Gethelred
Moderator
- May 1, 2016
- 34,334
- 65,234
- AFL Club
- Carlton
- Moderator
- #226
McKay is getting there; he needs to want to punish an opponent for even contemplating underestimating him. He's more golden retriever than rottweiler at the moment. Gov has it in spades; what he needs is to become properly fit, to allow him more of an influence than a 10 minute patch, despite those ten minute patches being some of the best footy we play at the moment.
Weitering has it, just quietly. Taking on the reins down back. He's not an obvious candidate, but when he came back through the VFL he dominated those games and showed real leadership and ownership of that team. He's doing it in the ones now, and he's perfectly willing to wear contact to get his will done.
Given that the last game he played was not one of his better ones, LOB has mongrel in spades. He's a work in progress at the moment, and he's prone to dropping his head, but we saw last year that there's utterly no quit in that kid. You can belt him around, you can knock him off the ball, you can shrug him off in a tackle (even now, because he's still a featherweight in what is at the very least a middleweight division, if not a heavyweight) but what you cannot do is stop him from trying, over and over again, to do the team thing. He makes a mistake, watch him beeline the ball and the ball carrier like it insulted his family.
Other than that, Walsh is an obvious one; that mark he took where Witts came through seconds later was what got him the rising star nomination. He's probably not going to have the highlight reel of Rozee or Rankine, but wearing that level of impact for your team is the epitome of our sport. Casboult is another, but not in a 'rub it in your face' way; he's not the best player, and he's not what you'd think about when you're dividing the team into mongrels or not. He definitely doesn't hurt people the way someone his size could. What he is is the distillation of want to improve; he's been given very simple instructions all the way through his career as to his path to improvement. He got fitter, fit enough to be a ruckman; he bulked up, became the best contested mark in the comp (at least, before Harry nicked it); and he beat himself into the ground to remake an appalling ball drop to become a fairly competent set shot over the last 3-4 years. We forget how many hits he's worn for us over the last few years, and before he broke his ribs last year he was absolutely flying.
Plow is quietly determined, and he genuinely doesn't brook any shit, don't know if he's got much mongrel in him yet. Ditto Jones. Setterfield does; wants to hurt everyone he tackles. Fish gets thrown around like a six year old, gets up with a smirk and waltzes off with the ball faster than you can blink.
I view the leaders of the team going forward as Weitering, Cripps, Docherty, Walsh, Gov, without any inside knowledge. All of these people bring something different to the table, and all of them have the steel to want to succeed. I'm pretty happy with the state of things as they are at the moment, but what I'd really like is for someone to locate a forward pocket with goalsense whose tackling technique is equal to their willingness to go the bump. Temper the latter - at least, until a hard block is required - but we probably need a few more down back, and at least 4 more across the forward line and midfield.
