IT ISN’T often a defender can find reasons to look forward to playing on a six-time All-Australian with more than 300 games and almost 500 career goals to his name.
But that’s the apparent conundrum Joel Patfull could face on Saturday night, when the Brisbane Lions take on the Western Bulldogs at the MCG.
In past clashes, Patfull has had the unenviable task of picking up 300-gamer Brad Johnson – three times the Dogs’ fairest-and-best and on four occasions the club’s leading goal-kicker.
Still, having spent much of last weekend’s clash with Fremantle giving up 12kg to Matthew Pavlich (101kg), manning the 87kg Johnson will represent a welcome return to Patfull’s weight class.
“Obviously a guy like Brad Johnson is a really difficult opponent but generally I’d prefer to play on a mid-sized forward like him,” Patfull told lions.com.au.
“It can be a bit hard to pick, because you normally wouldn’t expect the bigger guys to run as much – and a player like Pavlich can really run as well.
“But when it’s a matter of being 10-15kg lighter than your opponent, like I was last week, I’m a lot more comfortable going one-on-one against smaller forwards.”
Although history would point to the job on Johnson being his, Patfull will spend this week preparing to play on any number of opponents.
The Dogs are an AFL rarity in that they don’t have a genuine key forward. That said, the likes of Johnson (182cm), Scott Welsh (188cm) and Robert Murphy (186cm) are more than handy overhead and have already combined for 61 goals this season.
“Most weeks I’d get DVDs of maybe three opposition forwards – this week I’ve got pretty much the whole Bulldogs forward line to study, five or six of them,” Patfull said.
“Most teams have at least a couple of real key forwards, but the Bulldogs don’t have any really, which changes things.
“The last couple of years I’ve played on Johnson but I could easily be on Welsh or Murphy instead this weekend. And they can all take a good mark.”
The Lions’ defence has been in solid form thus far in 2008 – although surprisingly it is giving up 96 points-per-game compared to 85 in 2007.
Last week it endured the absences of Josh Drummond, Ash McGrath and Jason Roe to help deliver a fourth consecutive win against Freo.
Mobile big man Mitch Clark was shifted to the backline and amassed 16 possessions, five marks and five rebounds from the defensive 50m.
“It was a pretty good sign that we had the three blokes out of the backline last week and were still able to do the job,” the 23-year-old Patfull said.
“You always want your best players playing but it’s also a big advantage to have a bit of depth to cover.
“We probably missed Drummo a little bit, but Mitch Clark was able to come back and slot straight in and did really well for us.”
