It is somewhat relevant to how Buller was rated by the broad football community before last year’s MSD. If his WAFL form has been suggestive of AFL- gun potential, I think WC would have found a way to open a second MSD spot to take him before we did. As it was, we were the only club that showed any tangible interest given he was the last player taken.
Not that that’s either here nor there now.
My impression of him last year was that he was a hard worker but lacked a stand out athletic attribute. He didn’t show great pace on the lead, was found out by nimble defenders and was a decent contested mark but no more than decent (and against VFL opponents). His set shot kicking was also a mixed bag.
Set against that was the fact he had spent very little time in an elite AFL environment. He showed enough to suggest he might be able to achieve sufficient improvement in one or more key forward attributes to carve out a modest AFL career.
So I’m firmly on the fence about him and am looking forward to watching him early this year to see if the preseason has delivered much development. My gut feel is that his ceiling is probably at the Luke Vogels level - for anyone who can remember that far back. But I’d be delighted to be proved pessimistic. And Vogels did play a few more than handy games, even if he never loooked close to graduating beyond the level of “fringe”.
