Big Kahuna Boot wrote:
..canna believe what i'm readin'.. ..Murphy last season was being talked as being Judd's equal, or having narrowed the gap immensely, won our B&F and cleaned up the coaches votes.. ..this season a drop in team systems saw his form drop, and then a big injury in which he was rushed back in.. ..could be our club's best player next year, and would be already if not for us getting Judd..
....anyway, to be honest i haven't seen enough of Caddy to comment on what his 'trade-in' worth might be.. ..don't think we ought to offload pick 11?, and if we trade out a ruck i'd prefer it to be Knockers..
I feel he benefited greatly last year from teams paying more attention to Judd than was necessary, and in some cases, teams not catching on that we'd modified our midfield set up to revolve around Murph until later in the year.
One of the biggest criticisms of the team this year has been its inability to cover for key players when injured, and for structures to hold up regardless. Arguably the biggest offender in this regard is Murphy - for a player of his stature and importance, he far too often relies on a chop out from Carrots, and to a lesser extent, Juddy to get his hands on it, for him to be effective as well.
Whilst I'm sure Malthouse rates him as a player, I reckon he'd have hesitation with aspects of his game that can see him play for himself, and not give the chop out to his teammates that he should. One of the bigger positives I find with MM's appointment is how unlikely it is he will base a team around a franchise player to win a flag. With Ratten, you could clearly see that this was the case with Judd, and then from midway last year, the transition to Murphy was in place also. As such, I'm less inclined to use the "We're not going to win a flag basing a team around Murphy" argument, but feel the crux of the argument being that we're no worse off toward winning a premiership by considering trading him remains.