{"id":16732,"date":"2015-07-01T13:13:52","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T03:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boundforglorynews.com\/?p=16732"},"modified":"2015-07-01T13:13:52","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T03:13:52","slug":"2015-player-profile-dan-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2015\/07\/01\/2015-player-profile-dan-houston\/","title":{"rendered":"2015 Player Profile: Dan Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bfgnprofiles\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dan Houston<\/strong>
\nOakleigh Chargers
\nHeight:<\/strong> 187 cm
\nWeight:<\/strong> 83 kg
\nPosition:<\/strong> Key forward\/third tall\/utility
\nStrengths:<\/strong> Overhead marking, set shots, vision and crumbing
\nWeaknesses:<\/strong>\u00a0Undersized, flexibility, tackling and forward pressure.
\nPlayer comparison:<\/strong> Mark LeCras
\nFirst-year output:<\/strong>\u00a0Long-term prospect<\/p>\n

Kicking:<\/strong>\u00a0Average
\nMarking:<\/strong>\u00a0Excellent
\nEndurance:<\/strong>\u00a0Above average
\nSpeed:<\/strong> Average<\/p>\n

Statistics:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oakleigh Chargers<\/em> (TAC Cup) – five games, 9.6 kicks, 5.2 handballs, 15 disposals, 72 per cent disposal efficiency, seven marks, 2.6 tackles, 1.6 goals<\/p>\n

Vic Metro<\/em> (Under 18s Championships) – three games, 7.3 kicks, two handballs, 9.3 disposals, 66 per cent efficiency, five marks, two tackles, 1.6 goals<\/p>\n

Dan Houston is a future\u00a0prospect, who could develop into an important player\u00a0if he is able to add more strings to his bow. Most would know him from his work in Oakleigh\u2019s grand final win last year, where he took several telling marks in the forward 50, and casually slotted even the toughest of attempts.<\/p>\n

Houston is an undersized key forward in the way he plays, but he\u2019s got many forward aspects to his game. Houston has a bit of Mark LeCras about him in his game style. He is one of the hardest working players on the lead, as he continually leads up towards the 50, but then he\u2019ll double back and do second or third leads.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s one of the best\u00a0key forwards in this year’s draft crop when the ball hits the deck. He has great special awareness, and strength to bust out of tackles. He can duck and weave through traffic and he is a tremendous finisher around the body. He can crumb his own work, so he\u2019s got the ability to fit in any forward line as a unique forward.<\/p>\n

The big question mark over Houston is his ability to do it more often. Besides from his four goals against South Australia, he has not set the world on fire at the under 18 championships. He averages seven marks per week for the Oakleigh Chargers, but just 1.6 goals. This is attributed to the fact he spent the first few games in defence – a move that did not work out.<\/p>\n

After switching back to the forward line, Houston booted five goals against the Eastern Ranges last week. He has that ability to be very good, he just needs to apply it more often.\u00a0The majority of Houston’s marks\u00a0come from his hard leading, but his athleticism allows him to create separation on his lead. He\u2019s also got a pretty good leap and excellent aerial skills, which allows him to take overhead pack marks.<\/p>\n

Houston is one of the better set shot kicks in the TAC Cup. His ball drop and kicking action are quite good. He\u2019s clearly spent plenty of time on this, as he has improved his goal kicking accuracy. Quite often, Houston will have two or three really difficult shots from long range or from a tough angle,\u00a0but it often does not worry him. This is not to say he is an unbelievable shot at goal, but he is up there in terms of set shot kickers.<\/p>\n

Houston kicked 26 goals and 14 behinds from 13 games as an underage prospect last year.\u00a0 His two best games statistically were his seven-goal haul against Queensland and then his\u00a0nine marks (five contested) and three goals against the Geelong Falcons the following week.<\/p>\n

Houston has great vision, and in the right AFL setting, he could play as a high half forward delivering the ball into the forward 50. His passing isn\u2019t quite as good as his kicking on goal, but it is still very effective.<\/p>\n

Despite having all these talents, Houston is a bit of a gamble for some clubs. His size is obviously an issue, as clubs wouldn\u2019t want to take someone who has played his best football as a key tall, yet is less than 190 centimetres. His type is the least draftable player in football, with very few finding their way through to the AFL.<\/p>\n

One only has to look as far as Gippsland’s Josh Scott who dominated as an over-ager and he failed to find a place on an AFL list. They are a similar type and Scott was booting bigger bags that Houston, although to the Oakleigh forward’s credit, he has better athleticism than Scott.<\/p>\n

Houston\u00a0is well built, athletically gifted and has the skill set to play in a traditionally smaller player\u2019s role.\u00a0Oakleigh tried to play Houston off the half back line and occasionally through the middle. Unfortunately, he just didn\u2019t have his usual influence, and couldn\u2019t find the ball enough to be damaging. It was only a small sample size, but it looks abundantly clear that his skill set is best suited up forward.<\/p>\n

Kyle Langford played a very similar role to Houston last year for the Knights, but it was Langford\u2019s versatility that got him drafted so highly.\u00a0Importantly, Langford was able to lay plenty of tackles, and increase his disposal numbers to around 15-20 touches most weeks. Langford was also excellent as a backman too.\u00a0Indeed, Langford was also a similar height at 190 cm, although he was much skinnier. Houston needs to follow in Langford\u2019s steps and show that he can get better defensively\u00a0inside the forward 50.<\/p>\n

In order to get drafted, Houston needs to ensure he is not pigeon-holed as an undersized key forward. He needs to keep building on what the coaches have tried to do by moving up the field, or dominate inside forward 50. This means raising his goals per game average to between three to four goals and becoming a dominant key forward.<\/p>\n

If he can do this, he stands a good chance of being drafted, but he needs to put his hand up and demand to be picked with strong performances in the second half of the season, because his best is very good, he just needs to do it more often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Houston Oakleigh Chargers Height: 187 cm Weight: 83 kg Position: Key forward\/third tall\/utility Strengths: Overhead marking, set shots, vision and crumbing Weaknesses:\u00a0Undersized, flexibility, tackling and forward pressure. Player comparison: Mark LeCras First-year output:\u00a0Long-term prospect Kicking:\u00a0Average Marking:\u00a0Excellent Endurance:\u00a0Above average Speed: Average Statistics: Oakleigh Chargers (TAC Cup) – five games, 9.6 kicks, 5.2 handballs, 15 disposals, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[275],"tags":[306,616,684,1393,48,1584,51],"class_list":["post-16732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-draft-profiles","tag-2015-draft-profiles","tag-dan-houston","tag-draft-profiles","tag-oakleigh","tag-oakleigh-chargers","tag-rising-stars-2","tag-tac-cup"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}