Stephen could demoralise the opposition with his long kicking, either through the sticks or over a defence to a teammate. There was a reason other teams would tag him. Brad was untaggable because literally no-one could go with him, and he knew how to get into the right place. Some of my fondest memories of the early years at Optus was Wilson launching a ball from the square to Hill running into space. We’d cover 130m in two kicks and then Tabs would run to the wrong spot and the ball would go over the boundary line.
If you can’t get someone like the Hill boys - and they’re pretty rare - then just get an elite runner who does what he’s told and isn’t a complete embarrassment with the ball. Langdon and Acres come to mind but we let them go.
Sharp strikes me as a player like that. People will bag his kicking all season, without acknowledging the work he’s put in to get the ball in the first place and be a number in defence when we don’t have it. Of all the players on Sunday, he covered the most distance, was fourth for maximum speed, and to Hypen’s point, he had 29 sprints where the next highest was 18. That’s incredible.
Matera looked good because Mainwaring was doing all the gut running the other way, but Mainwaring kicked it like Blake Acres. For balance, we need to get Dizzy up and going on the other wing, because having someone who can dob them with their eyes closed on the boundary has more value than I reckon coaches are prepared to admit.
