Roast Are the Barham fans happy?

[Timmy from Thomastown]

I'll happily forgive him. First game of the year - its difficult to ask a second year player to slot into the pace of the game immediately and run a tag and be in the right position all the time.

Playing him and Dick in the side can only assist our depth options in the long run. Hopefully Goldy will now get a run to cover for Maxwell. And maybe we can bring Dawes back as well.

We are a top four side but we are yet not a settled 22. MM is rightly still playing with the mix and giving anybody with VFL form the opportunity to play seniors. I think its fantastic that we've been able to mix it up so much - meaning nobody is guaranteed a start in our 22.

Now all they need to do is drop/rest Medhurst and Davis, and not return them to the 1's until form and fitness are at 100%.

 

[Daz_go_pies]

Cant wait for him to have a good game and all of you start a thread rapping him up. For the meantime its the coaches decision whether or not he is dropped so the rest of you should all keep a cork in it.

 

[Scodog10]

In VFL he plays the Ben Johnson/Aaron Davey role, rather than being the guy to negate it, so it was a bit of an ask for him to step in and do that job. As Invig points out (with pics!) though, he wasn't anywhere near Davey on far too many occasions. The other grave concern is that as an outside, run-and-carry, handball receiving player, his footskills aren't up to standard and he turns the ball over far too often. He has the running ability, the evasiveness, the speed... not the footskills or decision making.

I wasn't trying to make any point about him being a tagger, my point is that I think his form at VFL level was grossly exaggerated anyone with high level endurance, as he has, and a moderate football brain will be able to rack up 30 possesions at that level. A 20 possesion game with 4 turnovers is far better than a 30 possesion game with 10 turnovers and he does the latter regularly at VFL level.

Until he starts to turn it over less than half the time he gets the ball, I won't be of the opinion that his form is good enough to warrant senior selection whether he's picked as a tagger or not. For example Geelong simply don't carry any players who turn the ball over regularly by foot whereas we have Ball, Johnson, Toovey, Swan, Barham and O'Bree. Its a key reason as to why we struggle to beat the absolute best teams as our skills go to water under pressure.

 

[Art Corvelay]

For the meantime its the coaches decision whether or not he is dropped so the rest of you should all keep a cork in it.

Going by that logic we might as well not bother discussing team selection at all