TOPIC:

That's great news Ted,

I confess I don't know much about Preston-Coates. Listed as 197cm and 97kg. Can he play key position? Big ask for a young player. 

Good news if true about Busher. If he can stay fit he will be a huge boost. Injuries are the big question mark with him. I was just saying to someone the other day that German should approach McInnes and Busher about playing on this year. We will be desperately short of experience and quality talls. C’mon Fraser, one more year.
 

Ted Nugent wrote:

My mail is that H Busher is playing on. That would be a relief as we need him to play as a key defender. We only have Sinclair and Avery as 190cm + defenders, and both of them prefer a running off/intercept marking game rather than standing a big opponent like Keitel or Waterman. Key forwards remain a problem. Getting Bradtke would be a huge boost. Otherwise, there's Quartermaine. After that, it's a struggle to find talls. I don't think Bird is good enough. Maybe AJ, with Martin 2nd ruck? 


Ted, I have heard Avery has signed with a VFL side, not 100% but i heard recently.
 

Whinnen wrote:

Ted Nugent wrote:

My mail is that H Busher is playing on. That would be a relief as we need him to play as a key defender. We only have Sinclair and Avery as 190cm + defenders, and both of them prefer a running off/intercept marking game rather than standing a big opponent like Keitel or Waterman. Key forwards remain a problem. Getting Bradtke would be a huge boost. Otherwise, there's Quartermaine. After that, it's a struggle to find talls. I don't think Bird is good enough. Maybe AJ, with Martin 2nd ruck? 


Ted, I have heard Avery has signed with a VFL side, not 100% but i heard recently.

 

FMD 

No thank you.

Only rumour at this stage.
Disappointing if it comes to fruition.

Ted Nugent wrote:

My mail is that H Busher is playing on. That would be a relief as we need him to play as a key defender. We only have Sinclair and Avery as 190cm + defenders, and both of them prefer a running off/intercept marking game rather than standing a big opponent like Keitel or Waterman. Key forwards remain a problem. Getting Bradtke would be a huge boost. Otherwise, there's Quartermaine. After that, it's a struggle to find talls. I don't think Bird is good enough. Maybe AJ, with Martin 2nd ruck? 

Busher returning is an absolute waist of time and a bigger hinderance than help. He plays more half games than full games and that causes more trouble.  Go harder at Gibba to play on - at least he plays games out. Busher's injuries cause players like Nicholas to be moved and play on players out of height and weight class.  
As for Fraser why would we want him to come back for 1 year? All that will do is give us another 24 behinds for the season and block the list for another younger player to come through. 

This process of playing players past their used by date has to stop or it will be another 40+ years until we get anywhere. 

PD1899 wrote:

Ted Nugent wrote:

My mail is that H Busher is playing on. That would be a relief as we need him to play as a key defender. We only have Sinclair and Avery as 190cm + defenders, and both of them prefer a running off/intercept marking game rather than standing a big opponent like Keitel or Waterman. Key forwards remain a problem. Getting Bradtke would be a huge boost. Otherwise, there's Quartermaine. After that, it's a struggle to find talls. I don't think Bird is good enough. Maybe AJ, with Martin 2nd ruck? 

Busher returning is an absolute waist of time and a bigger hinderance than help. He plays more half games than full games and that causes more trouble.  Go harder at Gibba to play on - at least he plays games out. Busher's injuries cause players like Nicholas to be moved and play on players out of height and weight class.  
As for Fraser why would we want him to come back for 1 year? All that will do is give us another 24 behinds for the season and block the list for another younger player to come through. 

This process of playing players past their used by date has to stop or it will be another 40+ years until we get anywhere. 

I agree with your comments about Fraser PD, great bloke and works his arse off but German has probably looked at the tapes and gone FMD you can’t keep missing those. But I disagree with your comments about Busher although I understand where you’re coming from. That’s always been the frustrating thing about Bush in a red and black jumper.

But he’s a quality player and Germo’s probably also looked at the tapes and asked what’s happened to this bloke, can we talk him out of retirement? Lives across the road from Lathlain, we paid top dollars to get him back from Claremont so it would be nice to squeeze another year or two out of him. Fitness won’t be a problem with Bush, always looks after himself. He is just unlucky his body lets him down.

Hey Whinnen, you said to said hello to Falcon, your the south side recruitment bloke.????????

PD, if Avery goes, and Hill, Giblett and Nicholas have all gone, who plays a key back role? That would leave us with Sinclair as our only 190+ cm defender. We need Busher to play on this season to give us time to look for (or develop) a quality key backman. Otherwise it means playing a young player or an undersized player on forwards like Keitel and Waterman. We are light on for talls. We have AJ, DBW and Martin with league experience. I don't see any of them being versatile enough to play as a key defender. Otherwise, there's Bird, who I don't rate, Kane Johnson and Preston-Coates, who would likely get monstered by a good tall forward. There's no point moving on older players if there is no-one to replace them.