and a Norm Smith or 2
This is the nub of it according to an astute observer. “The kid is not explosive, if he had that xfactor watch out. That said, he continues to develop which he clearly has the mindset to want to do, the Hawks may have stolen one here. Combined with Ward, his good mate, Newcombe and Worpel, the Hawks are doing their best to turn a weakness into a strength”
I think Newcombe (and hopefully Finn) is going to be massive for us in 2022. If long developers, we will have three strong body mids that will be able to physically dominate opposition and feed the ball out to the likes of ward, bramble and downie.
Can’t undervalue his running power though, shades howe, in the elite category and I would value as one of the most important things in the modern game.
I agree. Howe's best this year was really quite good. If it weren't for the niggling injury issues he's had over the last few years he'd have probably reached that point quite a while ago and instead of being a whipping boy would have been regarded similar to Shiels during the threepeat years (ie. not the star but the work horse that enables the stars to look so good). Hopefully Long can develop quickly into this kind of player, if not an even better version of it.
Dayle Garlett & Billy Hartung threads were pretty hot at the time.
Long is a rookie. His thread performance is crushing his draft position!
Pretty much what we were hoping Howe would become. Hopefully he isn’t held back by the same troubles as Howe. Long looks to have a lot of ability and seems a very hard worker.
The experience with ward playing all juniors together, might make them an exciting combo for many years. The podcasts with Mcgowan on juniors playing together is pretty interesting.
Hard agree
Geoff Ablett was the racehorse super quick winger out at princes park!
He’s behind too many others to debut in Round 1.
I tend to agree though I was more referring to Harveys comment around him being included with Ward and McDonald pushing for a round one spot. Anyway, carry on buzz kill.
