- Jun 29, 2014
- 6,379
- 10,595
- AFL Club
- West Coast
Darling carried a back injury basically from round 3-4 onwards. It settled over the course of the year but was particularly bad before the bye. I think if the club didn't have such a huge injury list he wouldn't have played a lot of the season.
His stats don't look great but I still think he had a decent year. Was double teamed most of the time, undersized, playing under duress and still managed to halve most contests.
Think also about the number and quality of inside 50's the club had and him being even more of a decoy than normal and it is what it is.
I think people are judging him really harshly due to the fact we have had an embarrassment of riches in F50 for so long and he has been battered as an undersized KPF for 13 years. Eventually even iron jacks body is going to break down.
He ends up getting double teamed because he has no pace anymore to get any separation on his opponent and someone just rolls back. Any amount of body pressure and he can’t mark and struggles to even bring the ball to ground in one on one’s where he can’t mark it..
It looks more and more that the games gone past him.
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