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Which he's not doing at the moment.
You're talking as if we should continue playing him regardless. I'll guarantee that Wines and Sam Gray will provide more of a threat to a tall defender than Marshall will in his current form.
I like the idea of Marshall in the team, but I'm not going to die on a hill for him based on his current level of output. It's that simple. You're playing this entire thing on paper - as long as we get X amount of games into Marshall, he'll end up as Y. That's not how development works. We're not asking him to develop in the SANFL as a key forward. We're asking him to go back and do the things that we know he is good at so he can get back in the side and get the experience necessary at AFL level.
There's no reason he can't provide second efforts, or put on pressure, or create separation from his opponent with his speed etc. That doesn't require AFL experience, that just requires the willingness to work. He's going to have ups and downs in his development cycle.
His output was perfectly fine in round 1. He wasn't a worldbeater but he was an important cog in the machine. He's had one bad game and he's gone. He's certainly had teammates get away with far worse and keep their spots.
We can keep having this drop early drop often attitude to key position forwards and we can keep scratching our heads and furrowing our brows at the fact that highly rated kids don't amount to anything.
Or, like with every other club, we can acknowledge that getting AFL level games into highly talented kids and backing them in is a requirement if you want to get them to their potential output.
It's not about X amount of games equals Y, it's about giving him (and us) the best chance of developing and being successful in the medium and long term. Giving him 1 bad game before dropping him is incredibly harsh and will kill his confidence.



