Baldwin dominated last season in VFL games while Lav was in poorer form than he is now. It will take an injury for Baldwin to get an opportunity.
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The only way Baldwin gets promoted over Lav would be through injury, not saying I agree with that but thatās how Brad operates.
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Or they trial him on the forward line, he wears number26 after all
There seems to be a lot of Laverde bagging. He makes mistakes, but not all that many of them, and heās an excellent lock-down defender.
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Excellent is a strong word for a player who isnāt in the coachās preferred starting team.
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Why would you? Heās not even yesterdayās man
Laverde is the perfect depth player, gives his all every time. But we need to move past him to progress.
Carrying all of Heppell, Laverde and Kelly makes us very stodgy and our ball movement suffers. We can really only afford to have one of them in the backline and Kelly offers more versatility as he can genuinely shut down the smalls and play upfield in a pinch.
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Your post was so good, till you said this !
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I thought he was pretty good against Carlton. He was overlooked for round 1 and has had a couple of poor games, but otherwise heās been good. I reckon if they counted the b&f votes now heād probably be in the top 10.
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If we have a full list available are they in our best 23?
Laverde is in the team because his performances have been consistently strong and heās holding his spot.
Reid is the future, but until he can close the gap on Lavās output (and stay on the park), itās up to other players to push Lav out of the side. Itās the perfect situation, competition for spots resulting in improved performance on field.
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This is the only bit that matters. You want Lavās spot? Force him out. Heās been performing at a very high level.
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Laverde came into the team because Reid hobbled off injured in round 1, that is an undeniable fact. Heās acquitted himself admirably since then. Iām not saying he should be dropped, certainly not for Baldwin off zero football, but he demonstrably wasnāt the coachās starting choice for his position.
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Reid came back from injury and was putting in some very good performances in the VFL. Wasnāt selected. Lav took his opportunity and ran with it.
Laverde was not in the team for round 1 because of team structure. Reid is a much taller player and we need height in our backline. Laverde has played his guts out and deserves his place. If you watch closely he always putss his body on the line. Some if not several of our other players should do the same
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Piercing our hearts.
Lav is an average kick at best.
But he is a trier and a high draft pick so we stick with him
Baldwin is an upgrade but likely wonāt get a game until Lav is injured - Lav is Scottās love child
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Baldwin has a very similar profile to Zach Reid;-
Reid - age:22, height:202, weight: 92, games:9, average - possessions: 8, marks: 2.9
Baldwin - age:22, height:193, weight: 98, games:8, average - possessions: 7, marks: 3.5
Baldwin slightly shorter and stouter than Reid - both horribly injury prone - lets hope 1 of them can get themselves right Iām backing in Baldwinā¦!!!
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Statistics are a very poor measure often.
Reidās stats indicate low possession, but he played almost all of those games as a negating defender and in some did quite well without doing much (one game IRRC against Melboure as a fwd was terrible).
Baldwin had a few games as a forward with limited contribution, and then, in his second coming as a defender, played very well on most occasions. One game in particular (agst Nth I think) he was very good eventhough stats didnāt show it.
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Baldwin has developed since they tried him forward for ? Games. He didnāt set the worlds on fire then but I suspect he is much improved. He was impressive in preseason. Positioning, disposal by hand and foot excellent
Might be worth another try forward as he is about the best contested mark we have (with McKay)
Cant do much worse than our current key forwards methinks
Replacing wright or Jones
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From the little weāve seen of Baldwin taking set shots in the 1ās, i thought his ball drop was problematic.
He seems to be a far better field kick.
Iād need regular VFL watchers to verify the above.