The Team - GWS v Us - DC out for "The Pidge" (Blame Marvel)

Happy enough with the team

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This is a solid outfit. I’m excited.

We’re gonna turn these ■■■■■ over

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Actually a good combination of versatile players with grunt, speed and height.

Seems a bit rough to give a guy one game, but otherwise what you’d expect given the result last week.

Very happy they didn’t rush Hurley and put Myers in.

McGrath, Langford, Guelfi, Zerrett, Smith
Absolutely DELICIOUS

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I think Pidge is an automatic inclusion given how much he offers the team.

Can’t argue that he doesn’t improve it.

Once Clarke can get contested ball in the AFL like he does in the VFL then it is a different story.

Interesting that Parish and Green didn’t even get an emergency guernsey, Long getting one is probably encouragement to try to get himself up enough to play in the Dream Time at the 'G match.

Love it if he could and play well, but will have to play better than Parish and Green in the VFL and hope there is a space opening up in the seniors.

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Guelfi rested - not back in the following week
Mutch rested - not back in
Would like to have seen Mutch named as an emergency

Mutch isn’t playing at all this weekend.

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In fact he hasn’t played Mutch for the past couple of weeks.

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McGrath in for Clarke ? Now, there’s a like-for-like replacement…

Clarke is more than unlucky. He has put up a block of performances in the vfl that indicate he can be a player that we really need. There is not a lot of point to him going back to repeat the dose in the vfl. One go at moving up to afl level is not enough to give him a chance to adapt.
We are in the difficult (but good) position of trying to get games and experience into Guelfi, Clarke, Ridley, and maybe soon Francis and Redman, all at the same time. It is fair to expect that all of them will underperform for a while. They all need 20 games or so before they can be expected to perform to a level that might keep them in the side on merit. Look at Lav and Langford; it takes time.
I exclude McGrath and Parish from this because they have enough games to be past that stage.
It probably makes it even harder for them if they are all in there at once, so it’s a balancing act.
This week’s team has 2 in of the 5 - Guelfi and Ridley. Maybe one too few for mine.
The player you would have to leave out would probably have to be Bags or Dea, and both deserve to stay in after last week.
But, wait a week!

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One thing that is apparent is that we are starting to develop some good depth, and the depth is mainly young. We may not be a top team at the moment, but there is reason to be optimistic about the future.
Young players currently in the team - Guelfi, Ridely
Young depth in the vfl ready to go - Parish, Clark, Redman, Mutch
Young depth in the vfl not quite ready but looking pretty good - Francis, Zork.
Mature depth in the vfl - Myers, Green, Luenberger, Hartley
Too early to tell (and so not really “depth” yet) - Mynott, New Lav, Draper, Houlihan
Currently out injured and so “depth” in the sense of their return boosting the numbers - Daniher, Hurley, Gleeson, Begley, Colyer
That is 15 good quality depth not currently in the 22, of which 7 are young and going pretty well.
That’s better than it has looked for quite a while.

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I thought Clarke would stay in over Laverde but Laverde did all his training in the midfield. He is a better kick and can be rotated through the fwd line as well as McGrath being superior to Clarke so it does make sense.
Green I don’t think is 100% based on training. Mutch and Hurley didn’t do much beside running so can understand them not playing this weekend. Brown trained and played on the weekend more fwd than back, with Daniher down Brown is depth if another tall fwd goes down. Redman is just unlucky.

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It’s understandable that McGrath comes in, it’s also a bit rough on Clarke. Of the 55 players who have debuted this year, only 3 of them got dropped after one game.

It would be good if we win, again, with Hurley out and the backline plays well.
Ditto for Myers. And yes he isn’t elite in the midfield, but it would show the coaches we have the players to perform as a very functional and competitive onball unit.

Almost wish it was 2016 this year, we could have developed all these kids.

Like Crowley?

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And Polkinghorne

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We are developing them, slower than some of us would like I’ll admit. Just need to be a bit more patient I guess.