Don’t ‘chop’ Butcher

By Marc McGowan
IGNORE John Butcher at your peril.
That’s Gippsland Power coach Damian Carroll’s message after the barrage of criticism towards his star key forward’s National Under-18 Championships performance.
Butcher, who turned 18 last Friday, booted nine goals from Vic Country’s five matches, but critics believe he didn’t live up to his pre-carnival hype.
Those same critics also labelled the potential top-two draft pick’s TAC Cup form as underwhelming, but Carroll rejected that notion.
“I’ve only seen the one (national championships) game against Metro and I thought John was terrific and he played on two guys that day,” Carroll said.
“It has been a bit unfair because the people who’ve been saying it have been saying it’s from the nationals and the TAC Cup.
“His start to the TAC Cup was really good. He kicked 16 goals from five games and the last game he played for us he kicked six goals.”
Vic Country assistant coach Darren Flanigan shared Carroll’s sentiments.
“We weren’t disappointed with his efforts. He certainly drew a lot of attention and that created opportunities for other forwards,” he said.
“He’ll go back and play one-on-one against someone in a TAC Cup game and kick eight or 10 goals and they’ll forget all about a couple of scratchy ones.”
Carroll said the comments wouldn’t faze Butcher and is looking forward to having the 197cm, 86kg teenager back in the line-up.
The Gippsland coach also believes Butcher has untapped talent and would be a major asset to whichever AFL club he goes on to play for.
“He’s definitely one who has a bright future and with John it’s so unlimited in that he hasn’t done weights and he only trains with us once a week,” Carroll said.
“Some of those other boys are far more advanced with their training.
“Some of the clubs would be really happy if he did (drop down the draft order), but I still think he’ll go very high.
“It will depend on his last half of the year.”