Full forward. Full back. CHB. Ruck. CHF. Back pocket.
Wherever he plays Noah Balta is a project player. It’s not that he has a very low footy IQ - sometimes he’s a genius. It’s that he’s not rounded at all. Everywhere he plays he is a rookie much of the time.
Being a natural small the aerial was always a mystery to Balta. Prior to 2022 there was a simple footy sequence that had never occurred to him - run at the ball, jump very high, catch or punch the ball. The jump very high bit just never happened.
When you ruck you have to jump very high. Noah was resistant to this but sometimes he did it. Jump very high.
And when he was forward he finally learned to lead and jump very high. He didn’t catch them all but he did jump.
Noah can jump very high. Astbury could not. Grimes and Broad did that. If we settle him back we want Noah to jump. He can have a bigger impact if he does that. Not all the time but when it matters.
Noah got air in his very interrupted 2022. It was a huge development.
Changing his role was demonstrably good for him.
Balta's a budding David Dench*. Except that he forgets not only to jump but to run.
What does Balta do well in a system that prioritises player's strengths and asks them to play accordingly? He jumps, he runs, he kicks. He does these things way better than the average beefcake. That's what he should do. But he has forgotten to run and so his kicking does less damage than it should. Maybe he's been told not to run - that'd be a pity.
If he can get back to running more, learn to dish by hand when he draws a crowd, otherwise kick it a mile into the forward line - he'd be a significantly more impactful player.
*David Dench was the first KP defender to take the ball and run half the field with it. Way ahead of his time. But he wasn't a Rhodes Scholar of a footballer either.