Plenty on here thought he should be in the side including myself.
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Okay if you donât want to rate Stringer, Shiel, Hepp, Joe and Hooker as quality AFL footballers then thatâs fine.
Anyone with a clue about football would disagree.
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Itâs a team game not a game of individuals. Thatâs the bit you donât get.
Teams that look great on paper donât win flags.
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Agree with everyone here being a bit negative. Thereâs no reason to be confident going into a match like this without so many key players. Lets just take the W and move on.
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In place of? Iâve always rated his skills but there wasnât a spot for him. Our backline is infinitely better when Hooker and Hurls both play, theyâre the 2 most important. Then youâre juggling Ridley, Ambrose, Gleeson, Saad, Redman, McKenna, Twerk Snatcher, Francis. Itâs pretty stacked. Ridley was out of form.
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Crows have no incentive to win as they are potentially looking at picks 1,2 and 5
If we canât beat them we need to close the place down
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You still need the cattle on the park.
Plus we arenât this Richmond like âteamâ with a sound system in place.
Hopefully we will be soon, but that looks a fair way off.
So for the time being we are relying a lot on talent.
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Hope Clarke plays tho.
Thatâs one of the most ridiculous statements youâve posted.
Ask yourself- name a coach whoâd be happy to lose top players because of the Clubâs history against their opponents?
âYeah Iâm happy weâre without 5 top players this week because weâre playing X and we beat them twice in the last two years?â
When you dig yourself a hole defending an opinion, you really should apply for a Mining Permit at the same time.
This culture/ history stuff ranks with astrology.
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I know what you mean but I think theyâd be motivated to not have a winless season haha.
Theyâve already lost to swans and freo so the opportunities to get that first win are running out
Just as example IF these teams had these players out would they still dominate the opposition?
Tigers
Cotchin, Prestia, Martin, Lynch, Astbury
& also had no JR with Chol playing #1 fwd/2nd ruck and no other kpf support
Pies
Pendlebury, Treloar, DeGoey, Mihocek, Moore
& thus had Cox playing #1fwd/2nd ruck with no other kpf support
Cats
Selwood, Duncan, Dangerfield, Hawkins, Blicavs
& thus had Ratagulea playing #1fwd/2nd ruck with no other kpf support
No they wouldnât. Completely unrealistic to think so IMO
We should still win but expectations on a percentage booster need to be tempered. Sillyness.
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IMO we are missing our four most important players
(JoeDan, Shiel, Stringer and Heppell). Missing Hooker and Ambrose also hurts but thankfully we do have coverage in that space.
I agree that throwing out missing AA isnât as relevant if they are in their twilight of their career but at this stage we are missing quality players which create a huge hole.
We canât cover JoeDan
We canât cover Stringer
We can cover Heppell but having Shiel and String out makes missing his inside work hurt a lot
We canât really cover Shielâs run and carry.
Ambrose is our best lock down defender. Hooker is very important for last line/one on one defense. Hurley is not a good one on one defender. Francis has to come in and play Hookers role. Itâs exciting seeing what he can do in the next month.
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I think Saad would have to be our second most important player behind Joe. Without Saad, we lose all our run and carry off half back and it throws our game plan out the window. But yes, weâre missing 5 of our most important 7 or so this week.
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The only game Saad missed last year was the Bulldogs game. Think we all know what happened in that oneâŚ
Of course you can make arguments for any player in any formation you like but it has been said countless times on here that we donât have an eye on the future in regards to development. A simple example is playing Hooker, Heppell and Fantasia last year when they were clearly injured. Could those positions been best utilised giving experience to others?
Does playing Zlarke over Draper gain you any advantage? And there are numerous other examples.
We seem to always to be playing for immediate results and missing opportunity to develop for the future. Ridley is a good example of that. I personally thought he was harsh to be dropped last year and even if he was plateauing in form then I would prefer to back him in rather than go back to the old stagers that have continually let us down.
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I think TBC will play well- which will give the mids a great chance to control significant parts of the game.
For all his deficiencies,he is a good tap ruckman,and would have a better connection with the mids than Phillips.
When TBC is watching Draper. He knows the transition is just about here,and his time as 1st choice ruck is just about over.
So I expect Tom to play out of his skin and thatâs why I will back him in this week,back the mids to at least break even,and we should have enough class to win.
But if we see a meek effort,he should never play for the club again!
LOL
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Whoâs saying we should be happy about it? Iâm saying good sides can cover for injuries. Especially against side that are rubbish.
I liked that one also 
Reckon Saad has pretty much carried the team this season and with Connor still to get up to form the opposition would surely tag/target/block Saad out of the game and then weâll be seriously stuffed.