He was clearly injured....A big reason for why they lost that day.
That's just how fickle football fate can be....The Tigers are only ever an injury away to Martin, from dropping back to the field.
Dropping back to the field is a bit dramatic. I don't think we go from Premiers to missing the 8 without him.Rubbish, if it came down to just one player, Astbury who even the club admitted shouldn't have played, was the difference. His man Cox played his one and only great game of his career.
The thing is, we can cover him for a game, a month, half a dozen games sporadically throughout the season but I don't think we win the flag if he misses the entire year.
We were written off when Rance did his knee in round 1, which is worse than doing it in preseason because the team has less time to plan, adjust and train for it. You can't replace a Dusty or Rance but others need to contribute in different ways. We wouldn't become a bum side, but over a year it could tell.