Season in short
A leg injury suffered against St.Kilda in round 18 will likely define Mitch Wallis’s season, but before that Wallis continued to develop as a key cog in the Bulldogs midfield, sitting second behind only Liam Picken in time spent in the middle of the ground.
According to Champion Data, Wallis was in the thick of it 65% of the time, and the stats show he was having a decent impact while in there especially when it comes to the grunt work.
At 10.4 contested possessions per game, he ranked fourth at the Club behind Marcus Bontempelli, Tom Liberatore (tied), and Luke Dahlhaus, and second in clearances behind Liberatore.
His three goal, 25 possession outing in the round 17 win over the Gold Coast Suns in Cairns would show what the 23-year-old is capable of as he continues to mature as a player.
The stat that mattered
Wallis spent 35.2% of his time in the forward line in 2016, the most since his rookie year in 2011.
What they said
“To be honest I had high expectations going into the new season and I probably didn’t reach them.
“Obviously I was injured for a big part of the season but I was probably a bit more inconsistent than I would have liked to have been.
“But I’ll come back in December and the new year with new vigour.”
Gram of the year
Hard to go past the traditional thumbs-up snap from the hospital bed following his leg injury.
