- Sep 22, 2008
- 25,524
- 34,635
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Banned
- #676
This is the otherside of the argument that the people that complain about the criticism of Gardner don’t recogniseNot sure how closely you’re watching.
Against Geelong, Gardiner played on Hawkins. Hawkins didn’t do much (might of kicked 1 or 2). Cameron kicked 6 on Keath.
Against Fremantle, Lobb kicked his 4 on Cordy. Cordy was terrible that day.
Against Carlton, Curnow kicked 5 which were either opportunistic snaps or dubious free kicks. McKay was better than Curnow that game, he took Keath to the cleaners with his contested marking in the 1st half.
Gardner was our best performing key backman this year by streets and rarely got beaten despite poor defensive structure.
He is a serviceable footballer that will continue to improve. I have no issue with him being a staple of the defende for the next 5 or so years. Need to get some better support around him.
“Curnow kicked 5 on him but they were all lucky” “Hey he might have had 12 kicked on him but tbf there was an insect that got in his eye”
Gardner was soundly beaten on plenty of occasions this year, was he our best performed tall defender? Yeah he probably was, has he improved sure, but **** me people cannot admit that he can actually be faulted, and people can’t admit that he does actually do some good things too
He’s a solid defender, possibly ranked 30-40 in the league? Would any team have a worse ‘best key defender’? I’d be surprised.
That’s the truth of it, will he keep improving yes probably, do we need to improve on him absolutely, could
he fill a role alongside good defenders in a good defence? Sure he probably could