My argument is that he can excel as a KPD without being great at marking the ball under physical duress as he only needs to be able to get a fist in when someone bodies up on him. As a KPF target, he needs to do more than get a fist in in those situations to excel. The other skills that he may be able to bring to the table as a forward are well and truly covered by our current forward mix.
But Buddy Franklin has never been good at standing body to body and taking a mark but his speed and mobility at his size has still made him the greatest key forward of his generation
Agreed he always had high contested mark numbers. They are tend to be more pack marks then standing body to body but I don’t recall seeing one pack mark taken in our forward line last week
Buddy's elite at standing under the footy. May not clunk any over his head, but his strength enables him to protect the drop zone and take a few at body height and his recovery is so good that he gets a heap of his own crumbs. He's like having 2 blokes at the contest, a brute to protect the drop zone and a gun front and centre rover. Haven't seen Moore able to do either. Degoey is the closest we've got to being able to play like Buddy.
Every key forward who’s good does this. Most teams have less than precise ball movement, especially the better teams as they’re all good at shutting it down. Cox is fine, he’s not the one I’d replace, Mihocek is.
But he is not good at standing under the ball body to body and taking marks neither is Jack Riewoldt yet between them they have won 7 Coleman medals just goes to show there is more than one way to skin a cat. Jeremy Cameron is another who isn’t good at standing body to body
Yeah he’s strength has always been underrated.
Probably no point us continuing, i think we see it too differently, but I'll have my final say. As a forward, I watched a bloke who I saw as very much mark and kick. I didn't see him skin the cat in any other way too often. Like Cox, he took some rippers over the top when able to run and jump, but didn't do much else. And frankly when he did mark the ball outside his kicking range, he just stopped took ages to turn around, seemingly waiting for defence to fully cover, before a nothing kick into the heart of congestion. He waa very young and would have got better, but I never saw him influence games the way he has in the very small sample size in defence. To me, in defence he's showcased an ability and willingness to run and attack with the footy, excellent play reading, great spoiling skills and closing speed and more opportunity to show off his big party trick of going harder and higher in the air than anyone else going around.
Yet most games he has played down he has bleed goals. Let’s not forget that.
???
I went back to check out highlights footage of Darcy to see if i had blacked out stuff.
Yep very different players.
He's very very fast in a straight line, but doesn't have the balance and change of direction of an outside mid- Buddy does.
Yep. it's why he has been the best forward of his generation, despite having mediocre hands. He's built for footy, his combination of height, strength, speed, balance and agility is what you'd get if you could genetically modify someone to become an AFL star.
There was never a comparison between the two players. Buddy was brought up as an example of the fact that you don’t have to be good at standing body to body in a wrestle and taking marks the way Cloke did to be a gun full forward as Buddy is a champion one of the best the game has ever seen and that is not his go.
