Originally posted by Kane McGoodwin
Can't believe Harris wasn't in the original 22, particularly with the likes of M Stevens named ahead of him!
With Archer out, do the Kangaroos have enough defensive options to cover Carey, Perrie, Hentschel, Welsh, etc with Watt, Colbert, Brown, Baird, etc? Smart move though not to risk Archer at this early stage of the season.
With Archer and Sinclair out it does raise the question but I feel Firrito will drop back to Archer's position and he is similar height and weight and has good skills for a young kid, played okay in the pre-season too and can go in the middle.
Brown is also able to take up a non-key position in defense, has done that last year on teams that fielded a very tall forward line.
Porter this year in the pre-season has dropped back into defense and has had more of a presence as a big gangly object that is in the way of leading forwards Can't take a mark to save himself but was good in the role of closing up space in defensive 50 and preventing easy uncontested marks.
It is alot better than his role across the midfield last year were he was a target for kick-ins which resulted in him coughing it up most of the time.
I would prefer to see Archer and Sinclair playing but Archer was either missing or had a minimal impact in more than 3/4 of the games last year due to his hand.
Sansbury looks good and has probably alot better defensive skills than Sinclair, he has 3 weeks whilst Jess is suspended to take the bull by the horns and force Jess onto the wing when he returns.
Hale had a very good game in the reserves from what I have heard and there would be alot of pressure on Porter tomorrow to perform. After port melbourne destroyed northern bullants there would be alot of pressure on all the seniors to play at a high standard. Alot of our kids in the twos look too good for that level of competition which is a good sign of depth.
M Stevens isn't as bad as people make him out to be, he has a bad knee injury last year and came back to play pretty well in the last two rounds of the year. Unlike most of our midfielders, he can play a defensive role and still get a bit of the ball. He really needs to make the most of this opportunity as the small players in our twos played well.
Should be a great game tomorrow, lets hope for a close contest, all of the games so far have been very much one-sided.