why didnt we just pick up Robbie instead of letting Melbourne pick him up...
I watched him very closely at his outings at Box Hill and I'd reckon that he barely got of the ground, about 12 inches, only a few times a game. So either he has lost what little leap he had or he was too scared of damaging the knee upon landing to make a serious attempt at a jump.
Either way that is definately not good enough at AFL level against tall and leaping ruckmen.
This is a pity because apart from that he actually played quite well, even though he had to play the ruck role by intitiating body contact early in the ruck duel without infringing his opponent to aviod a jump off. At VFL level that works fine for the throw ins and around the ground ball ups but it is a little dodgy for the centre square ball ups. Unfortunately at centre square ball ups in the AFL, all an opposition ruckman would have to do is to stand back than jump over him to win every hit out.
As for recruiting Johnson I am rapt.
We desperately need some ruck insurance as Bailey is so close to being gorn for all money that it is not funny. If he can't recover from a friggin' practice game in under a month then I have given up hope that he'll make any real contribution. I hope I'm wrong but the picture looks pretty bleak.
Obviously the Bunto's (from Bunto Grammar) don't think much of Johnson but in the Muston comeback game I thought he was prety good for the good old 'closely breds'. Sure it was only one game but I'm sure he had other outings against where he wasn't that bad so I'll have to pull out some old disks and have a look.
So who knows?
At his third club but entering into the peak rucking years (26-27) he might surprise. Also coming from Frangers (YCW no less! who produced such stars as G Thomas & M McCarthy) at least he is bio-ethnically a Hawk. As such he should fit in better culturally at the Hawks, rather than with the colonial ersatz Hooray Henrys, those pox ridden comparadorial scum who in reality are lumpen Melbourne establishmentariat wing the Liberal party at play, who masquerade as the so called "Melbourne" Football Club.