This is my recollection too (may or may not be influenced by my recently acquired hatred towards him).

Charlie looks like Tarzan, but wrestles like Jane. Relatively speaking.

No chance he out-muscles Crippa one on one if they are standing under the footy. He would need to get half a step ahead of him on the lead to win that contest.

Ditto against Weiters.

Which, in fairness, is where he might flourish in Sydney, assuming their I50 delivery is better than ours.

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The Artist Formerly Known As BamBam7

He wouldn’t out-wrestle Cripps but he would stand his ground and then suddenly stretch out his telescopibpc arms and mark the ball or get a free for interference.
Charlie receives a lot of frees which other supporters think are soft because defenders panic around him and infringe.

We don’t need to be revisionist: When he’s on, he is unstoppable.
However, he is mostly not on often enough in a season or even during a big match against strong opposition.
And he doesn’t conform to team plans and rules as much as others; he plays on instinct and loves the big moments which move the crowd! His big moments are amazing but they are not as common as the times he tries but stuffs it up.
And, as has been well documented, he has struggled to bring his best in the finals.

Overall, I think we will be better in 2026 than we were this season. We have a better spread of higher quality players - we’ve lost an elite player who performs at this level 60% of the time but have added 3 good to excellent players who play to their capacity 80% of the time and add speed, tenacity, and variety.

And for those who may be rating Hayward as average…. Let’s not overrate TDK either. At his best, he is elite. However, overall, I would rate him above average at best. And even when he is elite, this is often based on clearances which are blindly bombed forward. I would love to have kept him - I do think he will keep improving and esp with the new ruck rules will be great for the Saints. However, many teams do quite well without an elite ruckman.

So, net-net, we have lost a couple of our top end players. But added that middle layer that evens up our list and lifts the floor of our bottom end players. The rest is up to Voss (and the medical/HP team). And, of course, the players!

i agree the midfield options are much deeper for Blues in 2026 barring any injuries. and as you and others have pointed to, more depth on all the lines means more options to rotate players through the middle. i’ve seen Lions do that during games. it seems to work.

i’d love it if Cripps can pinch hit at CHF bc with Charlie gone we really need solid KPFs to take their attention away from Harry and whomever else is playing hot up forward during the game. that’s ge key to beating modern defences, having a star CHF or FF (Jeramy Cameron in 2025 for example) isn’t nearly enough. teams need to stretch oppo defences with a mix of height, strength, ground ball skills, speed and most important of all, intelligent and fast ball movement. Cripps is smart enough and powerful enough that he can definitely add something to our forward mix if we can spare him from the middle during parts of the game.

also, whether it’s a Voss problem, or a perception thing, we seem to have been way too predictable for opposition coaches and players under Voss, allowing them to play the averages and reduce our effectiveness going I50. anything that changes that is a good thing.