- Jun 11, 2013
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So what is his role? Even in contested possessions, Ranked 20th in the league is pretty ordinary considering you're getting that much of the pill. 34.3 is his average, 11.5 are contested. Should be creating more when he has uncontested possessions.
i wont type out fully what I think his role is but in short hes basically often playing back of the ball as the link-up man in chains of possession off HB and out of the D50. He will cover the ground backwards to provide a release (kinda like a pressure valve) for contested ball inside the D50. In the mids he will swing the ball, quite often to the left, looking for a player running past (with our current gameplan its intended to be a HB) to run and carry. Alternatively, he will kick the ball I50 himself, but usually he defers to more penetrating kicks.
So he is usually the 2nd player in a chain of 3.
That's not to mention all of his other work, which is mostly working really hard all over the ground to provide an exit point, OR a starting point for broken chains of plays, or when our gameplan is stagnant and players don't know what to do.
You say that he gets a lot of his disposal in the back half. That is by design. He won a brownlow medal doing that.
the problem I have with typing this stuff out is you're clearly biased against him (as i am biased towards him), so please ensure any further discussion won't be held in bad faith because I've spent energy trying to explain how something works and it is incredibly infuriating if all that will come back is 'yeah but it doesn't work' or 'he should be doing it better' or some other dumb s**t that contributes nothing. I'm certain this has already been explained to you but you repeat it as a leading question instead of trying to generate valid discussion
absolutely he could be more damaging, that's always been a valid criticism of him, but that's not how he plays. He has his strengths as a player but a long, penetrating left foot, bursting through packs and kicking goals on the run are not part of them. He makes the most of what he's good at: his physical attributes, his elite workrate, typically good decision-making and understanding of the game. He's never going to be that game-breaking Danger, Fyfe etc. mid. He doesn't need to be, we just need to surround him with players like that which better utilise his strengths.
I feel like pinpointing him out of our side seems pretty off the mark when literally 15 other players have underperformed over the past 2 weeks