His issue has been confidence in himself which meant he wasn’t able to showcase his talent. Hopefully he continues to do this and try improve self confidence.
He creates the space, he’s strong enough and his pace, especially burst is really good.
I’ve watched VFL for a while now and every game Ward has played, started in one of his first where he went and dominated in the wet against a GWS outfit at Sydney Showgrounds.
His inside game which I would say is a mix of, tackling and defensive pressure, ability around congestion, cleanliness and movement through traffic, accumulation and positioning to get contested football, the intent and lastly craft of stoppages/centre bounces.
An inside game, or contested side is not directly correlated with clearance or craft which is what he is down at the VFL level working on, because most of football is contest and post clearance.
Every part of this I’d say he is pretty strong at, cleanliness, movement and burst through traffic, accumulating and positioning to get contested ground balls post clearance etc are strengths. Some he’s working on through just intent, backing himself in, tackling pressure etc (clearly a superb two way runner).
His main problem as I stated as apart of an “inside game” isn’t a physical or ability issue. It’s simply backing himself in, but the main component he’s working on is his stoppage and centre bounce craft, which is reading the tap, the ball, his man, cues, positioning, body work etc.
His inside game is average at AFL level because it’s inconsistent, has shown his capacity to be good and also poor in this area which is why he moved down. He is still clearly an AFL standard player who is far too good for VFL football and this comes with his inside game, which is vastly superior to VFL players. Not entirely a big surprise.
Again there’s a difference between what people have been bagging him for or saying he’s poor at with his overall inside and contested game, even suggesting pace is an issue…
Has been made clear and even more so watching him not just from coaches mouths his work in progress is his ‘CRAFT’ as an inside midfielder which is ‘STOPPAGE OR CENTRE BOUNCE CRAFT’ which is not directly associated with his ability in a contest, which happens a lot in footy and hawthorn are first at in the league, post clearance. This would be the same for Connor MacDonald, hence him rarely if ever getting inside time.
“not super quick but not slow”
He is a pretty quick player with a strong burst. He has good vision, cleanliness, hand and foot skills mixed with a strong work ethic, endurance base and leadership. He has a bucket load of talent and he’s down there working on something which will click eventually, has progressed well over his short stint at VFL level.
There’s plenty supporters wouldn’t see or know about players but if you look at his game like anyone, you will always see clear strengths, weaknesses which in better terminology are things to improve.
He has clear strengths has listed above and will continue to develop his other areas, which is his overall craft, stoppage and centre bounce craft mentioned by coaches, consistency of high production, application, self belief/confidence to back in the skill sets of players, playing to strengths and developing physically to get the perfect body for his personal performance.
Some interesting insights