i’m very pleased and impressed with what he’s shown at VFL level this year. His progress has been significant.
He’s very much in the witts/goldy mold of ruckmen. A bit cumbersome but gets to where he needs to get too. he’s more polished than those two and has a better leap. He needs about another two preseasons in the gym before he can compete with senior AFL ruckmen thought and probably a few more still before he can dominate some of them. He’ll get there though i reckon. We just to be patient.
how we fit both him and draper into the team though is complicated. bryan is every inch a stand alone no.1 ruck to my eye. he doesn’t have the speed he needs to be consistently dangerous as a forward. Draper does though. Draper’s forward craft has improved a lot this year, his work around the ground as ruckmen hasn’t really though. Draper’s big impact is in the centre creating chaos with his strength and breakaway speed.
i wouldn’t mind seeing them work as a combination where draper does say 70% of the centre square work and then pushes forward but only about 30% of the round the ground stuff while bryan does the opposite. bryan isn’t quite ready for that though (if we want to be really competitive this year). If we weren’t in the finals race that’s 100% what i’d be doing. you could probably make a strong argument we should be doing it anyway.
Correct. This cant be taught. I dont doubt there’s a bit if talent there, but ive seen junior footy ruckman play with more intensity. Its painful to watch.
I sort of agree with it. I still think it’s unlikely he makes it, but I’m fine to give him next year to prove himself.
He can still get something out of his career (even if it’s not the next Dean Cox).
I thought the same of David Hille when he was getting games. He looked timid against all ruckmen but it wasn’t until he got some strength and muscle into him and he learned how to use it to his advantage that he became a ‘better than average’ ruck. And the timid David Hille wasn’t so much of an issue anymore.
Absolutely he has to play.
I just want him to get stronger with his hands. If you are getting two hands on the ball you need to be taking them. Hopefully just a confidence thing
I’m tired of this narrative. It’s plain wrong. He’s been getting good disposal numbers in the seconds and he had seven disposals in less than a quarter and a half against the Dockers.
