#33 Brad Dick

[DaVe86]

Dick looked really good. Seriously this guy is leagues ahead of Chris Egan already as he has good foot skills and is no where near as lazy. Egan is quick, but i am yet to see him use his pace in a game of football, where as Dick has already showed this.

Both can kick opportunistic goals, but i think Dick offers more aroudn the ground and is a size where he can be thrown into the midfield to play an Aaron Davey like role. What a debut!

[archie]

What was with his gesture to the Richmond fans after the first goal?
Anyone know?

[ad4eva]

he has a tattoo on his arm i believe

[Johnson#26]

[HAL]

How do you usually introduce yourself? Do not ask me any more questions please. What time is it there?

[Dale61]

You could almost say 'Happy Dick Goes Off'.

[Magpie_Dan]

Richmond definately know what DICK tastes like!

[Piethagoras' Theorem]

Dick be nimble
Dick be quick
Dick snagged a goal
With his first &%^%&%^& kick

[cobood]

Dick be nimble
Dick be quick
Dick snagged a goal
With his first &%^%&%^& kick

Luv it!

[drew1602]

Now i must say I am very happily married to my beautiful wife ...but after Friday night I just love and cant get enough of Dick and Cox !!

[Leggie]

Richmond definately know what DICK tastes like!

Yep...The Dick exploded on debut

[Tannin]

This is what happens at Collingwood: a kid does one or two things right and shows a bit of potential on the weekend and by 6:00AM Monday morning the supporters are queuing up outside the trophy shop getting his Brownlow Medal engraved.

And it's true.

But, on the other hand ....

I have seen the future of the Collingwood Football Club and his name is B. Dick.

And that's true too. I'm serious about this: I've just been watching the replay of the West Coast game, in particular, paying attention to Brad Dick's game on his return to the senior side, thought I'd share some thoughts.

He's a skinny little weed, all knees and elbows, with an ungainly loping run.

Remember how we used to take turns to pick sides for a bit of schoolyard footy? Well, I reckon if you'd never seen any of our blokes play and you lined them all up and took turns to pick one player at a time, just going on who looks like a player, you might pick some big, strong-looking blokes like Rocca and Cloke and Presti, and you might pick some likely-looking midfielders such as Lockyer and Beams and Heater and Obes, and you'd take a punt on a couple of potential goalsneaks in maybe Davis or Barham or Didak ..... and sooner or later you'd get down to the ones you'd reckon couldn't play at all, by the look of 'em, the ones you'd hope ended up on the other side. And last of all, when it was your turn to pick a player and there was only one player left, you'd pick Brad Dick.

But when you watch him play, if you have any idea about the game at all, it's a very, very different story. He covers the ground pretty well with that unco-looking run of his, but he's only medium-fast. I'd expect that players like Barham and Toovey and probably Thomas outpace him over 10 or 20 metres. But he's quick enough, and agile too.

Neverless, Brad Dick is super-quick with his hands and feet; he doesn't seem to take even a millisecond to think, he just does stuff. Watch last week's game again and watch his knock-ons to advantage. Dick's footy reflexes are greased lightning. The only others that come to mind as being even in the same ballpark that way are Didak, and maybe Thomas - and perhaps Pendles, except that Pendles makes everything look so easy you don't notice how quick he is. It's that extra split-second of reaction time that sets the magical ball-handlers in a class of their own: Steve Johnson is one, Daicos was one, Shane Woewodin (despite having other faults) was another. It's a great ability, and few have it.

Of course, having one extra-good side to your game means practically nothing if you don't have other abilities to go with it. Consider Rusling's awesome speed on the lead (will mean nothing unless he backs it up with marking, kicking straight, tackling, and so on), or Ryan Lonie's superb left boot, or Cox's jinking run and carry (Cox just might have made a damn good rugby back). One special talent doesn't make a footballer. But it's a bloody good start.

For a very young and inexperienced player, Dick seems to have an excellent sense of where to run to, and where to kick it to. His kicking style (like everything else he does) in ungainly. It ain't pretty, but it's pretty effective - a few too many floaters for my taste, but let's give him time to work on that.

If I'm any guess, he's also doing everything right on the training track. Malthouse put him straight into the seniors early this year after the knee reconstruction, and I can't see that happening if the lad wasn't impressing the coaches. (Like most here, I'd have given him a run in the twos first, but it nevertheless says something about the way the club looks at him that they decided to stick his straight into the team.)

Dick seems to have a pretty big tank too, especially considering the long-lingering effect a knee reconstruction has on most players, and he's never afraid to throw himself into packs or tackles. Overhead, he's got a good pair of hands, and a surprising ability to hold his ground against heavier, stronger opponents.

Apparently, he pays a lot of attention to Leon Davis, models his game on Leon's too, and that's a damn good thing. One thing you can bet your boots on is that Leon will have told Brad more than once how he (Leon) buggerised around being half a player for a lot of years before he got full-on serious about his training and his game and turned into the fit, committed outright star that picked up yet another BOG last week. I've heard Leon say how much he regrets his wasted years, and I reckon there is no way Brad Dick won't have learned from that. He's working his arse off now, and he will keep it up in years to come.

Right now, I've got Dick in my best 22, which is a fair compliment to a skinny youngster two or three games in from a knee reconstruction, and with - what is it? - just 9 senior games in total. You'd think he will be in and out of the side a bit over the next year or two, hard to see that fragile young body standing up for the entire season, and he's still got a heap to learn, of course, but more often in than out, and playing a very valuable role for us, on the ball a bit, but mostly up forward freeing up the likes of Leon and Dids to spend more time in the middle. Oh, and having a hand in quite a few goals for us over that time too.

Longer term, I don't reckon he's a future Brownlow Medalist (wouldn't entirely rule it out, but my guess is not), but I've got him pegged as a regular future senior player for us, and amongst the first 5 or 10 picked each week. Wouldn't rule a Copeland out one day either.

Oh, and Brad just looks so damn gloomy when he kicks a goal!

I generally jump on people here when they make an early call about a player, tell 'em not to get so excited and just wait and see. But damn it, I'm right about Brad Dick, I can feel it in my bones. I've been saying it for a while now. Don't expect miracles overnight, don't even expect too much this year, but keep your eye on this player: he is going places.

[Collingwood 4 eternity]

Tannin wrote : "Loving some Dick"

In that case you have some competition with Lady Ga Ga considering what she said in this video interview. :lol:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 26,00.html

[Kingswood]

mate i've been riding dick... i mean riding dicks bandwagon since forever

it mainly started because his enthusiasm was just infectios, whenever i saw the kid he was full of optimism, excitement, energy

but he has some serious potential too...

he may still be rusty

i believe he will grow up to be one of the elite kicks in AFL

[Pied Piper]

Seriously, I think he's a huge talent and agree with much of your assessment. He's actually got exquisite skill and I think as he finds his feet we'll see that a lot more often.