The emergence of Braydon Pruess has former Essendon champion Tim Watson believing North Melbourne will select him alongside Todd Goldstein for their season opener against West Coast.
The 206cm giant has impressed in his two pre-season performances, accumulating 29 hitouts against Sydney, before his 27 hitout, three goal effort against Hawthorn last weekend.
“I think North Melbourne will trial it, I think they will go with it (both Pruess and Goldstein) in round one,” Watson said on SEN Breakfast.
“It may not last because they may not get enough out of Pruess outside of the ruckwork, but on what we’ve seen (it’s a very small sample size) to my well trained eye I think he (Pruess) has as much impact as a (Shane) Mumford out there on the ground potentially.”
Watson believes the success of playing the two genuine ruckmen in the same team will come down to both players being able to hold their own in a different position, when not on-ball, most likely up forward.
“Is Goldstein going to be a genuine forward? Is Pruess capable of going forward and doing some damage at that end of the ground as well?” he said.
“They must hold own in another slot.”
He sees the rise of Pruess as a real weapon for Roos coach Brad Scott, and feels the damage he could do offensively can outweigh a possible lack of defensive pressure.
“We haven’t seen enough yet, but Pruess kicked three, could’ve kicked four, maybe five goals on the weekend. Maybe that is just an anomaly,” Watson said.
“If you’re a brave coach, you might be Brad Scott right now, might be thinking this wasn’t in our plan a month ago, but we actually have a weapon here, a really powerful part of our game that will be around Goldstein and Pruess being part of our 22.
“At some point you’ve got to make a judgement call on what you can do offensively, against what you might lose defensively.”
Watson said he has some concerns for Majak Daw who has waited many years for a full-time opportunity, declaring that Pruess has already overtaken him after just two pre-season games.
“They’ll play Ben Brown, They’ll play Jarrad Waite, but they won’t play Majak Daw though,” he said.
“He’s been waiting seven years for (Drew) Petrie to move on and now Pruess has taken over in the space of two weeks.”
Click here to view Braydon Pruess's SEN Inside Football Player Ratings
Click here to view Braydon Pruess's SEN Inside Football Player Ratings