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- Aug 2, 2012
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- Geelong
Negativity? Jesus that first paragraph looks pretty bloody positive to me.
It's a realistic appraisal of what happens when you blood a lot of young players, as we've been doing and continue to do. We might be better this year - hopefully we will - but being aware that it may take time for the young guys to become seasoned consistent performers is not a treasonable offence.
Back to Vardy, it's my opinion. He's got a beautiful leap and unlike a lot of other ruckmen, he actually times it well and is good at winning hitouts. He's the same height as West, perfect height for a ruckman. Not to mention how well he covers the ground, he would give the opposition some very big headaches as very few ruckmen could hope to keep up with him. There again, having a young player who shows some ability as both a key forward and a ruckman should be a good thing. Apparently here it's negative. Interesting.
I agree with you about Vardy's potential Partridge, as I was going to say before the thread headed off elsewhere.
The first time I saw him, I immediately thought he's too good for the ruck, he's a CHF.
But the more I saw of his range of talents, the more I thought it possible that he may even be better as a ruckman, the sort of giant ruck-rover type we saw in Peter Moore, Stynes, Cox, Natanui (not that I'm not saying he is or could be as good as any of them).
He has, as you say, a beautiful leap and timing, excellent marking judgement and hands, he covers the ground better than most big blokes, he kicks long and straight, he is very agile for his size, and he is even good below his knees.
Time will tell, but I see his possibilities as either a ruck or KPF, and I suspect he won't be locked into either position til he's played a bit more.
But I'd like McIntosh out there asap, we need him to help fix our atrocious around-the-ground clearances rate.



