Good key forwards are, have and will always be more valuable than good key defenders. Why? Because they are much harder to find.
Gibcus is athletic, has good size, can take a pack mark and reads the play well. These are all attributes of a good key forward and are reason enough to try him in the position longer than a quarter. It won’t “ruin” his development, in fact it may just be the making of it.
Have a look at Aaron Naughton who had a very similar profile to Gibcus at the same age. He was recruited as defender, played his first year in defense before being tried as a forward in his second season and has never looked back. He’s now a 50 goal forward at the ripe old age of 22.
Athletic traits only give access to being a great footballer, they don't deliver one.
He is athletic. He does have good size. At AFL level he has demonstrated that:
- He can run all day, even further than a mid.
- He can leap at the ball and float in the air.
- He can hoof the ball.
He has not shown that he is a great reader (although he probably is but I'd like to see some intercept marks). He has not been a great mark. Gets his hands to it but has been unsure and fumbly. He has not shown that he's a great kick. A long kick, but a scrappy and panicky one. In the game and a half he played forward, he looked completely lost. He has no forward craft, no forward instincts. None of that is really a negative for a first year key back. He has great potential and elite A grade attributes. But he is nowhere near having found his feet at the level.
IF we want to try the forward experiment, then he needs to play there all preseason, and do extras with Jack R and the forward coaches. He'll need to live, breathe and eat forward running patterns. And we will need to commit to it. That means when Grimes/Vlos/Tarrant inevitably go down this year, he will need to stay forward. No swing manning. And we need to do that for at least a couple of seasons.
It's a massive, massive cost, and a massive massive risk. It might yield a gun forward. I'm dubious. But it's much more likely he would be a superstar forward than half the blokes we've played forward over our premiership era.
I think it's even more likely he'll be a gun back. Given that a back is what he is, and has been.
It's also a question of what we need more. Lynch, Dusty, Jack, Bolton, MRJ, Cumberland are a decent mix of older and younger forwards. I'm bullish on Bauer being an approximate Jack replacement in the future. Ben Miller? Who knows. Soldo and Nank will be forward at some point, for better or worse.
Grimes and Tarrant are on their last hamstrings, and Astbury, Houli, Rance are all gone. Vlossy is a bit of a crock. We need Balta and Gibcus to be our tall pillars going forward.
