Indie wrote:
The thing about Santy is that he's keen on improving his game. No doubt we've just about all played sports, and so we've all had the experience of practising skills during training but finding the challenge of implementing them in a game is too much. There's a tendency to stick with what you're good at and leaving the other stuff for the training track. That way you don't suffer embarrassment when skills under development don't quite work. Santy pushes through that mental barrier and works on new skills or rectifying weaknesses in a game, and that's the only way to consolidate improvement. When he stuffs up, you can be sure that the old footy cliche "He'll learn from that" actually means something. Rather than playing safely within his limitations, he pushes their boundaries.
When you look at his skills, they have improved dramatically and he is now a high-quality kick and handpass exponent. He has actually benefited from being a late starter. First, he is a naturally 2-sided player as he learnt both feet at the same time, and secondly he doesn't have any hard-to-eradicate bad habits that Aussies pick up in junior footy before specialist coaches can work on them.
With the kicking, he has mastered both basic types of the drop punt on both sides of his body - the stabbing/push kick used for short-passing in which the pelvis remains vertical, and the kick-for-distance where the pelvis angles backwards 30 degrees or so. The stab-passes to Fev on Friday night and Eddie Betts in the Doggies game I50 were as good as you'll see. And the long passes to Fev and Hammer I50 in the West Coast game were very effective. He operates high on the risk/reward scale - he takes risks in trying to come up with the most incisive and attacking possible kick rather taking soft options to make sure he doesn't make errors. When it doesn't work, it can look terrible, but when it comes off he kills the opposition. He is capable of kicking over 50m, and that's not really something you can say about guys like Fish and a number of others on our list. He also has mastered kicking around his body. When he ripped the ball out of a ruck contest in front of goal against the Hawks and kicked across his body with his right foot to score a goal, he was doing what he's already done a number of times in games already (dating back a couple of years in fact when he did it against Collingwood). In one of the Bullants games earlier this year, he ripped the ball out of the ruck at HF/W and kicked a long LEFT foot kick across his body I50.
He hasn't really shown us more specialised kicks, such as the torpedo, the banana kick, or the arcing Daicos-style kick along the ground. But I wouldn't be surprised if he's practising them right now and unleashes them in games this year or next. The chances are he'll mess up initially, but then will find his feet so to speak and will start pulling them off.
As for handballing, that was initially a weakness. He tended to resort to handball only when he was under physical pressure, and when tackled they'd just dribble out indiscrimately. He is now very accurate and usually finds a target even if he's being tackled. Ordinarily, he shoots the handballs out flat rather than looping them, and that makes it a weapon as with the flat handball he delivered to Juddy for the winning goal against Brisbane. He even unleashed an extravagant 30m handball to Fish 60m out against WC that wasn't such a flash idea because it gave their defenders time to get to Fish. No doubt he'll leave it for a better time in future, but it's in his repertoire now.
Marking remains the weakest skill, but it's obvious that the coaching staff and Santy are now concentrating on it to good effect. He actually has a safe pair of hands - his issue is more one of judging the flight of the ball. He took a magnificent mark on a long, fast lead recently with his arms extended fully in front of him - Fev couldn't have done better. He's also showed that he can take marks above his head safely. And he's showing that he can take good marks as the 3rd man up leaping over the wrestling players. I think his development in judging the flight of the ball has suffered because he's been ignored as a marking option and I suspect he's been asked to be a decoy. That's changing, and I expect him to rapidly improve in this area. In the last quarter against the Saints, I thought they were really starting to look for him, and Juddy in particular seems to be intent on using him when he's open.
For now, however, I hope they use him as a fast-leading forward. He's less a Riewoldt and more a Scott Lucas in his prime. To my mind, Lucas has never been a high-marking forward like Riewoldt, but he played to his strengths by establishing a break on a long lead before doubling back on his left and unleashing long raking kicks I50. If the good kicks like Stevo and Houla can deliver raking passes to Santy which practically eliminate the need to guage the fall of the ball, then he'd be spectacularly effective. The other skill I'd love to see him develop is the one that Carey and Jonno Brown have made their own, the ability to lead their opponents under the ball before doubling back I50 to take the ball on the run into goal. There's no doubt he has the agility and the speed to turn his opponents inside out.
If his team mates continue to look for Santy on the lead, then that will make life so much easier for Fev. If Santy continues to improve in that regard, it won't be too long before the opposition has to put real work into ensuring someone drops back in front of him. That will dilute the concentration on Fev. And I reckon that Fev's eyes would light up when he sees Santy take the ball and turn towards 50, as he knows there's every chance it will be delivered quickly to him before the opposition defenders have time to converge on him. As with Waite, he reminds me of a shark as he's a naturally attacking and direct player.
We have to remember that Santy has a good 5 years left in his prime, just as Stynes had at his age. We're not talking about a guy like Nathan Brown who might only have one good year left in him, if that.
And he must get back from the mark as quickly as possible to take advantage of the options as they unfold 180 degrees around him.
Well put Indie.
In a nutshell, Setanta has nearly completed his apprenticeship and has a lot of upside.
Furthermore, he'll do well for the team if the players look for him just as Judd has.
I think he's the best CHF we've got atm and I've always wanted him in the last line.
Look he has more versatility than most of our talls on our list.
As I've always said: he's our insurance policy in the first 22. Not of the same ilk, but similar to Waite and Walker....imo.
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