Josh Schache has had some success as a third tall forward at both Brisbane and the Bulldogs, but not really enough to justify the treasure spent to draft him and then trade for him. A move to defence paid dividends last week, complementing Keath and Cordy up the spine with some excellent intercept marks. Keath's injury means that trio has now been broken up just as it began, with Easton Wood coming in to play his role. Does this mean Schache turns into a CHB and retains fantasy relevance, like Michael Hurley and James Sicily before him? Today will be a big clue.
Josh Schache has had some success as a third tall forward at both Brisbane and the Bulldogs, but not really enough to justify the treasure spent to draft him and then trade for him. A move to defence paid dividends last week, complementing Keath and Cordy up the spine with some excellent intercept marks. Keath's injury means that trio has now been broken up just as it began, with Easton Wood coming in to play his role. Does this mean Schache turns into a CHB and retains fantasy relevance, like Michael Hurley and James Sicily before him? Today will be a big clue.
Not much love for Schache
Former Lion Josh Schache has been unable to live up to the potential of a #2 draft pick. After a career-high four-goal showing against the Hawks in round 2 the highly-touted junior struggled, dropped after an extremely quiet fortnight. At VFL level, he slotted 8 goals from 7 games before getting a recall in round 14, kicking goals in all but three of his senior appearances. Schache's mantra is simple: he needs bags of goals week in, week out if he wants to be fantasy-relevant. That's not going to be the case, especially with Josh Bruce competing for targets inside 50s, meaning his graph is going to have troughs even though the peaks might be impressively high. Let Schache drift into the free agent pool.
Schache on long track
The second selection in the 2015 draft, Josh Schache continued to learn his craft during an injury-interrupted third year. Arriving at Footscray after twenty-four months for the Lions, Schache gathered career highs in disposals, marks and goals per game. The youngster hit the scoreboard with a major in 12 of his 13 performances, developing a consistency which was not apparent over his first 27 career games. The key forward will aim for an injury free season as continuity will be important to his development. Entering his fourth season, Schache will be expected to make inroads in his goal to be the lead forward at Whitten Oval. The former Murray Bushranger is a key avenue to goal following Jack Redpath's retirement, and hope remains that he can replicate his dominant junior form. Schache will not warrant selection for your fantasy side.
Schache is just a caddy
A knee ligament strain interrupted Josh Schache's 2017 preseason, and he started and finished his last year at Brisbane in the NEAFL without improving at all on his debut numbers. Worse, he barely took any contested marks at all after 30% of his grabs came in a contest in 2016. Criticism has come for his lack of knowledge about leading patterns, and he has reached double figures in possessions in just eight of 27 senior matches. Schache arrives at Whitten Oval to join a club crying out for a CHF to rebuild their forward line around. The problem is that he's more suited to playing as the third tall running around the flanks as he just can not compete in pack situations, the same problem that befalls Cam McCarthy. Perhaps he needs to talk to Jack Watts to learn how to screw up your courage and stand up at the most difficult position in footy. Until he learns that, he's undraftable.
