I made a smart-arse comment, during yesterday’s game thread, regarding Ben Hunt.
Here’s what I truly think about our halfback…
I will never criticize his effort during games, although I don’t know if that applies to the early days of his contract with the club. He certainly seems to have been throwing himself into the team cause for the last few years.
In our current team he is obviously the dominant playmaker that we look to base our game around. No doubt if we had a stronger pack of forwards, that could create more momentum through the middle, he would benefit from that greatly. But in my opinion, it doesn’t change the fact that he will always be a hooker that masquerades as a halfback. There’s a reason why he shines at origin level and that’s because he’s playing his natural position.
He needs it to be kept simple. Defend strong, direct the play, line speed and kick pressure, kick from dummy half and lead by example. The more you complicate things, the more it detracts from his game. And there’s no more complicated position on the field than halfback. Like I said, he can come up with the big play that makes him look good, but if you look at his game as a whole, he falls down in so many key areas that you want from a halfback.
Look at the elite halfbacks of the competition, past and present. They look in control, they look to be planning two and three tackles ahead, they are composed and inevitably make the right call at the right time, and when you need them they stand up. When an opportunity arises they want the ball in their hands. I’ve seen enough of Ben Hunt to say that those attributes aren’t part of his game.
Personally, I’ve had a gutful of the crabbing across field and hitting an edge backrower with a hospital pass. I’ve seen enough of him getting tackled on the last, with the ball, for a turnover. I’ve seen enough of him, when it’s time, just passing the ball and looking for someone else to create something. Seeing him, on the last, just pass the ball to a flat footed forward leaves me more than frustrated.
Good halfbacks see where the play is headed for the next few plays and plan accordingly. I don’t think that, even when Ben gets the ball, he has a clue what he’s going to do with it next. It’s just all off the cuff. If your dominate player plays like that, how is the rest of the team supposed to plan for what’s coming? For example, when he puts a kick into the in-goal and nobody’s chasing, it’s probably because players around him have no idea whether he is going to run, pass, kick, or a mixture of all three.
Truth be told, I wouldn’t have been too concerned if Hunt had left, we had looked at signing an organizing half on lesser money, and with the saved money went hard in the player market for some high-quality forwards and speed and size in the backs, and look to improve our play on the field so that we eventually become a more attractive proposition for free agents in the future.
The way I see it, with the real probability that we are going to have to pay massive overs to attract quality talent for the foreseeable future, and having so much money locked up in Hunt’s contract, I think it makes our road to recovery an even longer prospect than what it appears to be already.
All in all, it’s my guess we’ll see much of the same from Ben next year. That being, Ben failing at being an elite half, while collecting the pay cheque of one.
Just my opinion…