Yeah I’m with you on this. Love his endeavour, but his kicking is very poor and he needs to keep his feet.
He averages about two frees against per game which I think rates pretty high across the comp, especially for players with a decent number of games played.
I think he’s good, and we’d be better if everyone played with his apparent intent, but we don’t get a hell of a lot from his possessions.
I’ll worry about this when he hits an opponent on the chest.
When has his kicking been poor?
I have been pleasantly surprised with his kicking given everyone was saying it was awful.
Is that the sound of a can of worms being opened….
Can you clarify: if Hobbs kicks it to a contest and the ball comes to ground and is cleared by an opposition player, is that a turnover? I’m thinking maybe our midfielders’ turnover numbers are up because our small forwards are so poor in these situations.
I watched the game yesterday and there’s no way he kicked/handpassed the ball directly to the opposition 12 times.
I believe that is considered a turnover, yes.
Could be wrong though, but I definitely know that if he kicks to a player who gets out marked in a one on one contest, it is considered a turnover, regardless of who was at fault.
Its not a great stat.
He definitely had kicks that missed targets by a fingernail.
Another nameless midfielder had kicks that missed their target by 10-15 metres.
Your bias is showing a little there Wim.
A little?
Just a tad.
Parish had 1 or 2 kicks yesterday that completely missed the target btw.
I also thought this. I’ve seen him hit some ripping kicks this season, not greatly concerned by anything I’ve seen on this front. I also don’t expect perfection from players, especially 19 year-olds who’ve played 30 games.
He’s an absolute ripper, we need more players like him.
Obviously.
But come on.
Comparing a 19 year-old to a mature potential Brownlow medalist?
Had a gutfull of the blitz meme that he can’t kick.
It’s not true.
It was never true.
And he Doesn’t hit opponents lace out under no pressure like Parish does, and if he did, he’d be dropped.
The knock on him right now is that he takes just a liiiiiitle too long to assess.
But he’ll get better at that.
Oh, and if you’re waiting for him to stop throwing himself at the ground ball, you’re in for a very long wait.
Pretty much every phantom draft had him top 4
Can’t kick? No, that’s not true at all.
But kicking would be the biggest weakness in his game though. It’s sloppy at times. But that’s ok, I don’t think it’s concerning and he makes up for it in other ways.
Parish did that once yesterday, can we stop with the crap?
Fark me if you went on blitz you would think Parish routinely kicked it to the other teams players.
He literally did it one time yesterday.
Agree though Hobbs is a solid kick.
Again, I disagree.
I think his greatest weakness right now is that he takes too long to move it on from an uncontested possession.
Possibly because he’s aware of the main unfair criticism of him, possibly not.
Especially F50 he needs to sense the moment and move the ball on if he doesn’t have enough time to steady and shoot, been caught cold a few times HTB 30-40 metres from goal and it’s a big momentum killer
But again he’s 19 so we can barely criticise the kid, very exciting future
They’re a bit related as he has a relatively high ball drop and takes longer to get it to boot.
Notwithstanding it’s not his biggest weakness
McGrath has been such a disappointment. Smart enough to know what to do, but just won’t execute it.
Really pleased with how Hobbs is building and developing. Goes in hard, works hard all game. Think he will be a long term ripper and a favourite.
One thing (I think) he should work on during the off-season is keeping his feet more in contests. He tends to dive down to go after the ball but if he does win it then he is out of the play. If he does win it then he will often get pinged for HTB. Needs to learn the art of gathering the ball on his feet, less chance of being done for HTB.