Ball in hand, Billy Walters is a significantly better player than Mitch Kenny. Name one thing that Mitch does better offensively.
Passing out of Dummy half? No.
General passing? LOL no, Billy has the general passing of a good (not great) half.
Decision making? Again Billy has halves level decision making.
Kick Game: No Contest - with the risk of sounding like a broken record, Billy has a halves like kicking game. He has kicked 40/20's before!
Dummy Half Runs: Billy.
General Running: Billy.
Where Mitch has Billy covered is defense, toughness and fitness, where he'd win every category.
For our team with our style, Mitch is a better fit, but in most other teams Billy would be preferred over Kenny.
Look, I agree with everything you say except you place little to no value on Mitch’s defence or his leadership and his motor. Chins is the same, he loves all the flash, thinks Martin is useless and once described Kenny as a plodder.
I am not saying I am right, it’s just my view but I place a lot more value in toughness and fitness. We don’t win four premierships without the grit that Leota, Martin, JFH and Kenny provided. Nobody is playing the Panther’s and bullying them with these men playing. Hold the middle and then the ball players like Grant, Walters and their ilk can do their stuff. Lose the middle and they become a luxury player.
I agree with you, Kenny is perfect for our team because we don’t need more ball players, nice though they are to have, we need to dominate with our defence, our whole game is built around that by design. Kenny isn’t just a mean SOB defender, he has a motor like a Camry that goes on forever. He can play the 80 minutes and still be knocking blokes over when the final whistle goes.
A Yeo (wonderful player that he is) tackle is not the same as being belted by Martin or Kenny. It just isn’t. The opposition are looking for these players, hoping they can avoid them.
Garner is the same. Great runner of the ball, better than Martin at hole running for sure. But he never gets to do those runs if we don’t hold the middle and dominate with our defence and kick chase. Cleary has this sorted really well and brings on Garner when the softening up period is over. You can argue whether he should get more minutes, but the basic principle stands.
For the record, I am in the camp that thinks Billy is under rated and suffers from the fact his Dad is Kevin Walters and only in the team because of his Dad (Flanagan cops the same abuse). Judged on his own merits he is a great 14 and I would love to have him at the Panthers instead of Schneider or Cogger. Alas, he would cost too much.
