The problem with Hale is he is far too stationary, if he moves, presents and plays in front more then it is hard for him to be scragged, he just engages in body contact too much and the umps then give a lot of leeway to the defender unless the forward is Reiwoldt.
The problem is Hale has no confidence in the supply or the delivery, he lead so many times only to be ignored by players not taking the first option.
He is no Coleman, but he can be useful if we can get the WWF out of Hale, he has no reason to hold or wrestle or push, he towers over most defenders.
The other problem is we need more options, other than Hale and Warren there is tumble weed blowing across our forward line, this allows the other defenders to focus on the only two guys that look like kicking a goal.
Good Post. I have not been openly critical like some of Hale yet I watched our forward line quite closely at the game last night, in particular our setup and movement for the ball.
Being a forward myself, I have noticed with Hale (as Zvim correctly points out) is the fact he plays as a stationary forward - 75% of the time out of position.
Yes - on may occasions he is shepherded out of the contest, but particularly when he plays from behind. I could count numerous times Dawson parking himself in-front of Hale, and Gilbert or Goddard or whomever floating back to the square for an easy uncontested mark.
I would think he would be better advised to play in front and parking his frame in-front of defenders and using his body and strength more effectively. Just my opinion, but I don't think he uses his body well at times.
Although in saying that our delivery to Hale last night was poor due to the fact that not only Hale but most of our forwards were 'very' stagnant. I didn't see many double or triple leads and although the Saints were employing the flood somewhat, our forwards must lead/run the lines and draw the Saints defenders and midfielders sitting in the hole, out of their positional zoning. It forced us into resulting bombs to the goal square where the ball was turned over and the Saints are confident and good enough to run it out of the forward line effectively.
It was disappointing for me to see our forwards stand in the forward 50 and resign to the fact they were not going to get the ball. Well if that's the case, as I am advised to do, do some hard unrewarded team running and work hard at opening space. Of course, better movement of the ball would help.
We can be better up forward.