06-07-2022, 03:16 AM
There’s not a lot of height in the Essendon F50. Obviously, 2 metre Peter is tall but Lewis Young is on him. They played the 2nd ruckman in Phillips and seemed to rotate Draper and him through a forward pocket but there’s a reason why few clubs these days leave specialist ruckmen in the pockets. I’m not at all sure we need to jump at shadows and parachute Sam Durdin into the backline just because he’s 198cm. Plowman and perhaps Marchbank would be competitive enough in the air and would expose Draper & Phillips when the ball comes to ground. They’d also match up pretty well on Harrison Jones or Stringer. In particular, I’d like to see Marchbank blooded against a weaker team like Essendon. Yes, a win isn’t guaranteed but I’d prefer to bring him back this week than against the Tigers, Dockers or Saints in the following weeks. Of course, that presumes he’s over the knee bruising and he’s back to full training.