The Other Dean
Slack Motherf*cker
I reckon Ahern is rotating through the middle and at centre square bounces, just quietly.
Of course he is. Hall is too.
You'll soon see that Paul Ahern is one of our best contested ball-winners.
Brad will be very keen to use Hall's breakaway pace in the middle.
Pace can be pretty helpful getting the ball into outside situations though. Or you can use breakaway pace from a stoppage and go straight from inside to forward which Hall will do. Especially handy if Higgins is being sat on as last year he was the only one able to do it.
A Cunnington/Higgins/Hall combo would be good combo at the start of games when we have gotten on top early and want to pile goals on. Swap it out to Cunninton/Anderson/Tyson in red time to slow things down and prevent late goals.
On Ahern I think he'll just be one of our best straight up ball-winners. Going off a small sample but I don't think his 22 contested possession match was a fluke. A true 360 footballer that sees options others don't.
100% agree with you two fine gentlemen on all of the above. Without getting into the whole inside/outside discussion, both Ahern and Hall are very capable of winning their own ball at stoppages, and both boast attributes that not only provide a point of difference wrt our current set-up, but also greatly improve us in there. Obviously with rotations and available personnel, etc, it's all about finding the right mix/balance at any given stage of the game, but I'm hoping both of them are given as much time at centre bounces as possible.