VFL Round 8: Northern Blues vs. Coburg

[Thryleon]

I'd be going for youth rather than the tried and failed......promote one of Walsh, Fields and Gowers is the way forward IMO, Holman is another we need to try.
Ellard is a handy player in the VFL only IMO and while I take your point about rewarding effort we have been down this path with him before and it always
ends with him failing in the seniors and returning to the VFL...

Sure Elwood, and thats why you delist him or trade him at the end of the season because he has been tested and found wanting, but whilst he is with us earning a game the right way, he is setting an example to follow, and the onus is on others to displace him from the seniors, rather than just black ban him for not being good enough.

This is the way to build our culture.  In a weekend where Yarran and Ellard both got 23 posessions in the VFL, one was bog and the other was probably his usual classy self, but probably just went.

Chapman was made to wait 4 weeks before getting senior elevation under Thompson back then.  We seem to be rewarding players for being young, and for being talented, and not necessarily for playing well.  That to me is a sure sign of a club that is not holding itself to high enough standards IMHO.  We made the same mistakes with Brock Mclean a few years ago under Ratten as well.  He was frozen out of the seniors even though he was performing at a class above the VFL.  This is a run of games where Ellard has done what it takes to get a game.