Other clubs would be “we love what Huss can bring as a natural forward, and it’s up to the rest of the team to ensure he doesn’t get caught out trying to defend 5 guys running off him”. Essendon will likely drop him and the coach will say “look, he has to work on his fitness and defensive game, and he knows that”.
One reinforces the positives, the other makes a big deal out of the negatives. One builds a player up, while one just creates doubt and hurts a players confidence to the point where they second guess the things that they can do well.
Did anyone expect him to have the required fitness? I doubt it. So why play him? Because we needed a small forward and needed to expose Huss to the levels of fitness that are required.
I think its no surprise his fitness isn’t up to AFL standard yet, I would say the majority of fresh draftees wouldn’t be at the required fitness even if it wasn’t their biggest downside pre-draft.
You then add that he was basically the only player we could expect to apply pressure in the forward half, its a tough gig for him so I am not surprised he didn’t run out the game too well.
But he did apply the 8th most pressure acts for the game and 4th for Essendon so I wouldn’t say he never didn’t try, he just couldn’t keep up.
It is shocking to me, that a player everyone could tell was lacking a bit of fitness played more game time(76%) than Perkins(73%), Caldwell(72%), Durham(72%), Parish(69%) and Roberts(61%).
If any player going into this game would need longer spells on the bench to increase their effectiveness it would have been Huss.
Let’s see what he does with at least Kako in the team to help out and allow him to have longer spells on the bench, although I would also bring in Guelfi or Gresham to help the forwards even more.
If he is dropped it will only be for either Guelfi or Gresham and I think sticking with Huss will be the better long term play unless either of those move the needle so much we start winning.
I also find it funny seeing the praise Latrell Pickett is getting when his stats look identical to Huss’, with Huss having a lot more defensive efforts than Pickett, while not having the luxury the best small forward in the game along side you plus Chandler who is a very good role player.
Watching Freo and I think Dudley would be a great player for HEA to look at. Like Huss, not the ideal or typical body type for AFL footy, but he is so impactful and clearly worked hard on fitness since coming into the league and a very important part of Freo team now.
I’ve always said huss could be a Lachie Schulz. We really need to invest in small forwards though it’s bloody frustrating. It’s like when we were behind on big body midfielders forever when they were in fashion.
I flew up for the game (I need to see a psychologist) watching this bloke live is the embodiment of Essendon as a club. His conditioning is so far off the pace it’s insane. The new rules have made it impossible to carry players like this now.
For every chance he created from breaking a tackle etc, he would let Port walk it out of defence 10 times as the weakest link in our press.
I’m not joking when i say watching Bergman walk away from him while Huss was gassed in the first quarter was one of the most demoralising scenes live i remember at the footy.
There’s a player there, he just needs to play reserves for a season..
