Eric Hipwood was about the only good thing out on the park last week for Brisbane, and it's a bit of a shame that they are wasting his excellent form with the rest of the club in the doldrums at the moment. His body shape is perfectly suited to the third tall forward role and he can deliver two or three goals himself plus set up many more when he's on, as he is right now. This makes him an interesting short-term play for daily fantasy purposes, especially if it looks like the Lions' fortunes are about to improve. A night game at home against Essendon might prove lucrative.
Eric Hipwood was about the only good thing out on the park last week for Brisbane, and it's a bit of a shame that they are wasting his excellent form with the rest of the club in the doldrums at the moment. His body shape is perfectly suited to the third tall forward role and he can deliver two or three goals himself plus set up many more when he's on, as he is right now. This makes him an interesting short-term play for daily fantasy purposes, especially if it looks like the Lions' fortunes are about to improve. A night game at home against Essendon might prove lucrative.
Eric Hipwood had an excellent score in round 1 even as his team were being beaten by Hawthorn, but his role as a third tall forward is not usually conducive to consistent fantasy scoring as was proved last week. He is the Great White Hope of the Brisbane forward line, which was the highest-scoring in the competition last year mostly off the back of Charlie Cameron's contributions closer to the goalface. Hipwood's one wood should be score involvements, which makes him a tricky play for fantasy coaches.
Hipwood needs to catch fire
With expectations high, Eric Hipwood failed to improve in his fourth season at the Lions. Decreasing in disposal and goal output, the only notable improvement was the youngster's tackle count. His best performance came against Tom Jonas in round 3, kicking six including a three-goal opening term. Key forwards often take a few years to mature and this may well be the case for Hipwood. At his best, he can be difficult to manage and as the Lions continue to improve across the ground, he should receive greater opportunity. A free agent to keep tabs on.
Hipwood smoulders on
Double-digit growth in fantasy points from year to year was a decent result for Eric Hipwood in season three. The problem was that he was coming from way, way back in statistical output, and could still only manage ten touches per match. He booted 37.27 from a full slate of games, jumping a dozen points in fantasy scoring after the bye with only one goalless outing in that run. He did not reach a tally of six marks at all in his first 40 games, but did it six times in his last nine appearances. The template for Hipwood's development is Lance Franklin, and he is still tracking way behind Buddy. Daniel McStay was shifted to CHF in place of the departed Josh Schache to allow him to play his natural game which looks more like a forward pocket, with three of his four marks per game coming inside 50 but only one contested. By year four, Buddy was regularly scoring fantasy tons; Hipwood may get to the forward baseline this season, but it's a long struggle.
Hipwood shoulders the load
It's not much fun being the focal point of the attack with the worst supply in the AFL. Eric Hipwood's numbers actually dropped a couple of points in his second year as he was often abandoned by Josh Schache and had very little support up forward. His mark tally only reached four in eight of 20 games, though he did register 11 games with multiple goals. His best game was a bag of four in the big win away to Essendon. Hipwood's numbers were the sort of stuff you see out of anonymous third talls. He gets compared with Lance Franklin a lot and, to be fair, Buddy's first two years sucked in pure statistical terms. Franklin broke out in years three and four, and Hipwood will have to emulate that to be fantasy-relevant - though Buddy was in a finals-bound team in both those years. He is probably worth a late flier on potential alone.
