Ben Mathews

[Frosty_13]

Benny was very important to the win on sunday. He played on Hart for a fair while and basically shut him out of the match. I rate Hart fairly highly as a football player but Mathews was too good on the day. Benny was prepared to go in and get the hard ball and gave off some very important hanballs in the packs. Benny is definitely not soft as some people have been telling me lately. There is no way that we can drop Ben out of the side because he is just so important to the structure of the team and you very rarely see him beaten by his opponent. Infact i can not think of a game in which Mathew's opponent has got the better of him on the day. Lets keep Benny in the side because he will be a vital factor in us going all the way in September.

[Roscoe]

People like P46 always bag Matthews, but P46 you do not understand what Ben does.

Sure he does give some of us the @@@@s with his slow delivery. BUT

He is one of our best players at the stoppages along with Willo and Cressa.

He can be used as a 3rd tagger after Kirk and Crouch

He is good at sweeping up across half back.

I also liked Fossie's efforts yesterday and it was good to see Schnieds getting game time in defence to further his education

[Ruda Wakening]

Fossie hit back at his critics in the best way possible .
I'm thrilled that he did too, like Ben Mathews, he didn't deserve the rolicking he copped on here .

[Mike_B]

IMHO the area in which Benny has improved out of sight this year is his decision making. In the past I had been very critical of him taking bad options where he would be putting teammates under pressure, and that made it look like his skills were ordinary. This year though, he has proved that he has very solid skills, and when you add that to him taking better options, he has become a very valuable member of the side.

Just watching the replay of yesterday's game, it was his pass to BBBH for Bazza's 5th goal that extended our lead to 7 points late in the final quarter.

[TheHood]

Benny has definitely gotten smarter as a player, i just wish he would get faster.

I know there is stuff that he does which is important but his peripheral vision is as fast as my mother-in-law's driving instincts.

[Plugger46]

Roscoe,

He was alright on the weekend, but he's still not in my best side. That shows how depth this year I suppose.

There are still blokes who can 'sweep' off half back better than he does. But I'm not going to bag him this week, after such a great win, and he played ok.

[swansrock4eva]

I used to DREAD benny getting the ball, but the week he missed with his ankle injury earlier this season really showed what a vital cog he is, even thought he doens't tend to look it. Our backline had a hole in it and strangely enough it was a BM shaped one! thank goodness he filled it back up!

[bloodboy]

I have not seen many games this year but from what I can remember of last year, Benny was playing some pretty good footy...

Has he taken a nose-dive this year or are there just some over-zealous Benny baggers out there who don't care how well he plays, they just want to bag him?

[robbieando]

Originally posted by bloodboy
or are there just some over-zealous Benny baggers out there who don't care how well he plays, they just want to bag him?

I think that is close to the money. While he does seem to do little, what he does do is very important to the balance of the team line up, just as Gem said. When he missed a game a few weeks back we clearly missed his run across half back. We had to use Stu Maxfield and that took him away from his normal area of play and we then had to cover him up.