Former Collingwood premiership player and footy analyst Mick McGuane believes Carlton coach David Teague must empower his young midfielders.
Lochie O’Brien and Paddy Dow were both taken with top 10 picks in the 2016 National Draft and both were reasonably quiet in their second years with the club.
Both are young players learning the game and will need time to find their feet, but McGuane would like to see Teague free the duo up next year and give them bigger midfield roles.
“I would just let them hunt the footy. I’ve watched those kids from a young age and they’re ball winners,” he told SEN Afternoons.
“I felt Lochie O’Brien being asked to play on a wing and to play a real structural role, I reckon he lost initiative, he lost instinct, he lost his reflex and he lost his footy intuition.
“When you’re a good young player coming through the system from seven right through to about 17, you’ve been identified as a good young player based on your ball-winning ability and then how you use it.
“I just felt watching him from afar this year he was sort of will I go or won’t I go and he got caught in no man’s land too often because he was trying to do the right thing for the team.
“Sometimes I think you’ve still got to have that footy intuition for the team and let players play and I reckon O’Brien and Paddy Dow are two prime examples, with Sam Walsh and Zac Fisher, complimented by Patrick Cripps and if they get a Stephen Coniglio as a free agent, the generation of the midfield group you’re looking at is completely different if you let them play.
“I think there’s time to let young kids play and see if they cut the mustard against the better players in the competition because that’s where it’s won or lost.”
O’Brien has predominantly played as a wingman early in his AFL career, while Paddy Dow was moved out of the midfield and used across half forward more once Teague took over.