Barker backs Yarran's 'reasonable' effort, praises White
Coach admits defender is being assessed, but says all players are
WA PRODUCT Chris Yarran’s future at Carlton seems no clearer despite a “reasonable” effort back in his home-town as the Blues lost to Fremantle by 42 points on Saturday night.
Yarran has endured a tumultuous season, being banned for three matches for striking Essendon’s Paul Chapman, then being dumped by Carlton last month for another match after a series of off-field disciplinary breaches.
At the time interim coach John Barker said Yarran’s demotion was because he hadn't adhered to the club's off-field standards.
And when asked to assess the speedy defender’s game at Domain Stadium Barker admitted he was under scrutiny.
“In AFL football you are getting assessed all the time, I’m getting assessed, players are getting assessed,” Barker said.
“Chris Yarran tonight, I thought he did a reasonable job – (Michael) Walters kicked one goal, they had 60 inside 50s and Chris gave us good rebound in periods of time.
“We were a little bit disappointed with the ease in which the ball came in in the last quarter.”
Yarran’s defensive game was solid, with seven tackles and his job in quelling the dangerous Walters.
But there were few memorable kicks or lightning dashes through the middle of the ground among his 25 disposals. He didn’t appear to have the confidence to take on the game like he does at his best.
One player Barker was very impressed by was another West Australian, former Subiaco utility player Simon White who did the stopping job on Brownlow Medal favourite Nat Fyfe.
“We just thought Whitey, he is one of those players (who) when you give him a job he does everything he can to get it right,” Barker said.
“He’s got character and he’s got a big body too, which we think helped him.
“He got a lot of help from his teammates and what you get to realise very quickly is against a team like Fremantle … you can’t beat them by just stopping one player.”
As for his own future, Barker insisted he would keep playing the kids after debutant Brad Walsh became the 40th player used this season.
“What I can’t do is waste half a season of footy, so there’s a lot that goes into that in terms of the standards that we need to lift,” he said.
“It’s not just about on the field, there is a lot in terms of environment that creates a good club … at the moment we don’t have much choice with our list in terms of who we play so I think everyone understands where we are at … I think you get judged as a senior coach on a whole host of things and I’m sure (how the young players develop) will be one of them.”
He said the young Blues would have learnt a lot from playing the ladder leaders.
“We thought we could have been a bit smarter when we went forward, we thought we could have got a much better contest when we went forward,” he said.
“The second you miss targets and the second you make poor decisions in the way you use the ball going forward, when they have the got the out-number, you get hurt on the rebound and we did a few times.”