Ballard is an excellent clearance player, picking the ball up off the deck in congestion is way harder to do than it sounds and Ballard is quite adept at doing it. But is it enough? Probably not. It's one thing to be able to fire a handball out of congestion but all the best mids in the AFL do way more than that. Pendles, Mundy, Fyfe etc. all find time and space in congestion, they hold the ball and wait for opportunities to develop.
I was admiring Cripps' game against the Saints earlier this year on the non freo thread and I think it was
Tayl0r who suggested that he needed to kick the ball more. In retrospect, I think she's right and Ballard tends to play a bit like Cripps, tackle, extract the ball, handpass.
I've noticed substantial growth in Blakely's game over the course of the season. I saw Connor and Boekhorst play against Peel twice last year and I remember thinking after each game, "I hope we don't draft either of those two". That's where I have a lot of admiration for the recruiting guys, they don't just see the player today, they see the player in 3 years time. Connor is now carrying the ball longer and distributing it further away from congestion. He backs himself to break a tackle and looks to kick the ball into the F50, he executed a lovely left foot kick inside 50 in the first qtr yesterday.
IMHO this is what Ballard needs to do. People make way too much of his DE, he's a good kick, probably on par with Barlow or Blakely. I saw some stats last week that suggested he was the biggest offender of high tackles for Peel. His first tackle yesterday was on Johnson (I think) and he put his hand straight on the shoulder of a very tall EP player and gave away a free, so maybe he also needs to work on his tackle technique. But if we want to see him playing in purple then in my view he needs to do more with his possessions.
He's got a big body, good pace and good endurance. I want to see him using these attributes to break out of a pack and carry the ball. He doesn't need to run and bounce, I'd just like to see him run his full measure and distribute with a kick. If he could that a bit more in the second half of the year then he would be and obvious upgrade.