Do we need a Daniel Chick type?

[bulldogtragic]

Not his off field stuff... The role of physical protector of the best midfielder/s at the contest.

I was looking at his career stats, and at Hawthorn he was getting a fair bit of footy, and seriously hitting the scoreboard (20-30 goals a year). Then he goes to WCE, his disposals go down, his goal scoring drops significantly too. But his 1%'s go through the roof, and his frees against get bigger. The coaches at WCE sacrificed his attacking game (which was good) and re-directed him to protecting Judd (primarily), and then Kerr & Cousins.

Bonts clearly had a hip issue this year, and to me it seemed his opponents knew it too. He also gets overly close checking at the contest, but doesn't seem to get the frees that say a Selwood or Dangerfield gets. So do we look at deploying a hard body at the contest to free Bonts up to be free to be more impactful and attacking and to greater protect him? Whilst I see the argument of losing the output of a protector (like a Bevo argument would), I also see the argument that if Bonts gets more space and time he can more be more damaging and increase our output overall, as well as protect his body from extra hits and injury.

Do we need such a role in the team? If so, who can we deploy into it?

[Mofra]

Some very good statistical analysis late int he year showed Dunkley was actually playing that role for Bontempelli - the Bon'ts numbers went up and his % of contested possessions dropped when Dunkley came back into the side late in the year to play in the middle.
Dunkley's % possession numbers conversely went up.

He's young but he is of Josh Kennedy proportions and starting to use his frame well inside the contest. He'll go into this pre-season full of confidence that he's a best 22 midfielder and the extra pre-season will surely help him.

[The Doctor]

No we need a Clay Smith type! we've lost a lot of grunt without Clay, Picken & Libba

[Go_Dogs]

Bont is a big boy and can more than handle himself - Macrae and Dunks are in the same boat. I'm not too concerned about needing a midfield enforcer.

[SlimPickens]

I think we already have one. He just happened to do his knee 5 minutes into the season. Our bloke walk taller when Libba is in the middle with them.

[SonofScray]

If Lin Jong's next injury requires him to amputate his ring finger at the first knuckle he could do it?

It's a fair question, given the age profile of the list. Our midfield do some heavy lifting for a relatively immature group. We'll see it come more from within I think.

[bulldogtragic]

Some very good posts which go to my main question, although I should've made clear the person could be a trade or an existing player who sacrifices a part of their own game to help our elite players around the contest. Libba can certainly do that. I do like the Lin Jong nomination, but he can keep all his fingers if he wants to. Big body, burst speed, hard at the contest, prepared to go to the hard places around the ground. If his role was to block, clear, protect, counter-interfere, hurt opponents and he could free Bonts & Macrae in particular to have more time and opportunity to impact contests. We wouldn't be losing too much from a re-focused role for Jong, but could gain a lot for the team from it. WCE worked Chick's role perfect even though they sacrificed a fair bit in his talent, in our situation, if it frees up the best kicks at stoppages and contests, for even a second to help them hit targets inside 50 then I guess that's an indirect way of improving our I50 work. As SoS points out, some of our guys do an awful lot of heavy lifting, maybe someone with a role like this each week helps out. It was frustrating this year seeing opponents look to smash Bonts hip in tackles trying to take him out of the game or reduce his game impact. In reality, I'm not sure it's in Bevo's thinking. If he won't tag because it's a limiting role, I doubt this would be.

[GVGjr]

Some very good statistical analysis late int he year showed Dunkley was actually playing that role for Bontempelli - the Bon'ts numbers went up and his % of contested possessions dropped when Dunkley came back into the side late in the year to play in the middle.
Dunkley's % possession numbers conversely went up.

He's young but he is of Josh Kennedy proportions and starting to use his frame well inside the contest. He'll go into this pre-season full of confidence that he's a best 22 midfielder and the extra pre-season will surely help him.

Getting Liberatore back and as you have pointed out the emergence of Dunkley should help Bontempelli a lot next season
If we can add another one to the mix during the draft or trade period it should top off our midfield nicely plus Rhylee West will be a hard nosed midfielder early on in his career