My theory is his work rate has time to buy him more time and space in the front half so he executes kicks under less pressure and he’s kicking into less congested spaces
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Yay Nick Martin at half back wonder how he will go there
I reckon he’s just hungry and takes kicking at goal more seriously than from half back.
Move him the ■■■■ forward.
Was nice to see him line up on the wing at the opening bounce…
Please end the HBF experiment (if it hasn’t been ended already).
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We are depriving ourselves of a 30 goal and 20 goal assist per year forward.
It’s utterly mystifying.
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Is it really though…
Not really I guess. This IS the club that turned a bona fide gun FB in hurley into a fkg average forward for 5 years of his career.
This guy revealed the player he is on debut snagging 5 in a side that was pantsed.
Constantly sets up and kicks goals when played forward….yet a couple of seasons on is being played off a back flank.
Makes no sense.
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Hurls was a better forward until the taxi off field incident
So like his first off season?
It’s a stupid decision but he hasn’t even been playing HBF for a year, where are you pulling 2 from? (Edit nvm, I’m an idiot and apparently reading is hard).
Interestingly hes had more i50s this year than ever before.
Still must play wing/hf
I think they meant a couple of years of playing in the forward line, he’s now being played at half back
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Yep you’re right, I guess my brains cooked
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With how much we are lacking in forward entry we have to park him at HF with him moving up the ground as a mid at times.
Sending him forward has become the equivalent of the Fletch forward hail mary for Sheeds. Except Scott does it in basically every game we are not winning.
It’s negligence that he isn’t left in the forward half. Utter negligence.
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4th best kick inside 50 in the comp according to the hoyninator
brad pls
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He started on the wing last week.
He was on one wing and Jones was on the other.
He started there for the first 2 bounces, then Duursma came on and he swapped to half back.
Its actually a really weird change.
Yep, then Duursma stayed on one wing and Jones the other. It looks like we always want to keep one wing tall which means Duurs and Martin never play opposite each other, which is the line up I think most people would like to see, given they are by far our two best wingman.
I like what Jones has been doing recently but I would not be prioritising him over Martin on the wing, especially given we have struggled with the ground ball gets recently.
Thinking about it, I would drop Gresham and move Jones to half forward and allow him to roam up the ground so we still have that outlet mark, without going in too tall.
I really dont think Gresham provides much at all up the ground.
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The problem is every other defender in the back 6 is incapable of finding a target that’s not a sideways pass (Kelly, Lav, McKay, Hep) or are horribly out of form (Ridley, Redman, MvGrath). I think Martin is best as a forward half player btw.
I understand the concept of trying him out down back. As others have said, we have too many handbrakes in the back half who slow it down and have a tendency to take the safe option, rather than the risky 45 into the corridor to open up the play. Martin can also navigate traffic much more effectively than the others and is naturally a much quicker thinker and reactor to what is happening in front of him.
However, while I think Martin at hbf has been fine, we are basically robbing Peter to pay Paul. I think he is far better forward of centre and what we get from him in the font half outweighs what we lose from him in the back half. We don’t look anywhere near it atm, so if we really are trying to rebuild then the smart approach would be to play Martin on a wing/hff and slip Roberts or Tex in at half back. Both have shown that they can take the game on and are typically good users of the ball by foot. We leak like a sieve defensively anyway, what do we have to lose. Probably wont happen though…
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I agree with all of this, which is why I was so perplexed Mass didn’t get played more. Pretty much the game he got criticised over last year for his defensive efforts, but where he got 20-30 possessions and helped drive us off HB, is what Martin has been playing all year.
If Scott did want that, why didn’t he play Mass last year? If he doesn’t want that, why the hell is Martin playing there?
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