A few players are copping it undeservedly I think. Just like people were calling for Mayne to be dropped after R1, didn’t watch the game properly.
Stephenson had an excellent second half. He kicked 2 goals and 3 assists for the game only second on score involvements to Pendles. He mostly benefitted from better team ball movement but there’s no reason to drop him when he’s getting his season into gear.
Varcoe has low impact on possessions but keep in mind he’s the player who saw the least game time of any on the ground.
He’s also a smart player that helps others work better. I’ll give an example: in the Stephenson goal in the last quarter when Mihocek got the ball on the wing he didn’t have an option or know where to go immediately. Varcoe ran past Elliott, told him to push deeper, went to take the space on the pocket dragging a player with him and as a result Elliott got free, marked the ball and gave it off to Stephenson for a goal. This all happened in 5 seconds.
Varcoe would get zero statistical recognition for this but technically I don’t think we score a goal without his instinct there.
I still think he needs to do more but there isn’t an immediate replacement for his position so we can’t afford to lose him at this point (closest would be to move Greenwood forward, and bring Sier/Adams back in the middle). We already concede too many goals on the rebound because we didn’t lock the ball in properly around our F50 line.
On the other hand I was surprised to hear Bucks say he was happy with Aish’s game. Sure he got a lot of the ball and didn’t get done defensively (though our defence works well as a team without him in it) but his decision making was poor and that’s the only reason I can see him carve out a space for himself in our defence.
But here as well who do we bring in for him? Only one I can see happen is Appleby but we’d need to be really worried about one of their small forwards to do so as we’ll lose some possession control in defence as a result.
Long story short, no changes.
Stephenson had an excellent second half. He kicked 2 goals and 3 assists for the game only second on score involvements to Pendles. He mostly benefitted from better team ball movement but there’s no reason to drop him when he’s getting his season into gear.
Varcoe has low impact on possessions but keep in mind he’s the player who saw the least game time of any on the ground.
He’s also a smart player that helps others work better. I’ll give an example: in the Stephenson goal in the last quarter when Mihocek got the ball on the wing he didn’t have an option or know where to go immediately. Varcoe ran past Elliott, told him to push deeper, went to take the space on the pocket dragging a player with him and as a result Elliott got free, marked the ball and gave it off to Stephenson for a goal. This all happened in 5 seconds.
Varcoe would get zero statistical recognition for this but technically I don’t think we score a goal without his instinct there.
I still think he needs to do more but there isn’t an immediate replacement for his position so we can’t afford to lose him at this point (closest would be to move Greenwood forward, and bring Sier/Adams back in the middle). We already concede too many goals on the rebound because we didn’t lock the ball in properly around our F50 line.
On the other hand I was surprised to hear Bucks say he was happy with Aish’s game. Sure he got a lot of the ball and didn’t get done defensively (though our defence works well as a team without him in it) but his decision making was poor and that’s the only reason I can see him carve out a space for himself in our defence.
But here as well who do we bring in for him? Only one I can see happen is Appleby but we’d need to be really worried about one of their small forwards to do so as we’ll lose some possession control in defence as a result.
Long story short, no changes.
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