- Oct 9, 2013
- 10,903
- 14,800
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
I think he does lack forward nous, definitely. Not surprising as he's only played 1.5 seasons there his whole life. Takes a long time to get that knack.Does he have a lack of forward nous? His leading patterns are fine, Bruce has been playing forward for years and Naughty already has him covered for forward nous by a mile. What does he not do that he should as a forward?
Some combo of Bruce/Schache/JUH/English/Martin is not a good combo at all. Bruce would be the worst number one forward in the comp by a mile. Martin is no good forward, English would be a good third tall but has never played significant time forward and would probably struggle badly if he had to play a proper key forward post, JUH would get the number one defender in his first game and get bullied.
it would be negligent to the development of JUH to go in round 1 without Naughty beside him
He's caught out of position often, it's only really his elite athleticism that allows him to overcome that. It's why you see him flying from so far back to take marks all the time. Secondly, when defenders take away his run and jump at the ball I don't think he has much else in his arsenal to get the ball. That's why he has so many games with little possessions. From his 12 games this year he had 5 games with 5 or less disposals. Only had 3 games with more than 10 disposals. He often runs into congestion. I don't think his patterns are all that good, he doesn't get much separation. Generally his defender is fairly close to him, Naughton just beats them 1v1.
With Martin's inclusion English will be playing forward a whole lot. There is no way JUH gets the number one defender with Bruce and English/Martin and possibly Schache there. To say JUH would be exposed if Naughton goes back is a bit overboard IMO. Teams aren't going to play their 3rd defender on English/Martin. They'd get annihilated.