Delisted #36: Michael Hartley - Joins Hawthorne via the preseason draft - 29/11

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Jacques_ said:
Feels like all of our key position defenders (other than Hurley) have a glaring weakness.
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This. Hartley is a good stopper and tall enough to hold his own against most of the bigger forwards if he's allowed to worry about negating them.

We've got Hurley, Saad, McKenna and Gleeson (when he's back) who are all fantastic on the rebound; we can afford a couple of negating players if it means those guys can run around causing mayhem. If Hartley in means Hurley gets to play loose most of the game, who cares if he isn't an offensive weapon?

Ambrose and Hartley are good against completely different players, and Hartley (in my opinion) would be a good option taking kick-outs given he's got a massive boot on him when he wants to use it.
 
owen87 said:
This. Hartley is a good stopper and tall enough to hold his own against most of the bigger forwards if he's allowed to worry about negating them.

We've got Hurley, Saad, McKenna and Gleeson (when he's back) who are all fantastic on the rebound; we can afford a couple of negating players if it means those guys can run around causing mayhem. If Hartley in means Hurley gets to play loose most of the game, who cares if he isn't an offensive weapon?

Ambrose and Hartley are good against completely different players, and Hartley (in my opinion) would be a good option taking kick-outs given he's got a massive boot on him when he wants to use it.
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is it not just being an attacking weapon, but they require the ball to move on quickly from mark before the opposition can set up infront of us.

He doesn't have to get it and go like a rebounder - just needs to quickly asses the options and get it away. I noticed when he did come back last year he was always looking for a quick inboard kick - must have been the MO he was charged with
 
Howard Moon said:
is it not just being an attacking weapon, but they require the ball to move on quickly from mark before the opposition can set up infront of us.

He doesn't have to get it and go like a rebounder - just needs to quickly asses the options and get it away. I noticed when he did come back last year he was always looking for a quick inboard kick - must have been the MO he was charged with
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Ambrose is a good example; he's reasonably quick to get the ball off to another player to keep it moving. Something I think he's improved on over time, so whilst he's a stopper, he's not a complete liability with ball in hand because he keeps it simple, and gets it to the more dangerous guys.

I think if he's tasked with a clear role of stopping his man, which is all we asked of him in 2016, he's quite serviceable, and can hopefully build and improve his game bit by bit the way Ambrose has been able to do. Instead we sent him back to the VFL and - appeared - to tell him to completely change the way he played in order to try to make a big change all at once.

One of the big things is that our other players need to present options to actually help the player in possession, too often there's not enough movement so it just gets bombed to a contest or we come to a standstill.
 

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Needs to fix the difference between his best and worst..
He's a disciplined defender on his day, but would struggle in the VFL if he plays like JLT1 against Richmond and round 23 2017 against Freo..
 
Paul_Barnard said:
Needs to fix the difference between his best and worst..
He's a disciplined defender on his day, but would struggle in the VFL if he plays like JLT1 against Richmond and round 23 2017 against Freo..
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What about the game in between the two?
 
He almost certainly wont now get the opportunity to work on his game in the reserves and will get games out of necessity rather than having earned them.

I suppose being thrown back into the cauldron could just as easily be the making of him. If he would just relax and play the ball on its merits he'll be fine. It will help both parts of his game.
 
Felt he was comfortably our best defender tonight. I was disappointed we didn't see laser boot down the middle though.
 
Ambrosia said:
Take into account respective opponents and Hurley's game was clearly superior imo.
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I'm not dissing Hurley's game but I felt Harts was our best defender without looking at stats. Pretty sure he only conceded the one goal (Thought Brown was the one on Fog for the first, but that might have been me not noticing Hartley's new cut), which was due to a terrible 50, and was rarely beaten 1-on-1.
 

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I'm pretty sure I saw him take a mark or two. That's good enough for me, I know he can defend but the marking was what was lacking before, kept spoiling it into space and the opponent would run onto it previously.
 
Kind of like Langford. I didn't think that his performance guarantees his selection but he showed real signs of having developed his game.

He took a few good marks but spilled a couple he should have taken. There was still a bit of apprehension in the 1v1s and he was outmarked when he shouldn't have been.

Brown did a few really good things intercepting but was largely ineffective as a 1v1 defender.

What Hartley showed tonight is that he's developing the side of his game that makes him a potential week to week selection in a best 22.

I'd say that now he at least gets until Ambrose is fit before his posution is under threat.
 
Lore said:
I'm pretty sure I saw him take a mark or two. That's good enough for me, I know he can defend but the marking was what was lacking before, kept spoiling it into space and the opponent would run onto it previously.
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I think thats why so many on this board were disappointed last year. He showed little development from year 1 to 2 in thats he didnt progress from being just a handy stopper.
As long as he shows a willingness and ability to keep adding things to his game he will continue to play regularly.
 
BrunoV said:
Kind of like Langford. I didn't think that his performance guarantees his selection but he showed real signs of having developed his game.

He took a few good marks but spilled a couple he should have taken. There was still a bit of apprehension in the 1v1s and he was outmarked when he shouldn't have been.

Brown did a few really good things intercepting but was largely ineffective as a 1v1 defender.

What Hartley showed tonight is that he's developing the side of his game that makes him a potential week to week selection in a best 22.

I'd say that now he at least gets until Ambrose is fit before his posution is under threat.
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Christ you're a harsh marker.
 
TheGrizz said:
I think thats why so many on this board were disappointed last year. He showed little development from year 1 to 2 in thats he didnt progress from being just a handy stopper.
As long as he shows a willingness and ability to keep adding things to his game he will continue to play regularly.
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I think the coaching confused him last year. You could see he was trying but he sorta stopped doing what he was good at to try and do something he wasn't good at, and ended up doing the second thing badly and the first not at all. Seems the off-season has clarified whatever was going on in his head, and he's now more or less capable of doing both, which is the improvement we might've liked to see last year I suppose :p He's 24 or 25 or something so not expecting fireworks but he's certainly a serviceable fill-in that will get a reasonable amount of games through injury to others.
 
eth-dog said:
Christ you're a harsh marker.
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He came from outside the best 22.

I'd say that he tried to do almost everything we'd be asking him to do.

He didn't always execute. Until he executes, he's not going to be best 22 because we seem to think that Brown can stop a forward (at least until Ambrose returns).

I'd definitely continue to play him but I'm not confident that we will (unless he continues to build on what he did tonight).
 
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BrunoV said:
He came from outside the best 22.

I'd say that he tried to do everything we'd be asking him to do.

He didn't always execute. Until he executes, he's not going to be best 22 because we seem to think that Brown can stop a forward.
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I disagree. I don't recall seeing him get beaten one-on-one other than one contest where Fogarty had the sit, and he was clearly good on the rebound.
 
BrunoV said:
He came from outside the best 22.

I'd say that he tried to do almost everything we'd be asking him to do.

He didn't always execute. Until he executes, he's not going to be best 22 because we seem to think that Brown can stop a forward (at least until Ambrose returns).

I'd definitely continue to play him but I'm not confident that we will (unless he continues to build on what he did tonight).
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He’s a better one on one than Brown and I don’t want to see Taberner dominate us again next week. His position is in no doubt for next week.
 
Good last night. Him staying in the side is a no-brainer for mine. Brown getting isolated is a worry though.
 
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