{"id":9374,"date":"2013-10-09T15:08:47","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T05:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boundforglorynews.com\/?p=9374"},"modified":"2013-10-09T15:08:47","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T05:08:47","slug":"2013-draft-profile-aaron-christensen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2013\/10\/09\/2013-draft-profile-aaron-christensen\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 Draft Profile: Aaron Christensen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aaron Christensen (Calder Cannons)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Height:<\/strong> 190 cm
\nWeight:<\/strong> 74 kg
\nPosition:<\/strong> Wing \/ Forward
\nPlayer Comparison:<\/strong> Matthew Richardson (later years)
\nStrengths:<\/strong> Marking, work rate, agility
\nWeaknesses:<\/strong> Can be negated easily, light frame<\/p>\n

Calder started off the season with no real standout talents, but a good group of core leaders and hard workers who continued to impress across the year. Their top tier all possess clear deficiencies and Aaron Christensen is no different. While he is a fantastic kick, he struggles when he is being paid heavy attention and therefore can go missing in patches during games.<\/p>\n

As a tall wing man, Christensen works hard into space to be a link up target all over the ground. His tank is better than most players, so he covers a lot of space and more often than not, he\u2019s used in counter attacks when the ball is turned over. He\u2019s rarely beaten on the lead, as his combination of burst speed and long arms make him too fast for key defenders, but too lanky for smaller defenders and midfielders.<\/p>\n

In a contest, he has a great mark and a decent leap on him. However, if it\u2019s one on one, he gets out bodied too easily due to his small frame. Obviously that will come in time, but for the moment, he needs to find a “Plan B” for when his opponent engages in a wrestling contest. Having said that, he averaged nearly four and a half marks per game with just over one of those being contested in each game. Against the Stingrays earlier in the year, four of his six marks were contested.<\/p>\n

Christensen is a great kick of the football. His disposal is that of a midfielders rather than a key forward, and he\u2019s agile when the ball hits the deck. He\u2019ll never become a rover because he\u2019s exclusively an outside player, but he doesn\u2019t need to adapt an inside game to make it to the AFL. Against the Jets in the Semi-Finals, Christensen kicked two great running goals from about 45 metres out. His composure when running towards goal is a stand out feature that would be deadly if he becomes a successful AFL player.<\/p>\n

When up forward, Christensen is reliable for two goals a game. He\u2019s kicked multiple goals on five occasions this season. However, when he\u2019s the number one target, opposition coaches will double team him so he becomes ineffectual. As soon as defensive pressure is applied, he struggles to break it. As such, he can either be a really damaging offensive target, or alternatively, rarely sighted. When he is shut down, he moves back to the wing and wins more of the ball to increase his confidence.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Christensen would be suited to the wing or a high half forward role, as his work rate would be wasted as a stay-at-home forward. If he was in a side with more class, there\u2019s no doubt he\u2019d be having a phenomenal year. However, his lack of consistency makes him a really speculative pick come draft day. He has the tools to become a solid AFL player, it will just come down to how he adapts at the club that selects him should he be drafted which one would expect he would.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aaron Christensen (Calder Cannons) Height: 190 cm Weight: 74 kg Position: Wing \/ Forward Player Comparison: Matthew Richardson (later years) Strengths: Marking, work rate, agility Weaknesses: Can be negated easily, light frame Calder started off the season with no real standout talents, but a good group of core leaders and hard workers who continued to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":9694,"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":[271],"tags":[47,550,1445,1529,1584,51],"class_list":["post-9374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2013-draft-profiles","tag-calder-cannons","tag-christensen","tag-phantom-draft","tag-player-profile","tag-rising-stars-2","tag-tac-cup"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9374","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\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}