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Impact on the new club:
Josh Bruce‘s inclusion into the Bulldogs forward structure is one of the undervalued trades off the offseason. Last year he kicked 36 goals. The seasons before this his goal tallies were 4 (he played only three games), 36, 38 & 50.
He’s a decent set shot, strong contested mark and regularly presents himself into dangerous positions as a forward. Including him, into the forward now gives the bulldogs another tall to work alongside Aaron Naughton and Josh Schache.
Sam Lloyd has shown he’s a damaging small forward who’s capable of clunking a mark while Bailey Dale and Toby McLean round out a potent forward line.
This move, as well as the trade for Alex Keath, should ensure the Bulldogs are playing deep into finals for the 2020 season.
Impact on the old club:
The departure will have a significant effect on the Saints. Last year St Kilda was the fifth-lowest scoring side, with only Gold Coast, Carlton, Melbourne and Fremantle worse off.
In 2019 Tim Membrey was the leading goalkicker with 44, but Bruce was right behind him with 36. The Next best three goal-scoring tallies were from Matthew Parker (16), Jade Gresham (15) and Ben Long.
The positive for St Kilda is Max King will be a superstar. However, the departure of Bruce will put an even higher level of responsibility on him as well as on Tim Membrey and the resting ruckmen.
Fantasy Summary:
Key position players at either end of the ground are rarely Fantasy football relevant. To be clear, Josh Bruce is no exception to the rule. Across his SuperCoach career at St Kilda and GWS, his personal best was 70 back in 2018. For AFLFantasy he’s never averaged over 68.
Josh will provide a valuable forward target, but from a SuperCoach or AFLFantasy perspective, he’s not relevant for the salary cap or draft leagues.
His inclusion to the Dogs does have potentially a positive fantasy output, just not for him. I believe if anyone benefits it’s Marcus Bontempelli who know will only be needed to rest forward rather than ‘have’ to play there to create another tall target. If a focussed midfield role does continue for ‘the bont’, then he must be considered as a genuine top 10 midfielders in SuperCoach.
