Southerntakeover
Too Sweet
I think that's accentuating the negative and completely ignoring counterpoints. If we were all about squeezing young players out of the side to benefit senior incumbents, why did we play Berry so much last year? Why is Dawson in the middle instead of picking Crouch? He's playing SANFL and racking up touches each week after all, they could easily have Dawson on the wing instead of Sholl/Jones and play Crouch as the main CBA guy like the first half of last year.
I think what's going on is the club is trying to balance short-term success against player development. They see Rachele and Pedlar as future midfield stars and they are trying to give them some midfield time while also managing their workload and ensuring we have bigger, more experienced bodies in there as well so we aren't getting belted and can win games. Luckily Rachele and Pedlar are also useful in the forward line, so they can strike a good balance there, which is similar to Port Adelaide in 2021. They had Willem Drew taking 60% of CBAs in that year and he's not some Brownlow winning superstar, he's just a servicable midfielder who was a bit more ready than Butters and Rozee at that time. His midfield minutes have dropped away as the more impressive prospects matured.
Dawson is a senior player, and the team captain. He wasn't developed at our club. He demanded his insertion when the club continued to play him in the back pocket, and had the leverage to achieve it.
Sloane did his knee last year, there is precisely zero evidence that we'd prefer Berry to him if both available, if anything this year proves the opposite. We picked Crouch for recall this year, after recalling him numerous times last year. We've far from written off breaking glass on that 'solution'.
Repeatedly suggesting that we're doing the same thing as Port does not make it true. The numbers alone captured at this point of time do not reveal the full story. Our players CBA attendances are trending down, the less than golden oldies players trending upwards. The circumstances of the two teams were dramatically different, and remain so. They've got an embarrassment of riches in the midfield, we've got sweet **** all, and yet they still have found a way to get JHF sixty percent attendances this year.
It would be far more reasonable to take a measured approach to midfield exposure if you had a star midfield already, than it is when you have a midfield that has spent longer in time stinking than the average AFL career.