Banned Bomber 'must focus on footy'
Sun Herald
Sunday July 5, 2009
ESSENDON coach Matthew Knights says midfielder Mark McVeigh should forget about losing his chance to captain the AFL club and worry about playing football.Knights said the Bombers missed midfielders McVeigh, suspended by his club, and Jobe Watson, out injured, in Friday night's 15.12 (102) to 9.13 (67) loss to Collingwood at the MCG.McVeigh was ruled out after a late-night drinking session last weekend caused him to miss a training session.The aspiring captain said on Thursday night he believed he had cost himself the chance to replace current skipper Matthew Lloyd.Knights, however, said the player had more pressing concerns."We've never come out and publicly said that we're looking to change the captaincy in the near future," Knights said."I think it's something that Mark just needs to worry about getting back and playing good football."That's Mark's major focus ... the captaincy's a little bit irrelevant at this point in time, because we've got a wonderful captain."Knights said his side was convincingly beaten by the Magpies in the midfield and would have loved to have Watson and McVeigh."Two important men and strong bodies it would have been nice to have them," he said.Meanwhile, Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse welcomed the form improvement of key forward Travis Cloke, who booted four goals and set up several others against the Bombers to go with three against Fremantle the previous round.They are his two best hauls of the season after struggling for form earlier in the year, but Malthouse said it was unrealistic to expect a 22-year-old to dominate every time."You're harsh if you think that key forwards will perform like Jonathan Brown every week it just doesn't happen," Malthouse said."He's very important to us, but we have other contributors, which is very handy.Malthouse said Alan Didak who produced a fourth straight 30-plus disposal game on Friday night, having never having topped 30 touches before that streak was reaping the rewards of maturity."I'm not talking about life maturity, it's football maturity," he said.
© 2009 Sun Herald
Share This