tough luck for the kid.
imo we have been playing one tall short down back as it is. to lose him is a big blow.
imo i thought their talls towelled us up in the first half only when the ball stopped going forward did they go quiet. i thought their lead was built on them having blokes like ryder and crameri getting their hands on it.
with the ball going down there we looked very vulnerable even with both grimes and rance. we do indeed need to have a better structure but we dont it seems have anyone up to the standard
to play there.
ideally we go out and get that big kpd that we desperately need. who can we play in place of grimes yet alone find two tall defenders to properly structure up.
the other problem atm is the lack of forwards who are performing. sheesh riewoldt was poor again miller is clearly not the answer and the little blokes just dont have the polish.
seems to me we are screaming out for a real good medium sized forward a real good small and a ruck/forward to step up along with a good second kpd.
we seem to have some numbers with tall forwards in, griffiths, astbury, elton, and ruck forwards in derickx and vickery. but none are doing a thing either thru injury or form.i can tell ya we desperately need to find some genuine help for big ivan because if he goes down with a struggling forward line a stretched backline we need the arm chair ride hes giving to our mids to stay competetive run him into the ground at our peril i say.
finally the bottom 6 each week.you wonder why we cant get over the line. well while the structure hasnt helped and the lack of forwards doing anything to me the bottom 6 just falls away too much and again the lack of depth in the entire squad limits what we can do to fix this.
obviously we must continue to rotate deledio,martin,conca thru there we dont have a choice even if we didnt want to rotate them.
the bottom 6 players imo are. nahas,king,miller, edwards, jackson, dea. yep we have got the odd decent game from them here and there this yr but in the main they are ordinary with apologies to matt dea who is still in early development and i think we need to play him.
others who are not or have not produced a lot this yr are vickery, riewoldt, newman theres been a lot of reliance on 12 14 players to regularly stand up and they have above expectations.
what do we do to overcome these problems well theres not a lot we can do not unless players start to take some steps.
me i would take the punt and give tom derickx a game poor form or not as the third tall forward/ second ruck. it could be vickery but i really think he should come back thru coburg having found some touch and confidence. as mentioned before big ivan cannot be expected to carry such a load all yr we must find some help for him.
imo we have no choice now with grimes hurt but to give post another game at chb. it should have happened before we were forced into it.
me id like to add another tall down back and i get him from left field by promoting darrou of the rookie list. my understanding is hes been pretty consistent this yr.
b/ darrou - rance- morris.
hb/ batchelor - post - dea.
c/ grigg - martin - ellis.
hf/ conca - miller - edwards
f/ derickx - riewoldt - deledio
r/ maric - cotchin - foley
int from/ tuck - newman - houli - arnot.
ins - darrou - post - derickx - arnot.
out - grimes inj - jackson hack - king been terrible - nahas has struggled most games.
all of riewoldt, miller, houli, and newman should consider themselves lucky as there are no real replacements for them atm.