Nick Dal Santo – The Saints have a classy mid-field, but Dal Santo is perhaps the classiest. Although he is also probably the most susceptible to a tag. He has improved this part of his game in 2010, and he has also become a more contested possession player (He had 12 contested possessions last week).
Dal has always been a contested ball player. Some people just refuse to see it. Here's his averages over time:
02 - 4.6
03 - 7.3
04 - 6.7
05 - 8.9
06 - 8.1
07 - 8.1
08 - 6.1
09 - 8.4
10 - 9.1
You could point out that he had a down year in 08, but Lenny had a down year the year before. Over the longer-term we haven't had as consistent a contested ball player as Nick Dal Santo.
If anything, it's his uncontested ball numbers that tell the story of his improvement. He's always going to win the one-on-one's with the hacks who play on him. It's the ability to outwork them and get uncontested ball that makes him a better player today than he was two years ago.
And unless you have Kane Cornes or Brady Rawlings, he's not all that susceptible to a tag. (EDIT: Upon reflection, it was actually Greenwod, not rawlings, who shut down Dal last year.) Most taggers have struggled on him over the last couple of years. I don't think tagging him is a bad idea, but it doesn't seem to be Mick's style. He'll throw his ball winners into the centre against ours and back them.
The way things are going this year, I'd bet Collingwood will win the clearances and the contested ball. They'll turn over the ball, miss shots at goal and lose a low-scoring game by 3-5 goals.
