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Bye Bye Jack Higgins!
- Thread starter Maxwell
- Start date
Higgins is a mid not a small forward.
In 2018 where he hardly missed a beat and we barely lost a game, his greatest influence was in the guts. At times he put our more experienced mids to shame.
I did say Daniel can't get a kick!Dan had 2 kicks last week & 4 the week before!
#LiesDamnlies&statistics
I agree he is a mid.
I am still surprised to see Higgo back playing in the big league after his serious health problems and to see him starting to get all his old confidence back in his body and his role is encouraging. A way to go yet but the signs are there. If only he had more speed of foot
Higgo is still averaging more effective disposals than all of Rioli, Bolton, Castagna. Didn't check last week but 2 weeks ago Higgo had many more pressure act points than Bolton and Castagna and just less than Rioli. Right now he's our best performed. His disposal is nowhere near as bad as he's been producing. I trust that to improve with confidence and more forward team mate support.
Higgo is coming back from having his brain cut open and yet would be top 5 in the B&F at the moment. Amazing blight on his team mates. Feel sorry for the kid.
Totally agree. But for a poster or two, Higgo looks sharp; mercurial, bold. He's got a quick brain, esp given the surgery (no pun intended).
Thirty months ago in an interview with Matt Clarke nervous teen Jack Higgins was asked what he had to offer an AFL club. Higgins famously said "I have nothing to declare but my genius."
Two years later our prodigy reminded the world of this when he performed his own brain surgery. You doubted?
I certainly did.
I'll leave the human interest angles for those who like humans. I'm only interested in numbers and football.
Jack is very small 178/78? Did he test 3.14 for 20m? Can he jump at all? Why is he on a list? Does he get ball? Nup. Can he outgoal Gary Ablett even if only once? Yeah. He can do that. So there is something to this idea of his genius.
What about the practical world?
He can't play small forward with those disadvantages - he might as well be a tall. Defensive pressure is everything in small forwards and it always was. Jack can't bring that. JR is quicker at them.
In 2020 he could play high but he'd need to be very constructive and he'd have to read the play well enough to vector for defensive position. (He can do that for attacking position.) Oh, that's right - his field kicking in 2019 was poor so constructive is not a demonstrated virtue. Cf Liam Baker similarly too slow to play forward but brilliantly constructive. Higlet's kicking, ball use in general, is not in the same galaxy. Or at least in 2019 it wasn't.
Jack Higgins came through being dropped to the VFL for mediocre form in 2019. And the gods smiled on his very delicate health situation. Jack Higgins, with nothing much to declare played senior football on the weekend in a losing lacklustre side. And he got seventeen touches. He got what? twelve in a half? Seven hard. Three clearances. 1.1. And he kicked it to team mates. He was BOG for a while.
I think Higlet has more than just genius. I think he's got a really big *smile*.
Two years later our prodigy reminded the world of this when he performed his own brain surgery. You doubted?
I certainly did.
I'll leave the human interest angles for those who like humans. I'm only interested in numbers and football.
Jack is very small 178/78? Did he test 3.14 for 20m? Can he jump at all? Why is he on a list? Does he get ball? Nup. Can he outgoal Gary Ablett even if only once? Yeah. He can do that. So there is something to this idea of his genius.
What about the practical world?
He can't play small forward with those disadvantages - he might as well be a tall. Defensive pressure is everything in small forwards and it always was. Jack can't bring that. JR is quicker at them.
In 2020 he could play high but he'd need to be very constructive and he'd have to read the play well enough to vector for defensive position. (He can do that for attacking position.) Oh, that's right - his field kicking in 2019 was poor so constructive is not a demonstrated virtue. Cf Liam Baker similarly too slow to play forward but brilliantly constructive. Higlet's kicking, ball use in general, is not in the same galaxy. Or at least in 2019 it wasn't.
Jack Higgins came through being dropped to the VFL for mediocre form in 2019. And the gods smiled on his very delicate health situation. Jack Higgins, with nothing much to declare played senior football on the weekend in a losing lacklustre side. And he got seventeen touches. He got what? twelve in a half? Seven hard. Three clearances. 1.1. And he kicked it to team mates. He was BOG for a while.
I think Higlet has more than just genius. I think he's got a really big *smile*.
That Screenshot explains everything for the Tigers and the Eagles.
Both not interested in doing the hard yards required.
Them - Yeo, Shuey, Redden, Cripps, Gaff and Sheed ................................ thats there midfield aside from Kelly pretty much.
Us - Prestia, Lambert, Edwards, Caddy, Baker and Rioli .......................... says alot also.
Both sides are crushing their defenders under an avalanche of ball.
You could read my recent posts on Higgo and conclude I don't like him. Au contraire - I love him. But I'm not sure I want him in the side.
Today, we have Jack Higgins, Jake Aarts, and Kane Lambert in the one team - for what I hope is one of the few if not only times. I just don't think we can win a flag with three smalls who aren't quick and can't kick over a jam tin. You could add Baker into that, but his kicking has better penetration.
I hope and expect to see Higgo more in the midfield today. I hope he follows Lablett around in pre-seasons, and I hope he develops Kane's gut-busting running power, because then we have our Lambert successor.
Today, we have Jack Higgins, Jake Aarts, and Kane Lambert in the one team - for what I hope is one of the few if not only times. I just don't think we can win a flag with three smalls who aren't quick and can't kick over a jam tin. You could add Baker into that, but his kicking has better penetration.
I hope and expect to see Higgo more in the midfield today. I hope he follows Lablett around in pre-seasons, and I hope he develops Kane's gut-busting running power, because then we have our Lambert successor.
disagree. I reckon he's been our best new normal small
but I agree our fringe player quotient is getting dangerously high.
its almost a cluster?
If our new normal is letting the oppo walk out of defence, our results will go back to old normal. Higgo out of the forward line.
its certainly not a hill I'd die on, and I wouldn't argue he's a walk up 22 yet by any stretch,
but to my naked eye, his work rate has been Prestia-like over a very difficult month
I could be wrong.
To borrow one of your favourite expressions, Higgo works like a borrowed horse (and is hung like one, according to Jack). But to my naked eye, no matter how hard he scrambles, he's a yard or two short when it comes to applying the heat to the bad guys. There was one bit of behind the goals vision against Hawthorn that showed him scurrying from Hawthorn defender to Hawthorn defender, always arriving too late to pressure an error or rushed disposal. It was Higgy In The Middle. In our forward line, the smalls have to get there.
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