Both are smart players and have a good sense of anticipation and backing it in, which produces the results. You know that old adage of a player being in the right spot at the right time, both these kids have that ability.
Collins in particular is a very smart and for that matter polished player. I take my hat off to Ben as well, his first couple of touches would have had to be downers to him, seeing as he fluffed them, but the kid just doesnt lay down, he uses his pace and nippiness to create half chances and if they cant be half chances then they might be 1/4 chances. In the end he creates chances for himself.
It was very pleasing to me that we can be using genuine future onballers on flanks and in pockets successfully, rather than having to rely on forward or back 'specialists' - many of them failed midfielders whose flaws are just as apparent and damning in their 'specialist' role.
so what? mcguane is a stopper. its his job stop the forward.
And when he hasn't had to stop that forward on more than a couple of occasions he doesn't deserve votes ahead of blokes who did that to their opponent AND were integral parts of our much improved rebound.
...even brian lake is not all that good at getting rid of the ball, but he is a great stopper and he gets the ball to the dogs runners to get it out of the 50.
Lake's a long way ahead of McGuane for disposal (especially kicking) and he's a poor example because he seldom gets pure stopping roles - they invariably go to Morris and Lake is freed up more to go for his marks and get loose to help their rebound.
The only vague similarity between McGuane and Lake is that they're both failed junior key forwards who got moved to the backline.
The Dogs' backline is significantly better than ours partly because Morris, Lake and Williams are all
much better rebounders than any tall we've currently played there. With a bit of luck someone out of Gourdis, Post, Astbury etc. can do something about that. We can only afford to carry one at most of McGuane/Thursfield/Moore into the future, quite probably none.
McGuane has improved a bit in his body on body defending this year, I thought his game on Franklin was perhaps his best for that side of his game, but he still has massive question marks over his fitness, physique, consistency and ball skills - he's had plenty of time to improve all four and really hasn't got far enough in six seasons to consider him some sort of certainty to be there much further down the track. And unlike others, he hasn't been hampered anywhere near as much by injury.
McGuane and Thursfield have been lazy on the training track for years, it's really hurt their chances of being part of our side long term.