As this debate on how good Boyd will be is all guess work. Right at the moment if you were Simon Dalrymple and could have your pick between the young forwards who would you pick in order
My order would be
Boyd 7
Hogan 3
Cameron 2
Paton 9
Lynch 1
McCartin 4
Daniher 5
Moore 8
Schake 6
Hope in couple of years I am proven wrong.
Moore will be top 5. Absolutely guaranteed in my view.
McCartin won't be a better player than Boyd. McCartins lack of endurance and he is very slow for a 194cm player, all of which is covered by the fact that Riewoldt and Bruce take the best 2 defenders and the pair of them are endurance beasts. They do the lead up work up the ground and Bruce does the chop out ruck work. McCartin effectively doesn't have to leave forward 50 much if at all.
Boyd role differs greatly. He doesn't have a lead up CHF currently so he has to do the work to lead up on occasions . He also spends 40 percent of his game time in the ruck. Now I have watched his highlights from his 2014 season again and his body size is remarkably different. He was probably one of the slowest players in the Afl but at GWS that suited him. Mumford effectively had a career best season in 2014 and spent 90 percent of the game in the ruck. Throw in the fact that Jeremy Cameron and Patton did a whole heap of the lead up CHF work and you could see why Boyd could just sit in forward 50 and rag doll his opponents (which he could actually do even as an 18 year old).
Not sure who it is, might be
threenewpadlocks but it's always mentioned that players don't get shorter as the game gets longer. He is actually having a greater impact in the last quarters than the others (good sign). Even his best game at GWS was against Geelong in which he took several contested marks all in the last quarter.
This seems to me that Boyd can run the game out well enough but he can't run out the quarter if you get my drift. In that he is buggered after 15 minutes of hard yards but once he has a break he has recovered well and can have another go. Full credit to our conditioning staff in be able to get him to recover better.
In the long run theses are the things are going to help him become a stronger forward target which in my view will happen.
A) getting back into the weights room and strengthening his frame, which has taken a severe decrease in strength due to his conditioning program.
B) as his conditioning improves so to should his marking concentration. Concentration is the biggest key to marking, not hand size or strength but actually wanting the ball and focusing on the mark. Boyd is to tired to do this on many occasion and subsequently he drops marks he should take.
C) Roughead taking more time in the ruck. Decreasing the need for boyd to spend a heap of time in there means he will obviously be able to run out games better.
D) the return of Crameri, or in my opinion finding another athletic marking option. Very hard to play a mixture of deep forward, high marking forward and ruck. Another marking player would mean the reduction in need for Boyd to charge up the field and provide that marking option. We obviously want Boyd deeper, which will keep him fresher.
All of those factors will make him get to where he needs to be. I have no doubt he will get there but as a fan base we are just going to have to be thick skinned to continue to ignore the external noise that will come until a 6 or more week block of good games.