I'd omit one of Blakey or McCartin even if Buddy isn't fit to return. I think they are both fine prospects, and in time will become good forwards. But at the moment they are playing in a young and dysfunctional forward line. It was evident yesterday (especially in the second half), how static our forward line was. Pretty much every entry was kicked long towards the top of the goal square where all our forwards (and all the Giants' defenders) stood watching. There was no movement to create free options. Now I acknowledge that this might be a chicken and and egg situation - ie did all the entries go there because that's where all the forwards had stationed themselves? Or did all the forwards station themselves there because they knew that's where all the entries were going? But even if it's the latter, one or more of the forwards leading away from that area (and taking a defender with them) would have somewhat improved the chances of taking a mark, or at least bringing the ball to ground even if the ball continued to be kicked there.
Someone, on some thread, bemoaned our lack of a forward able to take a mark. I actually think that's a long way from reality, and one reason why I think we can rebound quite quickly if the midfield woes can be sorted (and again, I'm not necessarily talking about this season). Yesterday alone we saw Blakey, McCartin, Reid, Dawson, Parker and Heeney take contested marks in our forward line under a lot of pressure. Sure, none of them took very many, but they can all do it. And then there's Franklin to add back in. I know he's marking is perceived as a weakness but he's a lot better than many give him credit for - it's just a relative weakness compared to some of the other freakish things he does.
I realise that anyone else who comes into the forward line at their expense is going to be just as inexperienced (if Buddy is not available) but changing the balance between talls and smalls might help somewhat. Alternatively, we need Johnson to work overtime this week in teaching the talls how to spread out and create space for each other.
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