Hall needs it on a lead

[Plugger46]

Barry Hall needs the footy kicked to him on a lead. His body strength is overrated, although he might be able to go a bit in the ring, he can't hold a pack out and take a strong grab.

Needs to play as a permanent CHF with Micky in the goal square, and changing on the ball if he has the fitness.

Thoughts??

[Charlie]

I think it's been proven that he is NOT a Plugger type forward. The way it was with Plugger, it was like "Ok boys, if I run here, and you kick it here, I'll mark the thing and it'll be nice and simple."

He's best suited to CHF, where he can create opportunities for others, bully around a few pesky little midfielders and kick one or two himself.

[robbieando]

Too true. Hall at CHF opens up the space behind him in the forward 50. That means a Ball or Magic can expose the other team. No matter where he plays you have to put your best defender on him, so with Hall roaming around the ground the normal "man on man" defender is exposed because he can't play like a CHB. Most teams know if Hall starts at FF, just put 2 or 3 men on him and watch as he doesn't mark the ball.

[Jimmy C]

Yep. Hall at CHF, sometimes sharking the forward line works very well IMO. With Magic as the dummy, FF confuses everyone (dummy forwards everywhere in our line-up).

Personally, I like Baz as an on-ball player-too strong for the opposition (he can bust the packs open like a freight train). I think its up to Roos to keep the oppositin guessing where this matters. I don't think that Frawley's enough of a tactician to spot this (and I don't reckon Gaspar can be everywhere).

Baz is certainly no Lockett/Dunstall/Ablett, but I think we have enough players to keep opposition backmen on the outer (Schneids/Davis/Goodes et al). I hope that Staffy remains out for the w'end clash, while Ottens is no certainty.

[penga]

i agree 46, hall is really struggling with taking grabs on the first take (esp this year, unless i havent noticed this before) and at chf he wont get bottled up as much as FF as he wont have two or three defenders dropping back in front of him to negate his influence as a FF

as stated with 'my' forward line in charlie's thread with doyle at ff, he can take a pack mark better than bazza, simply because of his height and leaping ability, so i think doyle and hall could really feed off each other as the delivery into the forward line would be exceptional if bazza is firing them in there (as well as davis and goodes), schneider and o'loughlin have the capacity of roving the pack or taking the lead themselves and scoring from there, talk about multi-pronged!!!

[floppinab]

What was his pack marking ability like at the Saints???

My memory is a little hazy so I'd need to check a bit of history but I reckon it was a lot better than it is now, particularly in 99 and 2000. 2001 was a bad year and part of the reason for coming to Sydney.

It's disappointing in a way that we have to "hide" him at CHF to make up for this loss of aerial form. His ground and foot work is great at CHF but he is in this team to play FF, take marks and kick goals.

[Plugger46]

Originally posted by floppinab
What was his pack marking ability like at the Saints???

My memory is a little hazy so I'd need to check a bit of history but I reckon it was a lot better than it is now, particularly in 99 and 2000. 2001 was a bad year and part of the reason for coming to Sydney.

It's disappointing in a way that we have to "hide" him at CHF to make up for this loss of aerial form. His ground and foot work is great at CHF but he is in this team to play FF, take marks and kick goals.

Why can't he be in the team to play CHF.

We can't have fixed ideas on him playing FF, because he simply can offer us more at CHF. I don't think it would be covering up for anything.