To be fair to Hurley, he’s not a ranga…
…and he’s a better kick.
But yeah, good to see him back. I never left the train to catch a bus. Good to see you up and about lad.
Took some good intercept marks and looks to have a totally different body shape. Few more weeks of management and hopefully he’s knocking on door of a recall
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I didn’t get the first half. How’d he go?
Imposing without being overly imposing.
See above
He competed well in some contests and took a lovely pack mark. He ran and spread well on a couple of occasions I noticed. Did pretty well.
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Just getting the feet wet again.
Nice little Cameo today.
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Great work Franga. Just being out there and dealing with this shows a strength in character That you should be very proud of. A lot of people in your situation would run but the strength you are showing will be an inspiration to your teammates. I look forward to watching your career.
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That’s not a knock on Hurls though, right?
He does ok for a blonde guy …
No I think someone has photo shopped that in, Microsoft paint or something.
The intercept making and sheer power to burst from standing still.
THAT’S what his x factor is.
Conditioning,Conditioning,Conditioning.
Games,Games,Games.
#And continued support to assist with any non-physical needs.
Now that Aaron has openly put his hand up, I believe it will allow him to recover quicker.
He doesn’t have to ‘pretend’ anymore, and the expectations and pressure he puts on himself
can be more reasonable thus allowing him to enjoy his footy more.
And the happier he is, the more passionate he will be, and the harder he will train!!!
Then he will be in.
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The bit on the wing where he’s five metres behind two guys, realises the ball will not go out of bounds and he is needed, and then switches on the nitro to burn past both of them… damn!
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Dont know about others, but I just loved seeing him out there. I love it when people overcome adversity, and he looked to me like he enjoyed himself. He was engaged in the contest and threw himself into it each time he had to. Great signs in my opinion. Hopefully he’s on the path to build his fitness and play a role in the back pocket for the seniors at some point. He could be a weapon in the pocket.
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Same as TWatson2 - great to see him out there on Sat.
It did get me thinking though.
The way the AFL style of play has evolved, a lot of teams now focus on applying pressure at every contest to either win a clearance, or at least prevent the opposition from getting too many “high quality” forward 50 entries.
The Crows did this well last year, but then they added an additional dimension to it by using Lever’s intercept marking to increase the rate of those i-50s that became turnovers.
We aren’t the best pressure/contested ball side, but if Francis can come through into the 1s, his intercept marking and rebounding would make a colossal improvement to our structure. We can destroy teams on the rebound, so adding a bloke that play a role similar to Lever’s would be immense.
I really don’t want to build up any pressure on him at this stage - at the moment it’s just brilliant he’s back out on the park - but geez if he’s able to realise his potential in the future, he could be a huge inclusion for us at some stage.
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Looks so lean now. i think its a good thing, getting to contests more will help more than being able to monster the ones you’re there for.
If Aaron can do that, added to the current interceptors Gleeson, Hurley and Hooker, it would make our defence the best rebounding team in the league. A delicious prospect.
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Throw in the McKenna and Saad and you’d have the most attacking backline in the league. I’m sure they’d have the odd bad day but they’d be great to watch!
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He’s certainly the most like for like replacement we have for Gleeson. There’s definitely a spot there for him if he can string some form and kms together
/fxd
Both really. Except Franga probably won’t be picking up 25-30 disposals a game anytime soon