Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board

Watts has the skills & the attributes but do we need him?

To be honest i don't think we will get him anyway, as it stands most of the "big fish" have nominated their desired new homes. Meaning the desperado clubs "see: St.kilda, North Melb , Port Adelaide and even Geelong" are about to open a bidding war for a player like Watts because they want to show their fans they can land a fish any fish.

I have no problems getting him (and he would fit our needs), but at the right price. I have a feeling when this bidding war opens whom ever get him will have to pay well over his value. His body of work is alright but not brilliant.

FrankieGoesToCollingwood wrote:oops, thought I was in the Jack Watts thread

its all related to jack watts. we were debating whether Jacks watts is crap or if he is only crap when compared to your expectations of a number 1 pick! well sort of....

Very skilled player, but lacks mongrel to be a great player.

That was always Josh's problem.

If you don't have the mongrel naturally, not sure you can develop it.

Trying to think how Watts could fit in. We've played our best football with only 2 tall forwards and 4 smalls.

Since we've re-signed Cox for 3 years we can assume we intend to play him. Cox and Moore up forward, changing with Grundy in ruck, worked well Throwing Watts in the mix doesn't work well, although he is very quick and mobile but in reality he's just Jesse White with better disposal.

We have a plethora of small forward options, midfielders and half back flankers, we're short on quality talls.

I'd rather take a young key forward with pick 6 and give them time to develop and then look for some kids with serious pace. 1 forward and 1 back, as long as they can actually kick while running. Next years draft is supposed to be chock full of talls so we can make this year about now and next year about the future.

No to Watts. The scrutiny on him if he has a poor game will be magnified because of us. He won like that at all and will only make him play worse. Appears mentally fragile. Look at Cloke. Had a shit year, worse then his 2016 year with us, at Bulldogs but media felt pity for him. Poor year with us and he was heavily scrutinised.

Bay Pie wrote:No to Watts. The scrutiny on him if he has a poor game will be magnified because of us. He won like that at all and will only make him play worse. Appears mentally fragile. Look at Cloke. Had a shit year, worse then his 2016 year with us, at Bulldogs but media felt pity for him. Poor year with us and he was heavily scrutinised.

Good call, and interesting perspective. When with us, there is a media campaign against him. But when with the Bulldogs, despite even worse form, he is left alone. Yes, kind of proves that Collingwood players are hammered by the media (as if we needed such a proof). Any player who comes to us will be under the f**??*ing microscope of such a"?holes as Robbo and Ralph.

But the big question is will Watts do a Howe/Dunn if he comes to the Pies and become a better player. Our culture seems very good at the moment and good culture can create better players.

Member 7167 wrote:But the big question is will Watts do a Howe/Dunn if he comes to the Pies and become a better player. Our culture seems very good at the moment and good culture can create better players.

Howe and Dunn come across as very different personalities from Watts though.

Member 7167 wrote:But the big question is will Watts do a Howe/Dunn if he comes to the Pies and become a better player. Our culture seems very good at the moment and good culture can create better players.

Can't emphasise enough that footy is a team sport and players are at their best when their mental state is in a good place and they are comfortable with their teammates. Nothing changed with Cloke at the Bulldogs except he had new teammates to contend with, which is a recipe for poorer football, not better football. With Watts it's hard to say whether his footy will improve at a new club. It needs to improve if he wants to continue having a football career because Goodwin has a reason for suggesting he move on. At Collingwood working with a couple of ex teammates that could all change for him, but if he wants to succeed he needs to be tougher at the ball, take more contested marks in the forward line and play a more defensive style of football.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to let a player train, have a few practice matches with a club before the club decides to sign them on or not? I am sure this used to be able to occur. It's a bit like test driving a car - who really wants to commit based on some advertising, opinion and watching a few car races where the car may have not performed up to scratch due to poor drivers, mechanics and team strategy??

BucksIsFutureCoach wrote:

Member 7167 wrote:But the big question is will Watts do a Howe/Dunn if he comes to the Pies and become a better player. Our culture seems very good at the moment and good culture can create better players.

Can't emphasise enough that footy is a team sport and players are at their best when their mental state is in a good place and they are comfortable with their teammates. Nothing changed with Cloke at the Bulldogs except he had new teammates to contend with, which is a recipe for poorer football, not better football. With Watts it's hard to say whether his footy will improve at a new club. It needs to improve if he wants to continue having a football career because Goodwin has a reason for suggesting he move on. At Collingwood working with a couple of ex teammates that could all change for him, but if he wants to succeed he needs to be tougher at the ball, take more contested marks in the forward line and play a more defensive style of football.

The Bulldogs and the Pies were in different zones of the Premiership clock. One had just won a premiership with the prospect of either remaining competitive or dropping out of the 8. The Pies working towards significant improvement.

Also Cloke was a spent force. I liken Watts to BAll and Jolly. Both in that part of their careers where they can drop away but also with the potential to play key roles and good footy in a team striving for a premiership. In the end they along with Leroy Brown proved to be keystones of what we needed to be competitive at the highest level.

Every recruit is a gamble and there are many factors that need to go your way to get cream but it can and has been done many times.

Will us taking on Watts work for us? Wouldn't have a clue, but we seem to have more than our fair share of rejects, walkers and plain old tree changers on our list. Will this bite us in a few years times with our lack of new draft recruits slowly coming on ... I reckon so.

dp

FrankieGoesToCollingwood wrote:oops, thought I was in the Jack Watts thread

Okay, okay... so we invariably hijacked the thread. Like that's never happened on Nicks before...
It's the off-season, is it not? Just trying to stimulate some brain activity down my way, before it shuts down totally over summer....