This week on the ABC HPN discussed how teams are rushing back to stop the Tigers from effectively using their intercept and rebound strengths, and the result has been a low scoring Tigers struggling to break through. Richmond’s preferred approach in recent years has been to move so quickly they
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When discussion of recent or future AFL expansion arises, it is often followed by claims from various pundits claim that the addition of extra teams impacts on the quality of football by spreading the talent base too thin. At the most basic level, this makes easy logical sense – akin
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The inevitable coronavirus-driven shutdown of the AFL has come perhaps a couple of weeks sooner than the league would have expected or hoped. National and international events have dictated that a national sporting competition is now impossible, due to lockdowns and interstate travel bans in parts of the country. We
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Of all the underappreciated roles around a footy club, the back-up ruck might take the cake. Most players can push for selection (at least at a pinch) in multiple areas across the ground, stoking irons in the fire across the footy department’s whiteboard. Not so the depth ruck. There’s often
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Callum Ah Chee is perhaps sneakily representative of the current Suns era, where players are leaving less due to being “wantaway” and fleeing the club and the state, and more moving due to just not fitting into the new list building strategy. Ah Chee, originally from Western Australian, is not
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It’s very hard to be the best in your position in the AFL. Brad Hill is very close to that. What is even harder to work out is how much that is worth. Triple premiership player Brad Hill departs Fremantle for St Kilda in a trade that sees him valued
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Of all the Jacks at St Kilda, and there’s a lot, J. Steven filled the mantle as the best Jack at the club. He wasn’t a Jack of all trades, but he was close to a master at one. Jack Steven at his best is quite an effective pure inside
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Something of an undeserved punchline after winning the notorious crapshoot that is the Rising Star Award ahead of Marcus Bontempelli, Lewis Taylor’s career has stalled at Brisbane. He is quite a small-bodied forwardish type who during 2019 fell comprehensively out of favour during the Lions’ ascent to the top 4. Taylor
Continue reading »Tomorrow is the final, usually hectic day of the trade period before trades of players close. Now is a good time to collate HPN’s assessments of all the moves to date. Stay tuned for analysis of tomorrow’s moves, followed by an all-in summary of how everything unfolded after the trade
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Darcy Cameron, drafted in 2016, has sat deep enough in Sydney’s ruck pecking order that they used both the preseason signing period and midseason draft to acquire alternative ruck options from South Adelaide, in Hayden McLean and Michael Knoll respectively. Poorly timed injuries prevented him from senior gametime this year,
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