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I really don't understand the team selection, assuming that's the final team and there's no late changes.
2 weeks ago Longmire uses the excuse that our young players are cooked but we had to keep playing them due to lack of alternatives, yet we have Rohan, Towers and Robinson as emergencies. And Cameron who could replace McCartin and offer some relief to Sinclair (and/or allow Sinclair to spend more time forward).
Last week he concedes that we need other avenues to goal, but the only change is Hannebery for Robinson.
Hayward and McCartin are clearly struggling to even get near it in recent weeks, and while Florent's numbers are down but not terrible, he's a shadow of the player from the middle of the year.
I feel for Dan Robinson - he's a steady contributor at best, but we refuse a trade at the end of last year, yet then this year play him 5 separate times only to drop him the following week, only giving him consecutive games once. We are 5-1 in those games he's played BTW.
Towers and Rohan are just as likely to disappoint as they are to make a strong contribution - but when young players are struggling at the back end of a season, that's the time to go with some more experience. At the moment we're getting 5-6 possession games from players which is not sustainable against good opponents.
It's the easy option to leave these younger guys in - if we lose we can say "oh, we can't expect them to always be consistent" and "at least they'll be better for the experience" etc etc. But for the team best equipped to beat Melbourne this Sunday, I can't see that we've picked our best available side.
2 weeks ago Longmire uses the excuse that our young players are cooked but we had to keep playing them due to lack of alternatives, yet we have Rohan, Towers and Robinson as emergencies. And Cameron who could replace McCartin and offer some relief to Sinclair (and/or allow Sinclair to spend more time forward).
Last week he concedes that we need other avenues to goal, but the only change is Hannebery for Robinson.
Hayward and McCartin are clearly struggling to even get near it in recent weeks, and while Florent's numbers are down but not terrible, he's a shadow of the player from the middle of the year.
I feel for Dan Robinson - he's a steady contributor at best, but we refuse a trade at the end of last year, yet then this year play him 5 separate times only to drop him the following week, only giving him consecutive games once. We are 5-1 in those games he's played BTW.
Towers and Rohan are just as likely to disappoint as they are to make a strong contribution - but when young players are struggling at the back end of a season, that's the time to go with some more experience. At the moment we're getting 5-6 possession games from players which is not sustainable against good opponents.
It's the easy option to leave these younger guys in - if we lose we can say "oh, we can't expect them to always be consistent" and "at least they'll be better for the experience" etc etc. But for the team best equipped to beat Melbourne this Sunday, I can't see that we've picked our best available side.
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