He’s clearly rated very highly internally, which I sort of get when he’s actually fit and in form, as we lack competitive, defensive pressure forwards & too often get caned by opposition half-backs.
But he’s only managed 13 games in each of the past 2 seasons & we brought him straight back in after a 4-5 week injury with no VFL hitout to play in the final dead rubber game, where he then unsurprisingly re-injured himself.
Agree that we really need Davey/Menzie (Unwin?) to make that spot their own next year, we just can’t rely on Guelfi to stay fit.
I remember when we re-signed a 27 y/o Dev Smith (same age as Guelfi now) with injury concerns for 2 more years and how that went…
Yeah I think the 2-year deal was excessive. Happy to keep him on a one-year contract, he’s fine to have as a depth/fringe player, but not as a walk-up start. Been saying it for a couple of years. If Guelfi is our best or 2nd best small forward, we clearly have problems in that department.
Which is fairly obvious. We’ve been playing the least worst small forward for a few seasons now. Hopefully the new recruits can make a difference and a couple become senior guns.
The soft tissue brigade I had a watch on before preseason:
Ridley
Parish
Duursma
Guelfi
Reid (soft tissue + the rest)
We’re a month in and two of the usual suspects have already had setbacks. Club & player need to find a way to get continuity and stop the rot with this lot.
Relying on Guelfi is what is wrong with the club, very ordinary player, doesn’t place the team first.
I’d say even though he signed a 2 year contract which was absolutely ridiculous in the first place he might be up for a trade next year, especially as Kako and Davey develop into players next year.
There is no other club in the Afl that would have offered Guelfi a two year contract, it’s almost like Dodoro knew his days were numbered and decided to rubber stamp as many ■■■■■■ contracts he could while on the way out.
Bad luck for Guelfi, but what concerns me most is that he went with Ridley and Reid overseas for treatment, something I was hoping might bring good results for them.
Guelfi’s injury has snapped my confidence for Reid and Ridley.
There’s some conspiracy theories on here, this one just makes no sense, given it seemed that everyone could see that Dodoro’s power was significantly reduced this year, why would the club then let him sign contracts with no oversight. I mean I know this club isn’t known for its governance, but I don’t believe there’s any world in where Dodoro was signing contracts on his own last year.