As someone who has followed him very closely, and he's one of my favourite players outside the GFC...can say that him not playing last year is being exaggerated a fair bit as him not being good enough to make it into GC's team.
Played 83 games in his first 6 years and played 19 the year prior...and was always a 1st choice player. Only reason he played VFL as much as he did, was he was coming back from injury. It's a misnomer to say that he's being overhyped...when the guy was touted as one of their future captain options not two seasons ago.
Can play every position on the field that's not key position, and is an elite kick. I've said it before, he's basically a younger Duncan but better overhead and at defending one on one. Duncan has him covered in some other areas, but it's remarkable how alike they are as players.
I do honestly feel like a lot haven't actually followed him, and are basing their rating of him purely off last year - when he was injured for four months and missed an entire pre-season...so had an off year where he couldn't make his way back in. Prior to that, he was always first choice and played 78 games in his first 5 years - playing all games in the 2020 Covid year and 19 out of 23 in 2021.
The only reason we're ending up with such a highly talented player, is because it was a salary dump and nothing more. There's a reason two of our greatest players in Danger and Ablett both rate him so highly and recommended us to him/him to us. On top of all that, he's an amazing person and will be such a great fit for the club. Oozes leadership and I suspect will be in the leadership group once the current group moves on.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter what I say as people will just have to wait and watch him play next year - and then make their judgements from there. Doesn't really matter anyway, as we don't even need him to be an excellent player as we got Pick 7 out of it too. Thing is though, I think he could be better than all of them - Bruhn, Henry and Jhye Clark if we land him.
