mediumsizered said:
Murphy and Allan had 2 seasons at Essendon. What happened in the second season?
Allan was injured, Murphy got surpassed by kids. It isn't a failure if Dyson and Stanton start playing better footy, that is what we wanted them to do.
mediumsizered said:
Why was Sheedy so keen for Allan to play on next season if he had done what the club wanted him to do?
Probably because Allan was seen as a better back up alternative to Henneman and Cartledge isn't ready. Can't argue with that.
mediumsizered said:
So is Campo there just to fill in a void as well? And Heffernan? That's a lot of voids.
Yeah. We have a weakness with midfield depth. That's one void, not a lot of voids. Heffernan is 26 remember, the same age as Saddington. Don't most clubs use late picks to draft for weaknesses?
mediumsizered said:
The recruiting of Allan was an admission on Sheedy's part that he still did not have faith in Hille's ability to carry the ruck. The same reason that Salmon was reintroduced prior to that.
Correct. Because he was a kid who played little junior footy, focusing on volleyball. He needed time to develop and I can't off the top of my head think of a ruckman holding the fort at the age of 20-22 other than Steven King in recent times. Hille was 20 when Salmon came to the club, he was 22 when Allan came, that is very young for a ruckman. He's ready now, but few ruckman in the game still ruck 120 minutes and both Grand Finalists this season had two viable options. And as above, Allan is still a better option than Henneman or a raw Cartledge and it releases Laycock forward. If we could have got another year out of Allan we perhaps could have delisted Henneman and afforded the time for Cartledge and Laycock to develop further. In the end, you can't help injuries and Hille himself has publicly admitted the large benifits he got from having a ruckman like Allan at the club.