i gotta disagree imo his season was almost a mirror of the yr before. he sure didnt go backwards but i reckon peoples expectations soared.
we all know his weakness and the key to getting better is his aerobic capacity. until he builds a big enough tank he will plateu where he is. sometimes it takes players 4 or 5 seasons to build the tank.
if he cant build the tank he will play primarily as a forward with rotations thru the middle.
gary ablett took how long his first 5 yrs was spent primarily as a forward with rotations.
look at dangerfield this yr its taken him 5 yrs to go from primarily a forward to a permanent mid. martin is actually tracking better than both.
i dont understand the lack of patience this is more about expectations than anything martin has done wrong.
You make a valid point. Sure expectations rose but he didn't get anywhere near them.
I'd just have been as happy with a season like '11 but aside from the club enforced suspension there were some genuine warning signs.
His kicking was well off last year both for goal and in particular his short kicking. The number of turnovers he caused last year under no pressure was McGuane like. Simply not up to the expectations of previous. He also played very few if any 4 quarter games of fooball which suggested that he was either nowhere near fit enough or focussed enough.
I think his equal 10th place finish in the B&F was about where he sat for the season he had and it was down on his previous two years.
That is a concern for mine.
Everyone expects him to improve but perhaps this is as good as it's going to get and perhaps it's going to get worse?
Is he a manchild who burst onto the scene or is he something more.
Who really knows but this year will tell us a lot more about Dusty.
My sense is he needs to extract the digit bigtime. Hoping he can but some cats just don't get it.
