Have the teams been released?
Nup. Brown flew, Stringer and Franga didnāt. Not sure of any other changes though.
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Ohā¦ you just said heās playing is all.
So you donāt actually know.
Itās been reported already. So yes, i do know.
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Itās not official.
Heās been injured though, he broke his wrist. For your average Joe that is a 6 week injury. He tried to come back early in the vfl and pulled up sore.
In all those games you mention it was manifestly clear that we lacked movement and leading targets ahead of the ball. Francis provided a bit of this against Freo but he canāt touch Brown for work rate.
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Not critical? Disagree. With Joe Dan missing he is more critical now, than ever before.
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Yeah, they should have played him last week.
They decided not to rush him back from injury, sensible considering he broke down last time.
All that said, if stringer hadnāt been injured Iād expect Brown would be playing vfl again. Thereās no doubt that our forward line functioned better last week than it has recently and we were able to play a front half game in the third quarter better than we have since norf, perhaps all year.
Ultimately it will be interesting to see if the match committee prefer a 2x tall 2x medium structure or a 1tall 2 to 3 medium structure. I get the sense Begley is playing a bit taller than might otherwise be ideal at the moment.
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Just because Francis didnāt fly doesnāt mean heās not playing. Maybe they got him to run over there to build his tank
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I heard he stopped off in adelaide to entertain offers from the crows and poort before catching another flight to Perth.
Seriously though, Francis isnāt a forward and was only played there as a last resort for the benefit of the team and not his own develop, at least as a defender.
With Brown and McKernan back let Aaron return to pushing his case for selection in defence where he belongs.
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FWIW KM I agree with you here, Hooker is contracted through 2021, Hurley through 2022, and Ambrose is just en fuego as the shutdown tall defender right now as a 27yo, so he could be doing that until 2022 as wellā¦ so where can we fit Francis in? Has to be forward. What has made me feel better is to conceptualize it as Lav going from the āBrownā role to the āStringerā role and Brown coming back to his rightful place - the āBrownā role.
Iām with you that Francis right now is sort of a āsimply must playāā¦ but weāre balancing it with our usual mid-season scrimping and scrabbling to try to come 8th instead of 10thā¦
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Yeah, I think heās going to be a really good player and although he looks more a natural back man itās clear unless we get injuries heās not going to get his spot back there.
We lack forward depth and especially young guys so I would try and fast track him. I like Brown but Iām not convinced heās much more than handy depth. Heās too one dimensional for mine and doesnāt have much improvement left in him.
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He wasnāt rested after the bye, he was left out due to stringer. Brown played and half and was then rested for the same reason. Brown won the slot.
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To win this weeks game our best chance is with Brown. He might be unfashionable and not a high draft pick promising the world but his body of work as a forward far exceeds Francis.
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Weāve got a weakened forward line and heās a very, very good forward. Itās a no brainer.
Also his enthusiasm is contagious. 
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I hope he plays well and we win.
If we donāt though and we miss finals then it will be similarly shortsighted like playing Myers over Langford or Clarke. Or playing Zlarke over Draper.
First round pick by Geelong in 2008
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Heās had a decent crack up forward and shown very very little.
Personally Iād prefer him to spend a few weeks getting back into defence in the VFL and getting himself ready in case a spot opens up.
I donāt really see the point of him playing defence when a spot may not open up for the remainder of the year. Heās effectively waiting for an injury to somebody and even then heās not guaranteed a role as we have so much defensive depth.
I really like the mix we have down there so I would be hesitant to change it for any other reason.