Agree. Fast track him . Leaving aside Guelfi, of the younger players we tried this year, in the glimpse I saw of him, Mason impressed me as the one who now has the aggression, power, speed, skills and body shape to make it as an inside mid at AFL level.
Forget training him exclusively as a defender, give him a preseason with the mids and see how he goes. He should be a capable medium defender who we can run through the midfield rotation. Because all our mids need to be good defensively and run both ways.
Good luck to Mason breaking into our starting midfield, he’ll need to earn up some credits playing in the backline, personally I see him as a versatile long-term defender.
Sat next to him on a flight back from Queensland last week. Hell of a nice guy. Said he is tracking well for pre-season and will be running very shortly. If fit, he could be a regular next year. Great talent.
He has definitely got midfield potential. When he started playing really well at HB in the VFK early this year, he had stints in the middle during games, and really made a difference. He is stronger than his body shape suggests and gives considerable dash out of the stoppages.
Agree. In the VFL side, quite a few players are given opportunities to try out the inside mid roles. In several games Redman played stints as an inside mid and performed well (also imo) . But to really improve he needs to do some work on stoppage craft in the preseason, working with and against the topline midfielders in our best 22. After he does that, we will be in a better position to see if when he gets a chance at AFL level playing off half back he can be included in the midfield rotation
Well dammit. This will put him behind in the pre season. Probably beginning of March before fully running again, and he hasn’t had much since his previous injury. The man can’t take a trick. Majorly sucks.