Kicking 3 or 4 occasionally (notice I said occasionally which means not all the time - I thought I’d better point that out because some people apparently have the reading comprehension skills of a spanner) a lot of which come from trying to get cheap/soft ones out the back or through free kicks, is not the work of a key full forward that we should seek out with every forward entry. Especially one who has to do it on his own - which Larkey does at the moment.
He’s a good, straight kick but overall he’s no Lockett as a forward. There’s more to being a key forward than just kicking straight. He goes okay sometimes but not consistently and in any case he doesn’t have the commanding presence of a dominant FF. He either needs help down there or better yet needs someone who would take the #1 defender.
I would’ve thought that was obvious. But hey don’t let me spoil the incredible success story you think our forward line is.
Nice straw man, I never said or implied that our forward line is even close to being successful or complete because it clearly isn't. Just pointing out the absurdity of claiming Larkey "only" looks good because he is actually kicking goals instead of some other more sexy looking intangible.
And no he does do it consistently. Since we are resorting to snarky condescending personal attacks on the others reading comprehension I will break it down for you and provide some helpful dictionary definitions:
Goal Scoring breakdown for Nick Larkey 2021/22/23:
Year | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Games Played | 22 | 20 (one game injury subbed) | 8* |
3+ Goal Games | 7 | 5 | 3* |
Total % of games played with 3+ goals scored | 31% | 25% | 37%* |
The last 3 years as our main guy he has played 50 games and kicked 3 or more goals at an average of 30% of the games he has played each season, at a rate of no less than 25% and no more than 37%* of his games in any givenl season. He has also in these 3 seasons never gone more than 2 games in a row without kicking a goal.
That is the definition of consistent, as in you know exactly what you are going to get from him because every season in almost 1/3 games he will CONSISTENTLY have 3+ goal games, while he does OCCASIONALLY have one or two 0 goal games he will CONSISTENTLY bounce back and this is something that does not vary. Maybe that will change in the future but as of right now it is based on statistical fact and not anecdotal bias.
This is not to say I think Larkey is a prodigious key forward or even necessarily our future because I agree with you that he clearly needs someone else to take the pressure off him and is better suited to being the second banana, but too many on this board like to conveniently ignore the positives a player like Larkey provides while hyper-focusing on the negatives because of the 'look', similar to B. Brown.
It'll be cool when we trade Larkey to Richmond or Collingwood for peanuts in two years time and he goes on to win a flag immediately while we are all here jerking ourselves silly after we trade in a geriatric Levi Casboult because he dominates in the air, has a 'commanding presence' and OCCASIONALLY kicks a bag (go have a look how regularly he does it)