Funny that, they probably decided to follow Essendon, who played Conor as a goal square forward from his first game in the VFL. It worked very well. So much so, Conor scored a goal with his first kick in AFL footy.
In fact what is often forgotten is that Conor also has very very good goal sense and can snap goals from almost any angle. One day we will play him forward and he will kick a bag !
McKenna showed heaps of promise in the forwardline, and it allowed him to develop his skills and understanding of the game in a position where it didn’t make his lack of game awareness a complete liability. Although if you go giving away consecutive 50m penalties, it doesn’t matter much where you play.
In preseason training i observed both Saad and McKenna rotating from wing to attacking half back flank roles in match sim.
Saad in that role looked lost and was covered by Gleeson for positioning, while McKenna played an attacking wing position but was able to get back to support the defence and roll back to move the ball forward through the midfield.
I believe we have a potential low 20 ave possession midfielder next season who can hit the scoreboard 1 or 2 times a game.
Or
do we continue to build the chemistry between Saad and McKenna with Gleeson, Redman and Mcgrath and Guelfi as the small defenders.
I’m interested to see how they prepare him in pre season because his growth and development has been incredible.
The midfield is overrated. Conor has the potential to be the best HBFer in the league (think Johanisen in his norm Smith performance). Leave him there.
For those who don’t remember: when Conor started his first preseason at the club, they put him in the backline because that’s what you do. It’s the best way to teach a newbie; they can react rather than being forced to create.
Very shortly afterwards, they concluded he was way too good for that, and sent him forward.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they started rotating the half backs through the wing as part of their quest to get more numbers through the midfield.
There’s certainly no shortage of guys who could do both; Gleeson, McKenna, Redman, Ridley, Guelfi, McGrath. Heppell and Zaka and Merrett are all more than capable of playing HB as well if need be
Yeah it seems they’ve been reluctant to rotate players through the backline up until now, but you can see a scenario where all of those guys are deserving of senior games