Will be interesting to see who they assign Xavier to play on. I'm guessing the resting ruckman but this might include playing on Nic Nat at times which isn't ideal.
Cast your mind back to 2011 when a young untried defender named Alex Johnson made his debut in a baptism of fire against the Eagles' tall forwards and acquitted himself well. I know this isn't technically Richards's debut but for all intents and purposes it is and I hope it's the start of something similar.
Xav in the side means that Reid can go forward and enforce our height advantage in the forward line. If the mids can get on top we might have half a chance
We have them where we want them, everything is going according to plan!
I imagine Heeney will be the sub and Xav will be on for the full game (with visits to the bench). Good luck to them both and whatever happens on Sunday I think they're both part of our future.
He reminds him of the guys, close-set, slow, and never rattled, who were play-makers on the team. (John Updike, seeing Josh Kennedy in a crystal ball)
I think we will back ourselves to be in the game and sub will be Xavier and he will come on for a small in the last qtr and we will go tall and stay in our defensive 50 last qtr to shut the game down
It's the only position he's ever played at senior level!!
But no, I can't see the point of bringing X into the squad with the intention of making him sub. They'd be better off using Jack in that role. It seems like a strangely balanced team, to be honest. We've lost two talls but brought three into the side (with Laidler playing more as a tall, than a running player). And it's a largish ground and, if anything, we lacked a bit of run at times last week. Well, OK, we lacked a bit of everything last week but I don't think we were "too short".
It's a bit hard to pick who might be sub. Possibly Harry, but I'd say we really need his pace throughout the game. Shaw? Jones?
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