Agree, but the chicken v egg is: are the coaches giving him games because he’s more confident, or is he more confident because the coaches are backing him?
IMO how he was picked & dropped for over 2017 & start of this year stuffed him up. Was worrying about not making mistakes, classic sign of confidence not being there
I reckon he’s a fair bit physically stronger this year too, 2017 KL got worked off the ball a fair bit, not happening anywhere near as much in 2018.
I’ve always thought he was pretty average but after watching him live at the games last 2 weeks I would just keep playing him. We need bigger mids an least we can keep improving him.
I thought Langers had a good game. A good blend of negative work and elite field kicking - something we sorely need. His form over the last few games and the indication of, to me mean he should stay in for the rest of the year.
I agree, I also like how he doesn’t mind getting tackled to give himself that extra second to dish it off, it also helped give us a goal against GWS. This is something I haven’t seen in previous years. His field kicking was mostly clean and I liked what I saw yesterday. Keep him in.
In terms of their contest work the big difference between Lang and Myers is that Lang gets his hands up over the tackle and releases. Myers rarely seems to do this trying to barge through instead, often resulting in a repeat stoppage, or dump it on the boot, often resulting in a turn over.
I think he had a period where he learned to kick within his limitations, and it worked out pretty well for him. Dont think his field kicking could ever be considered borderline elite though.