News Chris Dawes: "I was terrible".

[shawthing09]

This cannot be said of his effort in the 2010 GF.

Agree, although the start of 2011 he was taking strong marks. He seemed to stop that and then he broke his knuckle. It's the area he needs to work on most.

That can just be a confidence thing. All players go through that. I remember this year pre injury everyone saying we had the best 'twin towers' in the comp

I'll respond to all these three at once kind of.

He certainly played well in the GF's in 2010, but even then it wasn't really the game you'd expect from a KPF. It was clever knock on's and handballs etc. He fought to contribute meaningfully but was hardly a great force. None the less he played well on that occasion.

I think the early year form was a bit of a mixed bag. He certainly did improve his marking. Although I'd say it went from poor to average. As opti said protected the ball better and took the ball in front of his face. Still looks pretty lost when trying to grab the ball at the highest point.

The second thing is, in that early period we were playing much better football and he had the luxury of much better delivery. When a midfielders streaming through and can kick without much pressure, a flat ball out in front a forward doesn't really need to be able to mark over head / at a high point in the flight.

Even early in the year when people where singing his praises the first game against Geelong he had a total of 2 kicks and 2 marks which for a key forward is not good enough.