2017 Round 5 : Pre Game thread - Port Adelaide V Carlton

[Thryleon]

Cripps and Weitering both need a rest.
Weitering has spent a fair bit of time on the sidelines this season due to knocks in games.
We don't know for sure because we're not him, but at times last week his body language suggested he'd just about had enough of the constant battering.
He looks like a player not enjoying his football. His confidence appears to be down and where last season he'd approach the ball with a surety and back himself this year he appears to be tentative.
Give him a week or two off and he may show the benefits of that in the second half of the season.
On balance I'm not sure the forward experiment is giving us the benefit we lose by having him not playing down back. Are we that much better with him as our key forward target?

Difficult question to answer, but you could argue that if Weitering went back, the one out would be Macreadie, and then we would be looking for a key forward instead.

So, on current form, we are ahead, because Weitering is doing a fairly decent job forward, and the alternatives to him there would be Jones, Jaksch, or even Rowe.  We saw what happened against GC when Rowe went forward.

Macreadie has been an absolute steal at this point and is playing some really good footy for us for a newbie.  I dont know how he hasnt gotten a few more plaudits from the commentators for it.