His minutes are high though versus last year which would have suggested he has gained the fitness. Although the point is whether this is misleading, is he playing more forward in 2H or just fatigued yet on the ground. Maybe he would benefit from greater bench time.
His role was fine last night, he just didn't get hands on the ball at all. Had a few where he just copped bad bounces, a couple where Libba intercepted the hitout targeted at him, a couple where the Demons' players turned the other way when he was shooting past as a handball target. Bigger issue I had was that he was definitely doing his best Dusty impression of only tackling things standing next to him and not working to pressure which probably left a good 3 or 4 tackles on the board and from those tackles comes a touch or two as well.
He was really good in Q4 still as well. There wasn't anything to me suggesting fitness or role issues, just one of those games where he had a patch of the game where he failed to get the ball and I'd honestly say it was mostly bad luck.
Also to be fair, he's actually scored great in DT all season, which is a better indicator of being fit and working through the 4 quarters than SC often, it's been disposal/decision issues for the most part that has culled his SC so it was great to see him use the ball well last night and making good decisions for the most part as well as not trying to do too much with it and give the first hands option.
End of the day, 105 from a guy priced around 103 isn't a bad result... just hoping for more