Still haven’t even scratched the surface with this kid imho. Was born to play inside mid but frame was too light when he got drafted. Always had the knack of finding the ball and has the attitude and mongrel to do the defensive things.
I could see him and Smith squaring off of the the title of ‘tackling king’ over the next five years!
Has elite hands, kicking still lacks a little grunt/polish. A very solid pick and still plenty of upside. Love the fact that we are getting a few more guys with the ‘swagger’ back at the club. Stringer, Smith, Parish… all don’t mind strutting a little… good to see!
The main thing holding Parish back from being an A-grader is simply his fitness IMO. Has always shown he can impact a game early in quarters with generally more prolific 1st halves than the 2nd. Has a very high intensity game so you can see why he would slowly tire. Him doing a mini running preseason after his injury coinciding with career best form on his return supports this.
I think that’s a very positive thing as we will see his best very soon as he starts to hit peak fitness over the next 2-3 years. And obviously added size/strength is going to help his contested ball and ability to lay and hold tackles too.
Parish is an aerobic beast. Let’s not forget he played mostly in the guts in his first year. His first preseason he was training with the mids doing a lot of the work. No problems with his fitness. His numbers are more likely impacted by concentration, assigned role on game day.
Fitness is not an issue. Darcy needs to improve his kicking, which he is working on, and he turns it over a bit too much. Both those things I expect to no longer be a problem by next year. For mine he’s tracking nicely.
Is there evidence to suggest he’s a bad kick?
I understand he doesn’t kick bullets but he’d be closer to the bottom of the list for errors by foot. He’s kicking is limited but it’s in control.
Orazio has them all covered barr Smith for swagger! But i agree, add a confident McNernan and JD to that list and our forward line swaggers so much it’s no surprise they can’t kick straight!
legit his kicking has been good the whole season, bar a couple of blunders here and there.
he will never have bullet kicks like zach, so you can stop with that fantasy, but he has great vision and capable enough footskills to capitalise on it, and i think that showed through on a couple of occasions on the weekend.
kicking is so down on the list of things he must improve on. consistency within games and maintaining the rage that he brings to the first half of his games is what he should be working on…
He has pulled off some brilliant kicks, love his across the body kicks. Haven’t noticed anything to suggest he’s changing anything up with his kicking either.
Fitness, strength and defensive decisioning should be his goals in the short term.
I never count the current season when talking about how long they have been playing. Strange but that’s just what I do. So when someone says they have been critical of him for a couple of years I take that to be the 2 years that have been complete, this year isn’t complete yet.