After an injury-ravaged four years on North Melbourne's list, Mitchell Hibberd is back in the AFL following a stellar year for Williamstown in the VFL. A conversion from defender to inside mid produced rates of 24 touches, seven tackles and 98 fantasy points. He suffered a knee meniscus injury in January training that put him out for six weeks. The upside for Hibberd is Tim Kelly's first year at Geelong. The downside is Marcus Marigliani. The hierarchy down at Tullamarine made it a priority to fill their list with depth at the inside mid position, but for every Kelly there are at least a dozen Mariglianis. Worth a flier if he gets up for the Marsh series, though he is likely to go slow given that setback.
Hibberd out of hibernation
After an injury-ravaged four years on North Melbourne's list, Mitchell Hibberd is back in the AFL following a stellar year for Williamstown in the VFL. A conversion from defender to inside mid produced rates of 24 touches, seven tackles and 98 fantasy points. He suffered a knee meniscus injury in January training that put him out for six weeks. The upside for Hibberd is Tim Kelly's first year at Geelong. The downside is Marcus Marigliani. The hierarchy down at Tullamarine made it a priority to fill their list with depth at the inside mid position, but for every Kelly there are at least a dozen Mariglianis. Worth a flier if he gets up for the Marsh series, though he is likely to go slow given that setback.
The other M. Hibberd
After a round 1 taster in his second season, Mitchell Hibberd built his form in the VFL sufficiently to earn a more extended senior run starting in round 15 including 22 touches in round 16, but it was cut short by a shoulder injury the next week. That is a very small sample size for fantasy coaches to evaluate what Hibberd is likely to do in 2018. He showed in the reserves that he is capable of scoring fantasy tons in the right environment, so a good JLT should see him picked late in your draft.
