Fremantle GM of football Peter Bell expects Luke Jackson to play an “interesting” role in his first year as a Docker.
Jackson joined the club in the trade period in exchange for a first-round pick, future first-round pick and future second-round pick after playing 52 games including the winning 2021 Grand Final with Melbourne.
At the Demons, Jackson played a blend of forward and ruck and Bell says that they also expect the highly-rated recruit to spend a “lot of time forward” while also flagging that he could receive midfield minutes.
“It is interesting,” Bell said on SEN WA Breakfast.
“We’ll definitely play him a large proportion forward.
“Clearly, he’s going to do some ruck work as well and maybe even some midfield, which we’ve spoken about.
“But he’ll spend a lot of time forward.”
While Jackson only kicked 30 goals during his time at Melbourne, Bell feels he can drastically improve on that output in purple with the way the Dockers plan to use him.
“It is interesting statistically, he does win a lot of 1v1s forward,” Bell said.
“For a few different reasons - look far be it from me to criticise Melbourne, with the way that they played him, given the success they had – but they do play when they go inside 50 quite a narrow sort of entry, they’ll go to the pockets a lot.
“Luke would often find himself as that tall on the other side of the 50 if you like.
“He didn’t get used as much as other clubs might look to use key forwards.
“We’ll try and give him a lot of one on one, we think he can mark it and kick a lot of goals.”
Jackson joins Fremantle as a premiership player, Rising Star winner and 2x 22under22 recipient from just three AFL seasons.