Dusty plays a much more contested game, you can't really compare inside and outside players on disp efficiency.It’s interesting I think both dusty and shorty make their fair share of clangers at a much higher clip than the rest of the team (outside of the recently retired).
But clearly dusty makes more stuff turn into gold and wins 1:1s than shorty so we tend to overlook his errors.
I think Short had a patch where he was
finishing really well and higher efficiency vs last year he didn’t seem to hit the scoreboard as much and made more unforced errors (to my eye and without referring to stats). Shorts’ kick penetration probably also means his errors have less negative effect because there is time for the defence to adjust.
Need to compare like for like.
Over his career and compared with other similar HBF Short is less effective when measured on score launches and score involvements - which is a large part of the effectiveness of guys playing that extra man in defence/outlet player.
Metres gained is too simple a measure in isolation. Does him getting the ball and flaying it forward result in us scoring? That to me is a more effective measure of how well he uses the ball.
Over his career Short is measured as elite in kicks and "effective" kicks. But measured as average in score involvements and score launches.