#18 Michael Hurley -- now coaching

I’m going to throw out there that maybe he was never that good and could run around looking good whilst Hooker protected his man, mopped up when he didn’t mark, takes intercepts to protect him in 1v1s.

Last year he sucked until Hooker went back, then appeared to come good. Now Hooker is out he sux again.

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He was all-Australian in 2017, when Hooker played forward all season…

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He’s never been a really good one on one defender but he has been a very good play maker from the backline. The problem now is that we leave our backline so open he can’t possibly zone off anymore & instead is left having to compete against multiple forwards when the oppositions mids get clear & settled inside 50’s.

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When he was monstered by a one legged Keefe it just summed our day up.

The back 6 all looked lost at times today.

“Not enough Beast for this thread”

It must be done.

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That’s not true. His one on one work was once the best attribute in his game and we farked him round by turning him into a playmaker

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Why?

Whoever decided that he should drop size and be a hbf instead of a key position backmen should be fired and left in the gutter.

He got beaten clearly by okeefe…OKEEFE!!!

He is not a leader down there, anytime anything goes wrong he drops his head. Hooker on the other hand leads from the front, head up, shouts instructions.

Hurley is a senior player in title only

In Hurley’s best season (2015), Hooker played half the year up forward.

Hurls was a friggin beast in 2015, still surprised at how many people forget that.

He is a mere shadow of his former self.

The saga really farked his career.

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I think the weightloss has a lot to do with the back issues he was having.

I get the feeling they were far bigger an issue than we ever found out.

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imo I don’t think he even picked up a weight during his ban year. He looked so thin when they came back in for the pre season in 2017. Then we tried to turn him into an attacking HBF for some moronic reason

My theory is that his body is caput we know he has had issues with his wrists and his back(?) a combo of the two chronic conditions would make it very hard to do much strength work. He clearly isn’t as strong as he used be and that affects his 1-on-1 work, which dents his confidence, it would also explain why the coaches tried to cut him down to a running rebounding tall

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Tend to disagree, he’s first game if I remember correctly he held he’s own with tredrea in the one on ones, he was super strong. He’s a shell of he’s former self sadly, the confidence off the bloke is shot after being beaten in the contest

He’s had some stand out games against top opponents scattered across a decade but he’s never been able to consistently do that over an extended period & post his wrist issues he’s never going to be able to be that dour defender who shuts down the key forwards week after week especially with the way we allow easy entry.

Yeh I agree

What constitutes an extended period?

Is the second half of 2014, and the entire season of 2015 extended?

That was after his wrist injuries, too. If there is any injury that appears to have farked him, it’s the back problem.

Personally I’d say multiple seasons not part of one then some here & there but consistently being reliable.

Its hard to say which injury has restricted him more but he certainly has lost his marking & spoiling abilities which at least appears to be closer related to his wrists. He doesn’t appear to be greatly restricted in his general movement & agility.

So for VFL watchers . How far away is ZT ?

It doesn’t matter, we’ll manage to stuff his development up as well.

He never moved to defence until 2014, in which he was in AA contention by the end of the year, was the clear AA by the next. Then, at the absolute peak of his career, the suspensions happened.

Prior to that… The only thing he brought to the table as a forward was his one-on-one and body work, it certainly was never his marking. Plus, he’d regularly get moved back, and not because we needed somebody to get 30 loose touches, but because a big forward had got out of hand and Hurley had to stop them.

Prior to 2017, his entire career was built on being a consistent one-on-one player, and a damn strong one.

As for which injury hurt him the most… Who knows? But his wrists were cooked about 5 years before he suddenly couldn’t defend anymore.

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