Use your big boy brain -
Who will miss the side to fit in houi? Grigg? Conca?
A fit Foley would hurt his options further.
come on bents, whose a better distributor than Bachar down back? Rance? Dea? Grimes? Morris? Moore? (no disrespect to them)The only ones at that level are Newman and Batchelor (Ellis will be too one day, but long term hes a midfielder anyway). He's not perfect and has weaknesses he needs to work on of course, but he has more tools than a lot of our players and his positives outweigh his negatives for mine. His commitment needs to be more consistent, but i also think he cops a raw deal from some, nowhere near as soft as portrayed.
Easily a best 22 player at this stage, perhaps in 2 years if his development has plateaued he wont be, but right now I believe this conversation is a bit ridiculous.
For mine theres a place for Newman, Morris, Batchelor, Ellis, Conca, Houli and Grigg in our HB/wing rotations at this stage in time. The players that need to be looked at before him in the overall scheme of things are jackson, Edwards, Moore, Dea, King even Newman.
He played a very good game against Brisbane, total commitment physically and mentally and made one glaring error, and incredibly you have people pointing out that one error as to why hes such a hack... give me a break.
