This may sound ridiculous given the departure of Crook and Clarke, but our key defender setup might be better this year. Robinson is a similar size and aggro to Clarke, Ford is now bigger and demonstrated in Darwin that she is taking a step up, and we have Marshall all season rather than just cameos.
Plus Morrow, which I did not have on my bingo card.
But that just helps us avoid getting smashed; it doesn’t help us win games as I suggested above. So where can the difference come from?
- We have Ford and Marshall to return. At the very least that releases Molan to play further up the ground. If Morrow stays back, maybe one of them goes forward to provide a legitimate key forward?
- Molan is a distinct point of difference from our mostly small mids, both getting the ball and kicking it long forward.
- Add Dicker and, to a lesser extent, Porter to the mid group.
- Perkins as FF demands attention from opposition defenders, plural. If Manfre is lucky enough to become the “third” forward she is smart enough to be kicking goals.
We made a prelim last year despite being awful at scoring, and both that lack of forward delivery/recipients and our all-ground pressure was on display today. Yes, we are minus Sutton in the midfield, but I think we have more depth there this year.
Do I think we’ll beat Port in round one? Probably not, but I don’t think it is impossible.