Travis Cloke, Jack Riewoldt two sides of a changing AFL, says Dermott Brereton

TRAVIS Cloke risks becoming and AFL dinosaur, writes Dermott Brereton. Friday night rival Jack Riewoldt is the man he needs to emulate.

Collingwood v WCE

FOOTBALL changes every year. Not dramatically, but enough to make a difference.

Most players can cope with the change, especially if they are at the peak of their physical powers.

Players adapt from week to week when umpires apply a slightly different interpretation of certain rules.

They adapt to new coaches.

They even adapt to different weather conditions.

But those who can’t adapt are left behind eventually.

Jack Riewoldt has dealt with the slight change required of him during his time at Richmond.

In the early days, as a predominantly stay-at-home full-forward, he relied heavily on guile, reach, judgment and size.

He had some physical and athletic capabilities, but nearly all of his opponents were better.

His football intelligence was quite brilliant in the way he regularly beat opponents of greater athletic ability.

But the game changed.

And the more traditional full-forwards were required routinely to run up and back to the centre circle dozens of times each game.

Jack Riewoldt is able to get up the ground more now than his early years. Picture: Colleen Petch

Even on a good day Riewoldt was unable to work over his opponent, given that most were superior athletes. He would try to run crazy angles on them to get to where he eventually wanted to be.

But that was only going to work for a limited time. The good key backmen are not only good physically, but they are also football smart. And given that most of the gun key backmen are playing in the teams that are in the same vicinity as the Tigers on the ladder, Riewoldt needed to notch up regular wins against them.

It is all very well to kick bags of goals against under strength backlines like Giants in year two, but the Tigers needed to knock over the big teams. And Riewoldt set about that task with verve.

He transformed his body shape. He shed weight and became a lighter physical specimen. He changed into a mobile, marking forward. And yet again this season, he has stripped off more weight. He now has better endurance, spring and agility.

Whereas he once beat opponents just because he was a better footballer, he now matches the best athletes with his own athletic capabilities.

Travis Cloke on the other hand was born as a physical beast.

A mountain of a young man who plays in the key forward post, he held sway in the physical tale of the tape before the ball was even bounced.

Once he had consolidated himself as a regular player, he would swagger out to his position knowing that he was bigger and more powerful than all the key backmen.

Travis Cloke has gone away from his up the ground role in recent years.

But as game has changed for the guy down the other end tonight — Jack Riewoldt — so, too, has it changed for Cloke.

Cloke has two real strengths to his game.

First, for a huge man, he is capable of getting on the bike and leading up outside Collingwoods forward 50. Somehow his repeat effort endurance belies his bulk.

But ever since he kicked 70 odd goals three seasons ago he has been regarded as a player with more value closer to goal.

The problem, though is Collingwood as a team hasn’t been as good the following two seasons.

A little less supply and the “in coming” footy is arriving in Cloke’s forward line with little less pace. This has seen his tally fall to 30-plus goals a season.

Second, Travis can maul any opponent in one-on-one marking duals. But even then he doesn’t mark the ball all that high off the ground. Picture the Gold Coast’s Tom Lynch marking the ball high off the ground. Cloke doesn’t do that.

Cloke is a mauler. In those one-on-one battles, he can mark it overhead, but nearly always he has one or even both feet planted on the ground.

One of the disadvantages to Cloke as the game has changed and teams thwart the Magpies’ quick ball movement, he frequently has to contend with a third man up jumping over him to spoil the contest. No matter how big you are as a key forward, even if you are throwing around your opponent in a physical marking dual based on power, the third man up will get to the punch before your two mitts are able to mark the ball.

Cloke can continue on and hope it turns around for him — and I’m sure he will give his all.

But we must recognise the reasons he has tapered before we harshly judge his results.

If he keeps playing as the true key forward, either Collingwood will need to move the ball much quicker to him and attempt to give him some real isolation like Geelong do with Tom Hawkins.

But that may be unlikely. It would appear that coach Nathan Buckley is not willing to put all his goal-scoring eggs in the one basket. Like most other good teams, Buckley will have designs on an even spread of goal kickers.

Alternatively, Cloke must re-invent himself by stripping off some excess baggage weight (muscle) and become the endurance animal that he was in his early days.

The way the game is played these days, it is difficult for a key forward to be both an endurance animal and a monstering goalsquare beast.

Just ask the bloke at the other end on Friday night, Jack Riewoldt.

Originally published as Travis Cloke, Jack Riewoldt two sides of a changing AFL, says Dermott Brereton