Showed no evidence to support it last year when he played the role for a substantial chunk of the season. Hard part with them is for some reason Ratten wants Howard taking kick-ins so you lose that consistent source and that all of Wilkie, Sinclair, Paton and Webster are good rebounders themselves, nowhere near the level of funneling as at North.
Ultimately he's a lazy player who doesn't intercept or win the ball basically at all himself, rarely tackles and isn't that good a kick, despite mostly playing that role he's a solid 10+% behind the likes of Lloyd, Ziebell, Stewart and Ridley and 5%+ on most of the others up the top. He hits some excellent kicks but he also takes on a lot of kicks that aren't there and has a very annoying habit of trying to make absurd kicks on his right foot when a simple left foot would do that often become clangers, his 65 clangers is very high and the people who are around that like Rich and Salem had 200 more possessions, heck Lloyd had 200 more touches and 14 less clangers.
I do think he's going to improve, Coffield and Paton is not a like for like switch from a ball use/want perspective. If he can not have as many games in the 40s and even the 70s he could push a long way. I think ultimately he strikes as more of a 90 guy than the 100 you'd be chasing to leave some room for a miss.
There's also the fact that he handles a tag worse than perhaps any player in the history of the sport so if he does start to become genuinely damaging off half back it's a very easy choice to tag him and watch him go home which given he's not playing any defense at the best of times can be an even bigger issue.
I sound overly harsh here as I think he's got great value in draft leagues and even in classic he probably pushes the 100k price gain mark and he's definitely in the best few options in his price range, I just think that price range needs to include a realistic keeper outcome, last year he played wing and rebounding HBF, two of the friendliest roles in the sport and managed 4 scores above 88 in 22 games. For comparison Rioli did that twice, with another 87 and 83 in 6 games in the role. Personally I think Rioli at 60k less offers almost the exact same prospect in a team that's got a much stronger history of producing elite scoring defenders.
Ultimately he's a lazy player who doesn't intercept or win the ball basically at all himself, rarely tackles and isn't that good a kick, despite mostly playing that role he's a solid 10+% behind the likes of Lloyd, Ziebell, Stewart and Ridley and 5%+ on most of the others up the top. He hits some excellent kicks but he also takes on a lot of kicks that aren't there and has a very annoying habit of trying to make absurd kicks on his right foot when a simple left foot would do that often become clangers, his 65 clangers is very high and the people who are around that like Rich and Salem had 200 more possessions, heck Lloyd had 200 more touches and 14 less clangers.
I do think he's going to improve, Coffield and Paton is not a like for like switch from a ball use/want perspective. If he can not have as many games in the 40s and even the 70s he could push a long way. I think ultimately he strikes as more of a 90 guy than the 100 you'd be chasing to leave some room for a miss.
There's also the fact that he handles a tag worse than perhaps any player in the history of the sport so if he does start to become genuinely damaging off half back it's a very easy choice to tag him and watch him go home which given he's not playing any defense at the best of times can be an even bigger issue.
I sound overly harsh here as I think he's got great value in draft leagues and even in classic he probably pushes the 100k price gain mark and he's definitely in the best few options in his price range, I just think that price range needs to include a realistic keeper outcome, last year he played wing and rebounding HBF, two of the friendliest roles in the sport and managed 4 scores above 88 in 22 games. For comparison Rioli did that twice, with another 87 and 83 in 6 games in the role. Personally I think Rioli at 60k less offers almost the exact same prospect in a team that's got a much stronger history of producing elite scoring defenders.