I have been resisting, but it's time to pull Chammas's article to pieces, examine each point and tear it apart.
Point 1, "Nearly all teams place their fullback at “A” defender" but Griffin doesn't do that, not for Dufty, not for Moylan when he was coaching Penrith. Griffin plays the smaller fullbacks between the A and B defenders, only with DWZ did he play the A defender role. Comparisons of fullbacks of Dufty's size with fullbacks of TTrbojevic size is pretty stupid.
Point 2, "effort" OMG seriously, who would have thought that Dufty isn't a Tedesco clone, my god what a revelation. What Chammas is ignoring in his example is the previous play when Townsend kicked across for Kennedy to finally score, Dufty was obviously marking that pay, rightly or wrongly he had a reason for defending where he did. As for "Woods sealing the game", bullshit, it was already 26 to 18 when Woods scored in the 76 minute, that game was long gone.
Point 3, "Kick defusals" hard to argue against, it is an important part of a fullbacks role to catch the ball. But what it ignores are the other factors, very rarely does Dufty get any protection, as a small stature fullback he needs that to be effective. It is also a reflection of St George being piss poor at placing the opposition kickers under pressure, often times in a game they seem to have almost unlimited time to kick.
Point 4, "roster management" who gives a fark about StGeorge's roster management, we aren't paying Dufty anywhere near what those idiots were. Dufty suites our roster management, one year and peanuts, just fine thank you Chammas.
Point 5 "lack of success", so St George's lack of success is all Dufty's fault, FMD Chammas you really are grasping at straws. Nothing to do with the poor choice of coaches (at all levels), their internal management being in total disarray, which Gould pointed out in his report to the board, or their lack of player discipline, do I really need to mention Norman, DeBelin, 13 players going to a BBQ & piss up against health orders, etc. The reason for George's long term lack of success plainly isn't Dufty.
Point 6, "Attitude" Griffin does have reputation with his players for being polarising, Dufty seems to have been on Griffin's negative pole and that will affect anyone's attitude. He singled out Dufty last August after the loss to the Titans, dropped him, replaced him with Bird and Sloan. Promptly lost 3 games straight and then realised his mistake and brought him back.
To quote Phil Gould on Dufty “There’s definitely tries in him. If you’re a team struggling for points, he’s a fullback that I would buy for that. As to the reasons why the Dragons don’t want him, I don’t think it’s football related.” And yet Chammas tries to tell us in the 6 points that it is all football related. Not surprisingly I have a feeling that Gould may be right and Chammas is ........ well ......... not.
Always a Bulldog
