Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley says Brodie Grundy is just not a ahead and “never will be” and the star ruckman‘s place at Melbourne looks ”increasingly murky and muddy” after being sent to the VFL.
Grundy, brought to the Demons to form a partnership with No.1 ruckman Max Gawn, was axed and sent to the reserves to work on his forward craft after the combination failed to produce desired results at AFL level.
Buckley, who was Grundy’s coach at Collingwood when he received back-to-back finest and fairests, stated whereas the massive man would do the crew factor, issues may get messy if Gawn continued to indicate he performs higher on his personal, as he did in opposition to Brisbane final Friday evening.
“Max Gawn was huge … the first part of Simon Goodwin‘s comments were fantastic and spot on that, ‘The team comes first and we are going to look to be better’,” Buckley stated on SEN.
“But then the second half of it’s the place the gray is on this state of affairs and that’s whenever you go something past what we’d like this week.
“If you look past season 2023, this seems to be more and more murky and muddy.
“One assertion I‘d like to make is, Brodie Grundy is not a forward and he never will be. He never will be.
“There‘s only one player in the competition that would keep Brodie out of AFL football and that is Max.”
“I think it‘ll be quite messy in the next 18 months.”
Grundy, who has kicked 70 goals in his 193 games and 10 this year at Melbourne, is likely to play in the VFL against next Saturday and Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin defended the decision after the win over the Lions.
Goodwin was confident Grundy had “plenty of time” to prove himself and didn’t even contemplate the opportunity of the ex-Magpie not that includes within the finals.
“We’ve got six games to go,” Goodwin stated after his crew’s heart-stopping one-point win in opposition to the Lions.
“He’s an important part of our footy club, for not only the short term but the long term. He’s a big part of us moving forward.
“We’re not going to sit here and say we’re the finished product, and part of getting towards that is continuing to find ways to improve and part of that is evolving Brodie’s forward craft and Max’s at times.
“We love their ruck combination, but one thing we’re not going to do as a footy club is leave any stone unturned in getting better.
“And we want more impact forward of the ball, and the only way we’re going to continue to do that is to expose them for longer.
“We think we can turn that combination into a threat moving forward, and we’re going to work to do it, and it doesn’t have to be at AFL level.
“So we’re still really confident that’ll work, and as we get closer towards the back-end of the year, we’re going to need both of them up and going.”
Originally revealed as Axed Melbourne ahead will “never” be a ahead in response to former coach
Source: www.dailytelegraph.com.au
