Shaun Higgins has arguably been North Melbourne's most important player but, like Zach Merrett at Essendon, he has been shifted out of the engine room in recent weeks to play a wing or flanker role to make use of his quality by foot on the outside. His fantasy scores have suffered only slightly, maintaining his Supercoach average while down a few points on adjusted rates in Dream Team. North hasn't been going too well lately so it is encouraging to see Higgins keeping his levels up despite the team sucking, as it often does.
Shaun Higgins has arguably been North Melbourne's most important player but, like Zach Merrett at Essendon, he has been shifted out of the engine room in recent weeks to play a wing or flanker role to make use of his quality by foot on the outside. His fantasy scores have suffered only slightly, maintaining his Supercoach average while down a few points on adjusted rates in Dream Team. North hasn't been going too well lately so it is encouraging to see Higgins keeping his levels up despite the team sucking, as it often does.
Higgins in the rigging
Across and beyond his 30th birthday, Shaun Higgins has strung together three years of elite inside midfield play as a coda to what had until then looked like being a long but staccato career dogged by soft tissue problems. His ratio has shifted from 13:11 to 13:15 in that time with less metres gained, perhaps affected by the rise in quality of those he was supplying. For fantasy purposes, Higgins' quality doesn't quite translate into premium status as the quantity is just a tick under that required to attract interest in early draft rounds. Even though his averages have been on a slow march upwards, going into his 15th season there is significant downside risk to a man whose calves aren't getting any fresher. Your league's winner will probably have overlooked him.
Shaun Higgins has looked at times this year like he could be the best player that the Kangaroos have, though it is still early in his career to be making those judgements. He has filled his boots against lesser teams especially when give licence to roam up the ground chasing kicks, but his starting position is often too deep to get involved, as evidenced by anonymous stat sheets against the top two teams in the last month. As a fantasy producer, you'd like his role to be more Brent Harvey and less Lindsay Thomas.
Higgins is a big pig
At 30 years of age, Shaun Higgins is playing career-best football. This looked improbable at best a few years ago when he was at the Bulldogs and riddled by injury to that point in his career. He has moved to North and thrived in an inside midfield role, while managing to remain healthy most of the time. With that said, coaches should tread lightly when considering Higgins. Despite his recent successes, he remains a 30-year-old with a worrying soft tissue and foot injury history. He needs to be drafted relatively early but more reliable players around his scoring level should be prioritised.
Big gig for Higgins
Stepping into the tiny shoes of Brent Harvey, Shaun Higgins completed a move to inside midfield to play all but one game in 2017, posting big jumps for personal bests in disposals and tackles. He lacks pace on the spread, but kicks more than he handballs and is up there with elites like Scott Pendlebury and Josh Kelly in combining high levels of inside 50s with 70%+ efficiency. Higgins copped a few tags during the year but the better teams didn't bother, as the Roos were bottom six for clearances anyway. This is not likely to change in 2018 as the club continues to bottom out, and the better players in their A rotation are B-graders at best. In a better team, Higgins would be a weapon to fear; at the Roos he will mostly be allowed to do his thing and reward a middle-round pick.
Higgins approaches elite level
At the start of the season, the name on every fantasy fans lips was Shaun Higgins as with a price just over $200,000 in both Super Coach and Dream Team he was almost impossible to resist.
His opening quarter of the 2008 preliminary final against Geelong was simply awesome and it was at that point the football world came to see what he could do.
His first three years were savaged by injury, but this year he has put-together a full pre-season and the benefits are showing on the field, as Higgins has been arguably the buy of the season, costing very little and providing plenty.
Bought as a cash cow early in the season, coaches may have to rethink his "keeper" status, due to his impressive average of 97.4 in Super Coach and 92.3 in Dream Team.
Will he be able to continue his fine run of form and keep injury-free? Bulldog fans and his 103,237 DT and 157,379 SC owners will certainly hope so.
