I've never thought of Ryan Stirk as lightweight because he does not get bullied off the ball and he gets stuck into his tackles. The main issue is what he does with the ball and making an impact on the game. He's shown glimpses of what he can do such as his sub appearance against Rochdale and the 1st half against Scunthorpe but on Saturday he ran the game in the 1st half and was excellent. He had a good shot blocked early on and made 3 or 4 great passes in difficult conditions including the pass to Hewitt and assist for Oli Hawkins goal. My only criticism was that he gave the ball away too much but the conditions were terrible. I said that George Maris needed more competition to be the main ball player and Ryan Stirk has now given him that competition if he continues to play as well. Maris did well when he came on as a sub and helped set up the 2nd goal.
He had great stats on whoscored along with Will Forrester and John Joe O'Toole:
77 touches (more than Stephen McLaughlin who had 75 and who normally has the most touches of the ball on the pitch) (Jack Powell had 83 touches)
58 passes (2nd highest: Jack Powell 72, John-Joe O'Toole 51, Will Forrester 48)
39 accurate passes (Jack Powell 43)
64% pass success (Stephen Quinn 87%, Farrend Rawson 85%, Will Forrester 77%, John-Joe O'Toole 67%) (Back 3 knocking it about)
2 Key Passes
3 Aerials Won (Will Forrester 10, John-Joe O'Toole 7, Oli Hawkins 6) (Defensive Aerials: Will Forrester 14, John-Joe O'Toole 8)
3 Tackles