BLAKE EVANS’ IMPROVEMENT
Disposal average: 2022: 15.9. 2023: 27.7.
Rebound 50s, 2022: 89. 2023: 22 (in three matches).
Kicking efficiency, 2022: 63 per cent. 2023: 71 per cent.
Ranking points, 2022: 63.5. 2023: 98.
Evans is the top-ranked player for kicks this season in the GVL, has taken the second-most kick-ins and is ranked second in the GVL for rebound 50s. He is also sixth for total disposals this year.
Blake Evans has gone from a goal-kicking midfielder with Rochester’s underage teams to the Tigers go to rebounding defender and its chief kick-in exponent.
Evans, who made 17 senior appearances in 2022 after playing all 11 games in his first senior Goulburn Valley league season (the COVID-19-affected 2021), has had an outstanding start to this year.
He has had the second-most rebound 50s this season (22), second only to arguably the lead’s most consistent defender — Shepparton’s Ted Lindon (27).
Evans had eight rebound 50s in round one, gaining valuable meterage by taking eight kicks ins and playing on from the goal square. In that match 26 of his 29 possessions were kicks, while against Echuca 26 of his 31 disposals were by foot (including 10 kick ins).
In round two, against Seymour, he had nine rebound 50s, following that up with five against Echuca.
Evans is sixth for disposals in the competition after three rounds, with 83, behind Euroa’s AFL recruit Will Hayes (108), Moorooopna’s Ethan Hunt (97) and his Rochester teammate Joe Atley (95).
Evans has also racked up 294 ranking points in three weeks, almost 40 points up on his 2022 season average of 63.5.
He has had more kicks (70) then any other player and the most effective kicks (52).
He is second on the kick-in list, with 24.
Last season Evans averaged 15.9 disposals (13.2 kicks and 2.7 handballs, with 12.5 of those uncontested possessions) and kicked at 63 per cent efficiency.
This year he is averaging 27.7 disposals, 21 of of those uncontested (third most in league with 63), and is going at an improved 71 per cent efficiency by foot.
That is in comparison to 2022, when he had 40 clangers for the season, equal sixth in the GVL (52 was the most Benalla ball magent Christopher Welsh).
Last season Evans was eighth in the league for rebound 50s (89 his total with Shepparton’s Lindon again the league benchmark with 147). Evans did, however, spent several weeks in attack last year.
He finished last year with nine goals from 18 scoring shots, all of those goals coming in a seven-week period between rounds 10 and 16.
He kicked seven in two weeks against Shepparton United and Tatura, providing glimpses of his junior footballing days.
Evans, as an Under-18 player with the Tigers, kicked 30 goals in 17 matches in 2019. In Under-16 competition he kicked 31 goals from 10 games and, while representing the Bendigo Pioneers V/Line Cup Under-15 team in 2018, kicked five goals in two appearances.
In 2016 he also bagged 21 goals for the Tigers Under-14 team.
Tigers coach Ash Watson said Evans was now settled in his defensive role and he “liked the ball in his hands’’.
“He is strong overhead, which is why he went forward last year and is a pretty versatile player,” Watson said.
“It is defence first for him, but we encourage him to run off when the time is right.”