While I'm excited to see the young brigade take over, I would love to see Gaffy have a Renaissance season where he reverts to his gut running wing role picking up 30+ touches but moving the forward and being damaging with them like his AA years. I don't think it is likely at all but he has been such a servant to the club I would hate his last couple of years to taint what has-been an exceptional career.
With ryan out probably. Cripps will play up the ground in that wing HFF link up role .
Unfortunately I can't erase the 2023 Gaff from the picture...no need for a bang on the way out, just the exit door please, with a big thank you and due respect. A good year in the Wafl for depth? Although, there is a chance he improves if the new game plan somehow synergises with him, in which case exit door end of '24..
Rotham, petrucelle and Waterman came out of the 16 and 17 drafts that's a long time on the list I think maric, clay hall, bazzo deserve to get first crack. Gaff gets a game because sheed/Hewett are out injured otherwise he's prob struggle to make best 25. Witherden prob getting pushed out for hough. I think we need j.jones for his pace. Round 1 should see 4 new faces (Flynn,hall,reid,brockman) I even liked the look of harvey Johnston during the open training sessions think he might be a smokie for round1
Looks pretty accurate in my opinion.
You are potentially leaving it open for us to have a forward line of Allen, BWilliams, Darling, Waterman and Yeo at the same time, thats an incredibly tall forward line.
Rotham is highly unlikely to be a part of our future, Bazzo probably will be. I want Bazzo to be given games tbh, he is in his 3rd year now, he needs to finally get games where he isnt forced to line up on tex or something. Its not like Rotham has shown much matching up on tall forwards that Bazzo would be behind him or anything.
If b.williams keeps improving like he did last year I think he holds number 1 Ruck spot Flynn isn't a given just yet. Hough is the one who can play both tall and small plus is quick/good skills his only downsize is his strength which he looks to have bulked up over summer. Bazzo and h.edwards are miles ahead of rotham imo, don't think bazzo can hold down a key position yet but he needs game time at afl to develop maybe he could play as sub if afl go with 4 bench 1 sub and just share load with mcgovern till he gets his confidence up
We dont need a perfect structure, but we do need games into Bazzo. He needs to be taking over ideally from Gov after next year, and he also needs to be able to matchup on second forwards at the least. Barrass will still take the number 1 forward, so if Bazzo can do an ok job on the #2, with gov floating around to assist I dont see how that could be an issue
Rotham is 193cm, hes no ruckman. He only pinched in there because we had literally nobody else, waterman the same situation I believe, but id much rather Waterman in there as the second ruck if we had to have one. You really dont want to be stealing a defender every time your ruckman needs a rest, its much easier to keep structure by grabbing a forward. No reason maric couldnt pinch in the ruck too if we absolutely needed.
Flynn has to take the number 1 ruck I think, BWilliams did great, but is a bit of a liability defensively, and around the ground at ball ups. hes just a bit smaller than most other ruckmen. Flynn is a solid ruckman, he was behind Briggs who was probably the 3rd best ruckman in the comp last year
Bazzo is into his 3rd year, he needs to be doing full games. A KPD as a sub is just bad planning tbh, ill be disappointed if we run only Gov and Barrass as our talls for most of the year. Bazzo has never had the chance to play with both Gov and Barrass, every time hes played hes had to do way too much. He will be fine
Hopefully the midfield will be a lot better and the balls not getting pumped into the backline as much to give them all a better chance.
Reading what Ive read from Steve Allen, this morning, this still looks very accurate to what we will put out in Rd 1
