Did we let the wrong players go?

[Stocka]

Although it's easy to make judgements in hindsight, I tend to wonder whether or not the club should have kept one of either Weller or Morrison (or even both).

Outside of our top selection of key position players (Brown, Lynch, Michael, Leppitsch), we have a distinct lack of depth when it comes to suitable replacements. Bradshaw and Brennan are the only two genuine key position prospects who we have in back-up.

Whilst Pike, White and Notting can pinch-hit in key positions, they are not ideally suited to these roles, and you cannot aim to win many games with these players making up large gaps in your big-man stocks.

The club seems to have drafted quite a lot of similarly styled, mid-sized, hard-at-the-ball, running players over the last few years. A few of these players have played in the seniors already, or look capable of doing so in the near future and fitting in with the established trends of play in the team. However, this doesn't help our key position problems, and I'd argue that we seem to have an imbalance on our list.

Whilst the club has also drafted a few young ruckmen in Spaanderman and Merrett, these players would appear to be some way off making senior selection, for various reasons.

Brown, Lynch and Leppitsch have been in and out of the side for various reasons at times over the last few years, along with injuries to other key position players and rucks. Personally, I am beginning to think that the club should have made an effort to keep either one of Morrison or Weller as an extra viable back-up for the times when we lack key position players.

 

[chophappy]

A major problem we faced with both was their lack of opportunity.

Neither really got a good run in the seniors for any length of time. This is a scenario which I think has to change at our club - we need to find that Bomber-like balance bewteen development and competitiveness.

Obviously we have been finishing up the ladder, so the draft hasn't been too kind to us - we need to feed some local fellas weetbix I reckon!

 

[SpecialBruce]

Everyone knows I was generally ****ed off that we let go of Weller. And I knew that it would bite us back in the bum.

IMO, we should have last year gotten rid of McDonald or Keating for a younger type ruckman in like Hale from the Kangaroos. We should have gone hard for Hale. But only got rid of them for a young ruckman or draft a young ruckman with an early pick.

McDonald or Keating would have had good values at the end of last year.

I think the end of the year we need to take a risk and get rid of one of these injury prone ruckman and get a young ruckman, just like Hawthorn at the end of the year need to get rid of injury prone forwards such as Barker and Holland for younger forwards.