I get it. But he's playing forward ruck because he simply wasn't delivering as a full forward and they are strengthening his bows. He wasn't recruited as a forward-ruck he was brought in to be our number 1 forward and hasn't shown enough up there consistently to deliver that and stay there. If he was taking 7-9 marks a game up front do you seriously think we'd be throwing him into the guts? Didn't do it originally but we've been forced to pursue plan B.
Chicken and egg IMO. If he was smashing it fwd would he be playing ruck? Iirc Bev said early last yr Boyd would play ruck if wasn't getting into games.
Firstly I think there is some movement of the goal posts going on here. You can't line up last week's performances (where he played ruck) and use it as evidence of Boyd being worse than all other key forwards, then when that fact is pointed out fall back on the incorrect assumption that he's only playing there because he can't impact as a key forward. Similarly it is entirely disingenuous to pass off Daniher's one game as "shit" and then use Boyd's one game as evidence that he's not good enough. I enjoy the posts of both of you but in this instance I feel you're bending over backwards to demonstrate that he's worse than others.
To address your argument however, I've gone back and done some research. Looking at team sheets etc, Boyd has played
ten games as a sole forward for us - all last year. Two of them he was subbed out in (one of these due to illness and one I can't remember; may have just been a poor game). These are the other eight games:
Round 3 vs Hawthorn: 14 disposals, 6 marks (2 contested), 3 goals, 1 tackle
Round 4 vs Adelaide: 8 disposals, 3 marks, 2 goals, 4 tackles
Round 5 vs Sydney: 9 disposals, 3 marks, 2 goals, 2 tackles
Round 6 vs St Kilda: 6 disposals, 4 marks, 2 behinds
Round 7 vs Fremantle: 8 disposals, 6 marks, 2 goals, 3 tackles
Round 9 vs GWS: 8 disposals, 5 marks, 1 goal, 1 behind, 1 tackle, 3 inside 50s
Round 12 vs Brisbane: 12 disposals, 6 marks, 4 goals, 1 behind, 2 tackles, 3 inside 50s
Round 13 vs St Kilda: 11 disposals, 4 marks, 1 goal, 4 tackles
Thus in full games as a pure forward (some of these he did play a little ruck also but didn't play as second ruck specifically) he averaged 9.5 disposals, over 4.6 marks and just under 1.9 goals, bringing him much further in line with the players mentioned by Deadly Dunkley. So yes, he is impacting as a key forward, even last year. He has poor games like all other young forwards - perhaps more - but he is also taking on a considerably greater role than is expected of many of them. When you account for this difference and look at games where he played similar roles, it brings him to around middle of the pack - and from a 200cm key forward with, frankly, an embarrassing tank, I would take that.
Nobody's excusing last week's game btw, it was poor. I just think some perspective is needed. He has performed fairly well this year so far in a huge role, so let's not jump up and down when he does have a poor game. I want to see more, but I also don't think week-by-week comparisons of players in different roles based on box score statistics are at all relevant. He's very clearly developing and none of us know where he's going to get to. Right now, though, he's going ok.