#2 Shane Woewodin

[sherrife]

Both your points are valid, Stoid maybe you would make your point more conclusively if you got the stats as to how many clangers Woey averages a match.

Still, 3 tackles a game is a great effort from a player labelled as 'soft' by many. I'm not sure if he's worth $320,000 a year, as he is really our 3rd midfielder behind Bucks, Licka (and Burns when he plays there). His endeavour is unquestionable though, and hopefully he consitently plays to this standard.

[raymond35]

Woewodin was a champ at Melbourne and is still a very good player. Good to see how many of us realise this.

[Johnson#26]

[labrooy]

It just goes to show that some people will choose to dislike a player no matter what they do. I wonder if these people who constantly bag Woey think that McGough is a great player. After all, MCG turns the ball over far more and is a far worse defensive player.

[Magpie Since 1986]

I have been a fan of woey since he came to the club. I am happy with his year so far but he still has is flaws. Now I always defend woey so lemme have a crack at him for once. The problem in his game is speed. We know he can find the ball and he isn't as soft as the rest of the AFL thinks.

He is just too slow when carrying the ball and chasing, there is not much he can do about this because he just doesn’t have the physical/natural pace.

But the thing he can improve on is how fast he moves the ball, every time he gets it he seems to take an eternity, he goes back, waits around a bit and then just chips it. He is not doing enough damage with his disposals. If you compare this to someone like Aknemanis (i know we all hate him (so dont flame me ) but he is the best example I can think of and a great player like it or not) who usually moves the ball very quickly and sends it long to a target which actually hurts the opposition.

[labrooy]

[sherrife]

[^*Cl|T*^]

I think your right Sheriffe and those others who stated our game plan is CHIP CHIP CHIP. Woey is a great player, not a champion but a great player and is not the only one that stutters when kicking. It's Malthouse's early 90's game plan at the Weagles. Unfortunately the game has moved on ... and teams such as Brisbane, Saints, Freo can be real damaging at times. To beat such teams with our game plan we need to play 100% accountable football for 120mins a game which is very difficult.

[Magpie Since 1986]

If it is in the game plan why don’t we drop Johno. Undisciplined little bugger keeps running the lines and hurting the opposition with his disposal

[Woey2]

He's playing the best football he's played since 2000 by a mile.

"Better"? No.

"Different"? Yes.

He's harder and tougher now, but has lost a yard of pace since his best with Melbourne. One would look at the Brownlow and say he's not better now than he was, but in the role he's playing, he's probably more valuable now as a player than he was a couple of years ago.

Have a really solid season.

[Proud Pies]

http://www.theage.com.au/realfooty/news/Features/Woe-is-me/2005/06/09/1118123961326.html


Woe is me
By Caroline Wilson
June 10, 2005

A long way from his Brownlow high, Shane Woewodin has had to come to terms with life in more humble football surroundings.

There is no more harsh reminder than a balcony crammed with half-charged local football supporters to let you know that you are a Brownlow medallist who has been quietly but definitively dropped.

That's how it was for Shane Woewodin when, for the first time in almost nine years of AFL football, he was sent down to the VFL, to the Williamstown team, in an attempt to straighten out a sporting career at the crossroads.

Woewodin, who turns 29 next month and who is out of contract at the end of this season, journeyed with his fellow Seagulls to take on Sandringham. Still raw from what had been an emotional meeting in Mick Malthouse's office two days earlier, Woewodin took the field in a jumper he had never worn, alongside several teammates he did not know.

Not that the jumper came close to preserving his anonymity. Five days earlier, Woewodin had run on to the MCG accompanied by the cheers of an Anzac Day crowd; now he took the field before one of the VFL's most unforgiving supporter groups and it was as if he wore a target on his back.


The Sandringham diehards must walk past the bar to reach the balcony - more of a platform, in fact, on the first floor of the social club above the visitors' change rooms - and by the time Woewodin was warming up he had already been sledged several times for that one moment in the 2003 grand final he would have rather forgotten. And more.

The barrage continued for much of the game but still Woewodin managed to dominate for Williamstown, despite the fact his new team was insipid in the final quarter - overrun and soundly defeated by Sandringham.

The jeers still ringing in his ears, it was said by the Seagulls' hierarchy that Woewodin, however, saved his best performance for after the game.

"He went around the room and apologised to all the old-timers for our performance in the last quarter," said club president Trevor Monti. "He was our best player by far and whatever he must have been feeling he came into the game with a pretty impressive attitude, I thought.

"It must be difficult for a Brownlow medallist to come to a club he doesn't know much about and under those circumstances. I just wish everyone would come with the attitude he did."

Coach Brad Gotch described the whole experience of Woewodin's demotion as a sensitive and potentially devastating situation. "When I find out I'm going to get a player of that ilk, I make sure I go and talk to them and spend some time," he said.

"I can't change the seven wonders of the world for them but I think a player has to get to the same place the coach is at and I could tell he wasn't at that place.

"The VFL games are up close and personal and I had to have a chat to him about that. You hear absolutely everything that's thrown at you. I remember Rhyce Shaw was quite shocked on one occasion at what was said to him.

"Matthew Lokan spoke to Shane before the Preston game a few weeks later and warned him what to expect, as well, because I think he was pretty concerned about the impact. It's a tall poppy, knock-'em-down attitude of some supporters."

The Sandringham-Williamstown game took place on the first weekend of May. If that experience demonstrated the massive bridge linking the AFL and its reserves, it seemed that Woewodin had done enough to avoid the journey anytime soon. But after being promoted the following week to play Fremantle, he cracked ribs early in the game and missed the following two weeks.

Before the start of this season, Woewodin had missed only two games in an eight-year AFL career. He finished equal-second in last year's Copeland Trophy and began the season on 185 games. The 200 club loomed as a formality.

But then, several days after Collingwood's improbable win over West Coast, Malthouse again called Woewodin - who had been cleared fit to play against Hawthorn - to his office and told him he would be travelling to Preston with the Seagulls instead.

The footballer was black with emotion and took the decision as something of a personal attack. His argument with Malthouse was simple. The coach believed his midfielder's form did not warrant a place in the club's top 22. Woewodin believed it did. But the Magpies had won a game on the back of its recently announced youth policy and Woewodin was not getting any faster.

The Magpies wanted him to demonstrate something significant to win back his place. As it happened, it was a wet and dirty day for all concerned against the Bullants. Seven members of the 2003 grand final team were playing and Preston threw a series of Carlton's most promising youngsters on to Woewodin, including Wayne Blackwell's son Luke and rookie Jesse Smith, as a teaching excercise.

The Magpie collected 21 possessions and kicked three goals in a losing side but finally appeared to have reached that place Gotch referred to - acceptance. The following week at Olympic Park he approached the Williamstown coach and requested a spot in the midfield for the Seagulls-Geelong game that took place four days ago.

Teammate Scott Burns, who along with captain Nathan Buckley and several others has stuck close to his struggling teammate since the end of April, told him to approach the weekend as if he would be playing not a suburban game but Friday night football.

Sure enough, Ben Johnson was a late withdrawal and Woewodin was promoted to play against Geelong.

Whether he remains on borrowed time at Collingwood will be played out over the next few months as the Magpies try to consolidate the season's most notable form reversal.

The truth is that as Woewodin moves closer to 30, the footballer renowned as one of the game's physical perfectionists and hardest workers is moving into an era where speed seems all. At the draft camp each spring, it is the first test conducted and even when Woewodin joined the Magpies in bitter circumstances at the end of 2002, he seemed to resemble too closely, as significant Collingwood recruiters argued at the time, a bunch of his new teammates.

While no move has been made to re-sign him for next year, Woewodin's immediate future looks more promising. The Magpies' match committee met on Wednesday and included him in the team - which has lost Chris Egan through suspension - to take on Melbourne on Monday.

And despite his struggles this year, it seems he has moved closer to exorcising at least that set of Demons from his past. Woewodin's old team is trying to rebuild its relationship with its one-time club champion.

While he received his last pay cheque from the Demons earlier this season - an estimated $80,000 - Melbourne appears determined not to end its relationship with the player it publicly indicated was overpaid and greedy back in 2002.

Paul Gardner's board briefly considered inviting him to last year's best-and-fairest count before deeming it inappropriate but the club has unofficially moved to welcome Woewodin back to Melbourne via that function as soon as he retires.

At the Melbourne-Collingwood cricket match held in Troy Broadbridge's memory last summer, Melbourne football manager Chris Fagan and chief executive Steve Harris approached the star player the club fell out with over money and the conversation went some way to repairing what seemed to be insurmountable damage.

And whatever the sledging Woewodin can expect on the Queen's Birthday at the MCG, his experiences over the past six weeks will ensure he has heard it all before. And louder.

[Culprit]

Woey will bounce back. His biggest problem is he won a Brownlow in an average team and the expectations that come with him being a medalist.

Still finished in the top 5 at the club last year and I can't see the club dumping him at the moment despite him struggling.

[HAL]

Is that from it?

[Damien]

A half decent article by Caro for once

[Jace]

It's funny how quickly it can all turn around. Just look at Tarks, the previous weeks people were calling for him to be dropped then he plays a great game v cats & he is safe again. Same as O'Bree the week before.

Woey is a great player down on confidence, hopefully he finds the confidence & backs himself to kick it longer to a target instead of dicking around with the ball in the back pocket. I would love to see him back in the side, but a run in the VFl may help him get a feel for the ball, which is obvious what the club wants...