Will Hayward has joined Carlton in a swap for Charlie Curnow, among other players, but he is not in Curnow's weight division as a key position player even though he lines up in about the same place across the half forward line. He is not the sort of gorilla-sized target forward who can bust open a pack of six or more blokes to take strong contested grabs. He's more of your float and sting merchant, using his pace on the outside to run to position. Neither kind of key forward is particularly fantasy-relevant, but his presence and form is crucial to bring others into the game.
Will Hayward has joined Carlton in a swap for Charlie Curnow, among other players, but he is not in Curnow's weight division as a key position player even though he lines up in about the same place across the half forward line. He is not the sort of gorilla-sized target forward who can bust open a pack of six or more blokes to take strong contested grabs. He's more of your float and sting merchant, using his pace on the outside to run to position. Neither kind of key forward is particularly fantasy-relevant, but his presence and form is crucial to bring others into the game.
Will Hayward has featured in a lot of trade talk stories this season, but signed a five-year contract during the week to keep him at the Swans for the remainder of his career. Some might have wondered what the fuss was about, since he doesn't feature in many highlights, doesn't top the goalkicking and has always been a support player to bigger stars. However, he has always proven a tough matchup playing as a flanker and not in a key position, since he has the height of a target man but also the tank and ground skills of a smaller unit. He will be worth the contract.
Hayward still wayward
Among a plethora of evolving Swans stamping their name on the competition, high half forward Will Hayward's 2019 was interrupted by a broken jaw which required surgery. Thereafter he was hampered by a sore hip and his consistency fluctuated to produce an average seven points less than his breakout year prior. He booted a disappointingly inaccurate 12.16 from 13 games. Hayward is delivering a full preseason and will slot back into the Sydney forward line come round 1, with added scoreboard responsibility on his shoulders in what is likely to be the continued absence of Lance Franklin. Without ever scoring above 90, the young Swan remains largely irrelevant to the fantasy world. Just don't pick him until we see a spark.
Hayward releases chaff
Will Hayward made the progress he and his club would have hoped for in his second season. The lightning-quick forward improved his stats in all areas, finishing second in Sydney’s goal tally. Hayward cemented his position in the forward line with maximum appearances, and should remain a mainstay in the squad in 2019. Hayward has bolstered his light frame with plenty of size over the off season on a modified training schedule. The young forward will benefit from more time in the system and could improve again this year, but we haven’t seen enough consistency or a ceiling high enough to justify picking him. Let him slide into the free agent pool.
Will Hayward is just the sort of player that Sydney needs to have a break out game to lead them to victory, much in the same way as Sam Weideman did for Melbourne last night. With Sam Reid not even playing reserves this week support for Lance Franklin in the forward line is pretty much him and a bunch of tween-sized battlers. If he can get dangerous enough to grab a bagful of goals - or perhaps more importantly provide a contest to long dump kicks down the wing - that will go a long way towards keeping the Swans in September.
Sun shines for Hayward
In his debut season, Will Hayward notched up 17 games and proved to be a handy presence up forward with a goal or more in all but four of those appearances, though his score passed the baseline for forwards only once with a junk time effort against Geelong. There’s no reason Hayward shouldn’t play the majority of 2018 as well, even with Jordan Foote looming, but as with many third tall forwards the problem for fantasy is quality over quantity. He needs to make up 25 points per game to be startable, which makes it difficult to see drafting him.
