Kayle Kirby Supercoach 2017

Fat bastards can get drafted.

by Pieman

Just about every draft that Derek Hine (Collingwood recruiting chief) goes to, he makes a ballsy pick. The best one without doubt was plucking a basketballer with a very limited footballing background called Scott Pendlebury.

At the previous draft the only one that hasn’t played yet was Brayden Sier. He used pick 32 on a bloke he’d only seen playing schoolboy footy. He didn’t play in the TAC cup & most of the other recruiters had never heard of him. We haven’t seen him yet due to injury, but he must be good.

But in this draft he took his ballsy pick into a new stratosphere.

At pick 50 he took Kayle Kirby. Who the F is that I said?

So within moments of him being selected I started looking into Kirby. The same thing kept coming up again & again. Fat, overweight, lazy but freakishly talented. I started to question Derek & what was he smoking when he picked this bloke. I wondered if he too had spent too much time with Buckley & was finally off his dial.

He was listed as 181cm & 96 kgs! An apparent turtle & hamburger munching champion. I was horrified.

I completely cast him aside until recently. Why did Derek Hine pick Fatso? So I went digging.

There was a reason. If draft picks were made on talent only based selections, then Fatso would have been one of the first picked. But what comes with him makes him the riskiest pick from the draft by some considerable distance. The likelihood of this backfiring is off the charts.

What can’t be denied is Fatso is a fair dinkum goal kicking MACHINE!

Kayle Kirby

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So collectively he averaged a tick under 3 goals a game for the whole year.

I’ve had a look at his tapes. He is deadly accurate with his feet. And he knows where the goals are. He could kick goals blind folded. He can tackle well & he’s the quickest fat bloke I’ve ever seen. He also has great sense & knows where to be. He absolutely oozes talent & class from his eyeballs…..

BUT!

Draft night for the Kirby’s was interesting. Most families of prospective draftees have at home draft party with friends & family.

Not the Kirby’s!

They were all down at the pub. Whilst Kayle, his brother & a mate were anxiously watching the draft in the sports bar, the rest of his family were too busy tossing coins into the pokies.

When Fatso saw he had been picked by Collingwood he ran into the pokies to inform his family. They briefly stopped to offer congratulations, told him to go & buy himself a drink & resumed slot jockey positions. Poor bloke didn’t even get a shouted a beer.

So. All of a sudden the riddle of how Kirby got so fat in the first place became perfectly clear. He certainly does not come from a house of discipline. In fact his family has a rather “interesting” history. I’ll just leave that right there.

Here’s Fatso training at the Holden Centre

Fatso played for the Bendigo Pioneers in the under 18’s TAC cup. He enjoyed a stellar season booting 32 goals from 13 matches. He was the 4^th highest goal kicker in the TAC cup in 2016. With 2 games to go in the home & away season the Richmond Tigers VFL team were desperate for wins to make the finals. They activated the 23^rd man rule & called up Fatso for a cameo.

His debut game was sensational. At half time the Tigers were in trouble. The Zebras were dominating. Fatso provided a spark. He booted 3 3^rd quarter goals to get them back in the game. Then coach Craig McRae decided to isolate him in the forward 50 in the last quarter. He kicked the only 2 goals of the last quarter & won the game.

They needed to win the last match & have results go their way to play finals. Fatso played his part. He backed it up with another 4 goal haul in a comfortable win. But it wasn’t enough to get the Tigers into the finals. They finished 9^th BAHAHAHAHA

Fatso went to the draft combine to do testing. He shouldn’t have bothered. His results were terrible. My mail is he ate a hamburger during the beep test. His results were burnt & buried.

VIDEO: Meet Kayle Kirby – https://t.co/QlaA66vRGv Our pick No. 50 talks about the move to Melbourne + how he spent draft night #startsnow pic.twitter.com/OK8x5Sgd6P

— Collingwood FC (@CollingwoodFC) November 30, 2016

SELECTION PURPOSE

Fatso will not be playing for the Pies round 1 side. He’d need heaps of injures & loads of lean cuisine. There will be too many ahead of him early on. But if he can find a way to get into some reasonable condition & he keeps kicking bags then he might well loom as a downgrade option at some point in the season. The Pies have a history of giving the draft picks a crack at some point the following season (if there fit).

RISK FACTOR

Geez. Where do you start. First of all it was a MASSIVE risk to pick him in the first place. He’d struggle to beat Joffa in a beep test & his family isn’t the Brady bunch. It seems that sometimes the baggage that comes with these brilliant indigenous talents is too much. When things go pear shaped with these lads it’s always family related. This could easily turn to disaster.

THE GOOD

• Goal Kicking Machine
• Extreme X Factor
• Match winner
• Great hands
• Could kick goals blind folded

THE BAD

• He’s fat
• His family concerns me A LOT!!!

THE VERDICT

The answer as to why Derek Hine picked this man is clear. If the bloke can kick so many goals as a fat bastard, then what is he capable of if he’s fit. It’s a risk worth taking but I don’t like the odds of it paying off.

I’ve been trying to find some info from the Pies about his progress this preseason. Since the story of how his family celebrated his draft night broke not a word has been written on him. But they haven’t mentioned much about any of the new draftees except for Callum Brown.

If the stars align then boy he could be a decent downgrade option later on. The Pies do like to play the kids. Last season they blooded Ben Crocker Tom Phillips & Rupert Wills who were all serviceable. I expect all of Sam McLarty Callum Brown & Kayle Kirby (if he’s fit) to get an opportunity at some point. Josh Daicos I’d consider unlikely in 2017, he’s got the opposite problem to Fatso.

Put Fatso on the watchlist. You can’t miss him

Pieman

INDEX OF ALL PLAYER REVIEWS HERE

This article has been penned as part of the Jock Reynolds Community Series, where anyone from within our proud community can have their say in front of their peers. These men and women have displayed the spirit of togetherness, positivity and community that we value significantly.

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