During pre-season we struggled with locking the ball inside our forward 50. For me Guelfi players for this very reason. He’s a tough kid, good tackler, brave, has a decent enough goal sense. That’s still a decent team despite missing 2 bookend players.
Unlikely, but my preference for outside balance. Speed, endurance, skills and versatility. He’s my ‘from nowhere’ prediction for the year, despite his lack of size.
Those ■■■■■■■ don’t even have Lav as an emergency. Ivan Drago slotted 4 in a quarter in our last competitive match. He’s ■■■■■■■ playing round 1 and YOU will all like it
I would go with 3 of the new guys:
Stringer, Sheil and Smith as the most damaging combination in at the centre bounces. Pace, power, tackling and 2 of the 3 renowed for their high clearance numbers.
Saad Hurley Ambrose
Ridley Francis McKenna
Smith Heppell Merrett
TBC Myers Shiel
Zaka Brown Fantasia
Stringer Smack Baguley
McGrath Langford xxx xxx
Walla - hopefully will be right to go.
Laverde - mostly in black, extra forward coverage. Black as a mid, white as fwd.
Guelfi - didn’t train but had white earlier in the week, extra defensive coverage.
Parish - 100% mid but in black, extra mid coverage.
I think it will be either Guelfi or Parish. I can’t get a read on them. When both Merrett and Hep were injured both went through the midfield. Guelfi then went into defence in the JLT and seems to play any position equally as good and Parish looked great training within but struggled against actual opposition. I don’t know whether they are still hardening Parish up and putting him up against our best as learning or if the reality is he’s fringe. Every sim he’s been in what I’d consider the weaker team. That’s been the case for the last 2 years. I question whether it’s the right method as he misses out working and building connection with our other mids that would him in at AFL level.
Not sure it’s anything more than just Parish is behind the players for the roles that best suit him.
And because he doesn’t have many other strings to his bow to play varying roles it is what it is. He’s essentially an undersized inside mid without any real standout attributes (pace/endurance/footskills etc)
Langford moved past him in pecking order mid last year when he was dropped and McGrath appears to have as well now.
I personally can see him missing out and just having to wait for opportunity via injury/suspension etc. Still a very good player to have to call up.
On the available evidence he appears a pretty limited player. Average athletically + very few standout football traits. Best case scenario he becomes a solid B grader.
Only my opinion and I understand others feel otherwise which is fine.
I see Parish’s standout qualities to be his handballs (which I believe will be his elite quality), his clean ball handling, movement around stoppages and his overall terrier intensity at the ball and man. I see him as a Daniel Kerr, Cousins, Simon Black ‘TYPE’ but those blokes had elite ability on the outside too which Parish needs to work on. IMO his precise inboard kicks late last year were very damaging and you can tell he has the potential and footy brain to make it a strength with more work.
We’ve all seen what Parish is capable of e.g. his final against Sydney. But his biggest skills will only flourish consistently once his body is big enough and his running good enough to sustain it…plus the self-belief that he is good enough. Has always been a weak tackler maybe because of his poor strength but that is definitely an area that will improve over time. Right now he’s had a brilliant pre-season with a couple of confidence dampening JLT games. All he needs is some confidence and possibly an opportunity in the seniors through injury and i’m confident he will flourish.
Ridley plays rd 1. Also, you don’t have a 7th defender. I dare say they won’t play 100% game time and Hepp playing a little bit in JLT isn’t enough to suggest he’ll be that person.