20 possessions (11 kicks and 9 handballs) with 8 contested at 80% DE. These are good numbers but at times I find it difficult to see his impact on games. The highlights of his other stats 6 marks, 2 clearances, 5 tackles, 2 1%ers and 1 I50.

Although he is in his sixth season, he is still young (23) and has only played 64 games. He has time to improve. I mentioned last week that he needs to find consistency in regards to the impact he has on games. I think this will come and the more games he plays, the better his impact endgames will be and the more games we will win.
 
R13 GCS vs StK @ Townsville
Suns 3.5 5.6 8.9 11.10 (76)
StK 0.2 2.5 7.8 11.14 (80)

Blake came back into the side after missing the Shanghai game due to a virus and having the bye off as well to recover.

His raw numbers look good. 22 disposals (10 kicks, 12 handballs) with 10 contested with 72.7% DE from spending just 65% of the time on ground. 5 clearances, 4 tackles and 5 inside 50s. Still many people in the autopsy thread call for him to be dropped perhaps even traded. I'm not sure what they want from him. 22 possessions is a good return, the second most he has got in a game this year.

I know possessions aren't everything but before this year, Blake had been building his average possessions per game ...

2016 - 17.35 in 16 games
2017 - 20.33 in 18 games
2018 - 21.5 in 12 games

So far this year he has been down on those numbers, averaging 15.5 touches in his previous games this year. 22 disposals against the Suns improves that average slightly and brings him back up to the levels he was achieving last year.

I don't think he should be dropped. We need him to play out the year which will take him to around the 75 game mark. We need our good players to play together as often as possible. They need to grow up together as footballers. In a few years time when Acres, Billings, Gresh and others have played 50-100 games together they will all be good players feeding off each others traits instinctively knowing how they play and where they are likely to put the ball. That kind of shared experience builds cohesion and makes the team significantly better than the sum of its individual players.
 
R14 Stk vs Bris @ Marvel
StK 3.3 4.6 5.7 8.11 (59)
Bris 4.6 7.8 16.11 17.13 (115)

An absolute disaster. As someone said in the autopsy thread it was like the Essendon game in 2017 and the Good Friday game against North last year. All great opportunities to show how we had improved and all major disappointments.

Blake had 21 possessions (8 kicks and 13 handballs) with 11 contested. DE% was 66.7%. He had 6 clearances including two centre clearances, 3 tackles, no 1%ers and 2 Inside 50s. from 77% time on the ground.

He certainly wasn't the worst player but the whole team (Hanners excluded who was very good given it was his first game of the year) looked like they wanted to be anywhere rather than Marvel Stadium ... hmmm not Shanghai, maybe Townsville?
 
R15 StK vs Rich @ Marvel (Maddie's Match)
Stk 3.0 7.0 8.3 10.10 (70)
Rich 2.0 6.2 9.4 16.7 (103)

17 possessions this week for Acres. 12 kicks and 5 handballs. That's not enough, even at 94.1% DE. Other stats of note are 4 tackles, 4 clearances, 2 inside 50s and a goal. Blake spent 86% of game time on the ground which is up on the previous few weeks but that then reflects badly on the number of possessions.

We all want Blake to become a better more consistent player. Perhaps with a stronger midfield (Hanners, Steele and Steven forming the core) we would be a better team and Blake would be able to use his freaky skills to take us to another level again.
 
R16 NM vs StK @ Blundstone Arena
NM 7.5 10.6 13.7 17.10 (112)
StK 1.1 6.3 8.5 11.7 (73)

19 possessions (7 kicks, 12 handballs), 6 contested. 57.9% DE, 5 marks, 2 clearances, 4 tackles, 1 1%er, 2 I50s and 72% game time.
 
R17 Geel vs StK @ GMHBA Stadium
Geel 4.4 5.7 8.8 12.12 (84)
StK 2.2 6.3 6.7 8.9 (57)

10 possessions (4 kicks, 6 handballs), 1 contested. 90% DE, 4 marks, 0 clearances, 6 tackles, 1 1%er, 0 I50s and 70% game time.
 
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