Pre Season Hit Out vs Geelong

[LP]

McKay is too good a player in general play to not be in our best 22.

I haven't watched the game so I can't comment, a lot of media have initially talked him up as BoG, then secondly gone on to bag his kicking. The second part of those reports is more about throwing rocks at Carlton and winding up supporters.

BigH is not as bad of a kick as the media make out. Out at range he is as good if not even better than Charlie, I wouldn't be surprised to find their stats not all that different. In fact I think we did just that comparison last year and there was barely a percentage difference. To me that means the close range stuff is almost 100% a head space issue, but he is not on his lonesome in this regard.

Over the last couple of seasons, I'd say Owies has been probably our most reliable from inside 25m, and even he has had some unexpected misses.

It's the bad misses that fans remember, but I'd assert BigH has made as many spectacular around the body goals from very long range deep in the pocket as he has had spectacular misses. Those spectacular misses are what fans remember but I doubt in the bigger picture if there are as many of them as they recall.

Two or three years back, we sat through a lot of games and listened to loud mouths like Dunstall and Mooney in their special commentary roles bag the hell out of BigH about taking the long range shots, they wrote BigH off before he even kicked the ball, and back then he was getting the goals from around the body on the point of the 50m arc. They almost sounded disappointed he actually scored, I gather they felt bitter like when you are made appear a goose. But when he had a bad trot they piled on and become the "I told you so" crew, doing a Caro Wilson and erasing the historical times they were dead wrong!