I’m pretty confident he’d be in the loop with the plan.
“Look Aaron, your gonna play this game and miss the next. That will continue for all of 2017 most likely. It’s all about getting your fitness up to the standard we expect as soon as possible, whilst also getting you experience at the top level”
Francis is named in the backline today in the VFL, so would be very interested to see if that eventuates. If he is, I would assume the plan is for him to get a few games back at VFL level and then bring him in. Not sure what the backline best setup is, as I would think Hurley and Ambrose are first picked, if you add Francis as 3rd tall we have 3 193cm tall defenders trying to match up on at least one 200cm key forward.
If we want a forward so bad, why the hell dont we just draft one instead of draft gun defenders to become forwards?
There are kids with no obvious weakness but only limited strengths. They are moulded into role-players. If they happen to be at a club with stars who carry the water, they can be part of an effective supporting cast - Hawthorn have a lot of them, which is being exposed this year.
If they aren’t at a club with a core of stars they struggle.
Francis is NOT in this category. His strengths are obvious. He is a marquee player in the making. Almost everything he does is italicised. He loves to impact games and he has the ability to do so.
Currently it seems as if his ambition doesn’t match his capability - primarily due to fitness but also due to finding a role that best fits his assets.
I haven’t seen enough of him to assert with any confidence where he should play. What I have seen indicates backline - 3rd tall, intercept floater. He’s a little bit “all or nothing”, blood-rush to the head type of forward. (He reminds of Michael Hurley in MANY ways.)
I just hope he isn’t impatient because he shouldn’t be gifted games to play cameos in the seniors until he is aerobically up to speed. Wait until he has destroyed VFL teams and then let him loose.
Exciting prospect!
Stewart’s game on Saturday night means we pretty much won’t see Francis in the seniors for the next ~6 weeks, barring injury. That’s actually a good thing.
Heavens above… is this THE “Crunchy Frog” from many years ago???
If so, great to have you back.
If not… well this is awkward…
It may be too tall but I’d really like to see this defense trotted out at some point.
McKenna Ambrose Hurley
McGrath Hartley Francis
Int: bags/kelly
Ambrose, hurls and Francis are all pretty mobile so it’s certainly not 4 dinosaurs down there. I think at the moment we are a little vulnerable to medium talls if Hurley/Ambrose are occupied by kpfs.
I can see Francis becoming a stort of Easton wood type. Both are real power athletes and I think it took wood a while to, get his body right and find his place too. Though wood is clearly not coming from as far back endurance wise he certainly had a lot of soft tissue problems early iirc.
Playing Francis off a flank should allow him to pick and choose when he follows his man up and when he can sags off as the spare. It allows him to play his natural game, reading the play and zoning off.
Now if Stewart is forward too that is a big big line up and you probably can carry too many big bodied mids with it but I’d still like to see how it functions.
Until Francis has midfield like fitness levels that HBF idea won’t be happening.
Play him at half-back, that’s his best position. He’d be a massive upgrade on McKenna or Gleeson if he gets recalled. Jimmy Stewart for me is the answer as the 3rd tall forward, he has a better tank, is more mobile and after just 1 game you can see he has the nous and synergy with Joey and Hooksey. Time to bring Franga back in at his pet position, he will kill it!
I’d hope our pick 6 became a superstar footballer unlike Easton Wood.
He’s good, but he ain’t no superstar
Wood is an absolute gun and if Francis could play that role as well as him we’d be thanking our lucky stars to have got him where we did.
I’d take All Australian defender, and premiership captain from Francis…
I have hoped Langford or Laverde could play that 3rd forward role ahead of Francis.
Now Stewart looks pretty good there at the moment. And is a genuine 3rd tall.
Francis would need some good VFL form to force his way back in.
I do see a role for francis as a rebounding 3rd tall defender if he can get his fitness up to standard required. At this stage just want him to stay injury free and force his way back in to the senior side so he can further his development.
So you’d be happy with Nick Maxwell at that pick?
I realize that was tongue in cheek but Maxwell couldn’t be relied on to beat guys bigger than him. Wood can
If he captained us to a flag… Sure, why not?
Glove and all?
If he can’t improve his fitness to basic 2nd or 3rd year draftee levels, and early indications are he is still nowhere near it, he won’t need to worry about what position he’s playing.
I never left. After a blitz crash I couldn’t sign back on as ‘crunchy frog’ because the site already had a ‘crunchy frog’ … ME. So I got into the spirit of the time and became the Mexican version - rana crujiente. With the advent of discourse blitz I have reverted back - albeit with underscore and number. But I did have to register with a different e-mail address because that pesky ME forbade me to register under my older e-mail address.
Glad that you remember me.
Some posters are hard to forget for all the wrong reasons… some because they actually make some sense which can stand out on this site.
You should post more.