Witts - a reason to smile

[Stupied]

12 disposals and 2 hitouts to half time as the third tall/relief ruck. 8 more hitouts and 5 more disposals playing as first ruck after Grundy was subbed.

Not a bad effort for a bloke with sub 10 games under his belt who is still growing into his body. Been on the Witts bandwagon for ages now. Last night was easily his best senior game, and he will only get better.

[AN_Inkling]

He's going to be at least a decent ruckman. Just needs to add strength and a few smarts. The fact that, at his size and stage of development, he's able to play as a second ruck and win 17 disposals, is very promising.

With Grundy we have the opposite: he's clearly going to be at least decent around the ground, he has the mobility and the touch. It's his tap work, at 19 and against much bigger opponents, that has been extremely impressive.

[stui magpie]

Very happy with the big boys game. Ironically for a bloke his height, it's his ruck work that needs the most work. His agility and decision making is really good, his ground level work has always been good and his overhead marking is improving.

If we want him to get the pace of AFL he has to play games at this level.

So come on, jump on the band wagon, us early adopters won't criticize your slow judgement.

[qldmagpie67]

2 young rucks both with under 10 games each and showed plenty to get me excited for the coming years.
Hoping one can develop enough to go forward and be a target when resting and maybe kick a couple a game.
When there bodies fully develop and and they get used to the riggers of weekly AFL they will be huge assets to the club.

[E]

Witts game on Friday night might have been THE most pleasing aspect of the entire game. this is the first time that I have seen him be an AFL standard player.

The main thing he has to work on against the better teams is not being a liability on the defensive side when he plays forward (when he plays deep in the forward line, we have a hard time applying defensive pressure).

Nathan used him very cleverly this week. he had him more up the ground working forward which I liked a lot. I also like the idea of flogging witts in the second quarter and first half of the third and then subbing him off meaning that Grundy gets help and can still get through games. This also means that one of Keefe or Witts only has to help Grundy for one 5 minute breather in the 4th. Of course on injury days, it can mean we end up a bit top heavy.

[uncanny]

Very pleased with Witts' progress
He showed a fair bit in the first round against the dokas too.
I hope they keep playing the two young fellas in the ruck together and are able to work the team around this.