I think a lot of his errors like bumping instead of tackling and bombing inside 50 rather than spotting up is more a case of him being a WAFL player for so long. Not easy at his age to totally reprogram your entire game.
That said he has been more than adequate past few weeks. And that tackle was a thing of beauty!!
I agree Ghost with the bumping bit being an integral part of his game, an ingrained habit. I think that Richmond knew what it was getting when we drafted him in this regard. Pickett to me is an outside mid who can get the footy for himself when the opportunity is there.
I actually think that footy in WA, especially WAFL, is not suited to tacklers as much. The grounds are firm for most of the winter and the game tends to favour players who can win a contested ball but then run and break from packs. A case in point was Mark McGough. He played reasonable footy at East Freo after coming over from the Pies, but never really made it in the WAFL because he just didn't get the heavy tracks that suited him as a player.
For a guy like Marlion, tackling doesn't seem to make as much sense because when you tackle you commit and can often be out of the contest if the ball is not tied up and comes loose, which is often what happens in the WAFL. Pickett prefers to hit the pack and look for the ball jarring free so he can grab it. Whether that is good at AFL level is open for debate, but as you say it is how he has programed himself to play.
There is a lot of supposition in my thoughts here, but I don't think the Tigers see it as an error, even though sometimes he looks ineffective by not tackling. I do wonder if we took Marlion looking for something different in contested ball situations. A little like they way we used Grigg as a ruckman. We want the player in there making a contest, but not to the extent they take themselves out of the contest. Grigg in the ruck was effective because it virtually gave us an extra mid around stoppages.
We have built a gameplan for the last 3 years off having as many players at the contest as possible. Winning the contested footy isn't seemingly as important to us though as the pressure and forcing errors which get the ball back to us.
I think we took Pickett hoping that he could give us another dimension to providing that pressure around the ball. He was certainly a master of that at WAFL level, but the AFL is obviously much different again. The jury is probably still a little out here, but for what he cost us, Pickett was well worth the punt.
