To me the following players are safe and definitely in our best 22 when fit:
Tall Backs: Gilham, gibson, stratts
Small Backs: guerra, murphy, birchall
Inside mids: Hodge, mitch, sewell, burgoyne
Outside mids: young, bateman
Tall fwds: Buddy, roughie
Small fwds: rioli, ossie, hooper
Rucks: renouf
So basically we need to pick a bench.
-1 ruck spot - skipper vs taylor - I think we need taylors size in finals
So three spots to be taken from: Brown, ladson, lewis, ellis, peterson, WX
-brown - murphy and guerra are better playing on the smalls, stratts, gibson and gilham are better on talls/mid sized so not a lot a first picked defender. Clearly not a mid and has had limited impact up fwd this year. Recruitment of gibson and development of stratton has hurt his place in the team IMO. Plus is his guts, determination and courage.
-ladson - struggled at start of season, got dropped and came back a far better player. Has suffered from illness recently and lost some weight and conditioning. Very smart player and composed under pressure. Can link up well and has occasionly been damaging up fwd. Cant play inside though. Reckon AC will try to fit him in.
-Lewis - a lot of depth in our mids now (mitch, hodge, sewell, burgoyne, rioli) means lewis gets limited time in there. Was good one week as a defensive fwd then bad the next. Can accumlate the pill but not a great user. Slow, but big engine.
-Ellis - utility/linkman type player. Reads play well, links up well, can play inside if needed but struggles with footskills atm. Can play inside and linkman + quarterack/hbf if required
-peterson - played some good games as a fwd but likely to inconsistent to get a game in finals.
-WX - Good mixture of pace, endurance, skills, strong body however inexperienced and hasnt really found his way at afl level this year. Comfortable as a defender or small/mid fwd and can also play midfield. Has two weeks with brown out to make his mark.
Quite some tough choices as each player is different and each could add something to a specific area of the ground. Lewis, brown and ladson don't appear first choices in the area of the ground they are suited to while ellis and WX are your utility types.
May end up being horses for courses
-if we need grunt: lewis, brown
-need to close down small fwds (i.e. geelong): ladson, WX
-need run and carry: WX, ladson
-midfield depth: lewis, ellis, WX