WARNING: Long post ahead.
Also, some of the points have been made while I was writing it. Nevertheless...
There are some insidious fallacies starting to dig into the groupmind around here that need to be debunked.
Fallacy #1 - Carlisle was 'almost' AA last year as a defender
Truth: Several members of the media pumped Carlisle's tyres as a possible AA contender until about round 15. However, 99% of the members of the media are idiots. It's all very convenient for Blitzers to ignore this well established fact when it suits their arguments. Furthermore, at least part of what made Carlisle's performance so impressive were the occasional, and highly effective, transitions into the forward line. They flattered some of his games.
Fallacy #2 - Hurley provides a 'presence', aka Hurley "constantly presents", aka "crashes packs"
Truth: This is a case of revision of history to suit the story. Yeah Hurley often created a contest, sometimes spectacularly. But "constantly"/"consistently" ... come on. Lack of repeat efforts was one of the major problems for the forward line last year. Maybe the Carlisle/Daniher combination is worse for repeat efforts (I honestly couldn't say), but that doesn't make it a strength of Hurley's.
His aerobic capacity is not good enough, yet. But worse, his running patterns and forward-play 'nous' are terrible. These contests that everyone is suddenly so enamored of, more often than not he was cleaning up one of his teammates in the process because they both led to the same spot.
Fallacy #3 - We should put both Carlisle and Hurley in defence and recruit a forward
Truth: Can't be done. Not for, oh, about 3 years anyway.
We would be almost no chance of securing a quality, established KPF in the trade/draft/free agency swapmeet this year. They don't move all that often (except to Sydney), and we would not have the salary cap for one until Goddard's contract rolls off.
Any 18 year old draftee would not make the difference for at least 3 years, unless they are like Patton (sans ACL) or Boyd, but they were #1 picks, which we won't have.
We probably should draft a couple of forwards (including at least one tall), but that won't solve the Hurley/Carlisle issue, or our forward line/scoring issues in 2014/2015/2016.
Fallacy #4 - Carlisle sucks and/or sulks as a forward
There is no formline in that story.
Against the 'aints, everyone looked bad, and uninterested, and lazy, and pathetic. But Carlisle was the only one sulking because he was being forced to play as a forward?
Fallacy #5 - Hurley has not played well in defence
[This fallacy is not widespread, nor stated as explicitly as this, but it is clearly creeping into the narrative at the fringes.]
Truth: Riewoldt is an excellent player in (near) career-best form and he more or less won the game for the 'aints. Hurley won some contests (and I really liked a couple of those marking duels where Hurley took the body) but, yeah, Riewoldt got away from him.
Previously, Hurley had flattened Black (okay, not a world-beater), blanketed Roughead (or was it Gunston - I don't remember), and had 23 possessions in the whitewash against Carlton. I didn't watch the game against Freo (no Foxtel), but I doubt he had a good day in a near 10-goal loss.
Up until last night (or possibly last Sunday), based on my own viewings and the majority of others' comments we had a defender who:
- Attacked the contest;
- Showed surprising speed to keep/catch up on the lead;
- Won grapples and other marking contests - side-by-side, in front, and from behind;
- Marked in his hands out in front after dashing past his opponent;
- Spoiled aggressively;
- Distributed the ball, long or short, left or right side.
He hasn't had as many members of the media lining up to suck him off as Carlisle-2013 (although there are a few, including Leigh Matthews who had previously doubted the switch), so he is not going to 'almost' be AA, but he has shown himself to be a good defender with the potential for much higher heights than it looked like he would achieve as a forward.
Fallacy #6 - [Implicit] No one ever improves
Truth: This is classic Blitz. A couple of bad games from someone learning their role, and they are rubbish and will never be good at it and things should be changed. Usually it is more like "drop Melksham", "delist Baguly", "shouldadraftedCyril", but this is exactly the same linear, short-sighted mentality.
I don't know if Carlisle can be a good forward. I do know that I am not surprised that he is not there yet. I do know that he is 23 this year, he has just gone past 50 senior games of which only a handful have been in the forward line. I do know that players often improve, and rarely in a predictable, linear fashion.
I also know that Hurley had just about proven he was never going to make the grade as a top key forward. Hypocritical? Possibly, but I don't think so. He had 4-5 years to learn the position, with limited signs of progress, and some signs of regress. "But they were injury interrupted". Sure, partly because nearly the only thing he was good at doing as a forward was running into people - hard. There's a good chance he would have continued to get injured, so continued to disrupt his development, and so never get the opportunity to learn all the things he clearly had not learned by the end of 2013.