Ever heard of Dustin Martin?
what? no way. bolton’s a sublime kick (if a little hit and miss because he takes risky options). ham has a neat short kick, but anything longer than that and it’s a saad-esque bomb
it’s tempting to say ‘bolton is 77kg too’ but that would be ignoring the fact that bolton is an exquisite talent despite his size. i think he will be an absolute star, so the comparison with ham is probably unfair.
Bolton laid some amazing tackles in the GF, too.
I think you’re confusing your Ham with your Hams.
Ham is a really nice, penetrating kick over 50-55 metres.
Bolton is the classic dinky, kick around corners but struggles at distance kick.
Most people understand “stacking the midfield with…” to refer to more than one of that thing.
Some people evidently need that spelled out, so thank you for pointing it out.
Very good tackler.
Hams is one of those guys who’s better than he should be. But still has a bit of work to go against the really big boys.
I was more disagreeing with the part where you said "while Richmond have actively gone the other way, with smaller, lighter & faster players through midfield.
Seems to be working for them."
Recruiting small/light/quick mids is fine when you already have the best big bodied mid in the league. If we wanted to copy Richmond we shouldnt be trying to find the next Shai Bolton, we should be looking for the next Dustin Martin.
His name is Archie Perkins
7 Likes
I hope so!
1 Like
Hams and other small guys just need to learn how to tackle properly, hit at pace and attack the arms/ball
I wouldnt be expecting Ham to be a good inside player, going back to his juniors his greatest asset was his ability to hit the scoreboard in bunches; he had multiple games where he kicked bags of 3-5.
He should be watching tapes of sidebottom so he learns where to position himself to be as annoying as possible to opposition fans.
2 Likes
This thread is farking confused.
Caracalla is one of our coaches. I think he will have plenty of opportunity to learn this sort of thing.
2 Likes
Good speed, endurance, not bad skills and ok over head. I think he’s got plenty to work with and if he can find a bit more of his own ball this year I think a few might be pleasantly surprised.
He’s got a lot of work to do but he he’s got a very good chance of making it a career.
2 Likes
shai bolton is a hell of a lot better player, and talent than ham. weird comparisons
4 Likes
Oh, I see.
Because we don’t have Dustin Martin, we should stop trying to do anything else at all. Leave everything else as is, and just wait for the 2021 drafts.
Im not saying that at all, im saying your example is bad. Using richmond as an example for why we shouldnt draft big bodied contested ball winners makes so sense because we dont have big bodied contested ball winners whereas richmond has the best big bodied mid in the league.
So every other side should just give up?
The point is, they’ve found a way to win without picking lots of contested ball winners.
In fact they’re one of the worst sides at winning contested possession, and have been for years.
So why the obsession with it?
Do we want to win contested footy, or be like Richmond?
our clearance work is fine. the 2 single biggest issues our midfield have are two way running (our mids are often terrible defensively) and kicking skills
in short, we need two way runners that can kick
7 Likes
While Richmond are not be a high contested ball team (they’re not a high disposal team generally), they do have some of the best contested players in the comp in terms of beating their man one on one - Dusty, Lynch, Reiwoldt (but he looks cooked now), Grimes, Balta, with their whole system essentially revolves around getting these players one on ones. Cotchin also averages more contested possies than anyone on our list.
Now that Hooker’s likely cooked and Daniher is gone, I don’t see a player on our list that could win those big one on ones. Stringer is probably the closest player we have to being that sort of player, and while I think his contested marking has improved while with us, he still can work on that side of the game more
1 Like