- Ruck: Gardiner, King, McEvoy, Stanley
Inside Midfielder: Hayes, Dal Santo, Ball*, Armitage
Outside Midfielder: Montagna, Lovett, Gram, Ray, Peake, Geary, X. Clarke, Connors, Smith
Tagger: Jones
Key Forward: Riewoldt, Koschitzke, Cahill
Medium Forward: Dempster, Eddy, Gwilt, Lynch, Heyne
Small Forward: Milne, Schneider, McQualter, Steven
Key Defender: Dawson, Blake, Maguire
Medium Defender: Goddard, S. Fisher, Gilbert, R. Clarke, Begley, Miles
Small Defender: Baker, L. Fisher
Rookies: Gaertner, Haretuku, Howard, McGarry, McGrath, Simpkin, Tungatalum
We've got two of the best midfielders going around in Hayes and Dal Santo. We won the contested ball well earlier in the season, but tailed off about the same time Ball got dropped to the VFL. Was that just a concidence? The time has come for Armitage to show us what he's made off assuming Ball goes elsewhere.
We've now got some great depth with our outside midfielders including a couple with real jets in Lovett and Peake. You could make the case that Joey is playing more "inside" as well these days. With the depth here we should be able to spread our runners between half back, across the centre line and at half forward.
Jones has elevated himself to become one of the best run-with taggers in the game. However with age catching up to Bakes we don't really have another option. Dempster is a possibilty, but ideally we could do with another lock down tagger as insurance for Jones.
We look overly reliant on Roo and Kosi up forward as we don't have any other geniune key forward options. If one of them was to go down with injury we'd be forced to come up with a makeshift forward with somebody like McEvoy, Goddard or Fisher.
We clearly lack a classy medium forward which was highlighted by the fact that every man and his dog was given a crack at that position this season. On paper this is the biggest hole in our line up.
We're well stocked with small forwards, however as is customary at this position they all tend to drift in and out of the game. Ideally it would be great if one or two of our small forwards were capable of rotating up into midfield (i.e. Chapman, Davis, etc) however Milne, Schneider and McQualter are more your pure crumbing forwards.
Zac and Blakey both had great seasons as our two primary key defenders. While we've only got Goose for depth, and there are question marks over him, we have the flexibility of using Fisher, Gilbo, Raph or BJ is required.
Arguably our deepest position is medium defenders with real quality there in Goddard, Fisher, Gilbert and the much maligned Raph Clarke. There's heaps of flexibility there too as that quartet can all play taller or smaller, forward or back plus BJ as our wildcard in the midfield.
There was talk all season that our backline is too top heavy and with Baker as our only real small defender it's hard to argue. We struggle for matchups against small forward lines like the Doggies, however "team defence" and pressure further up the ground have masked over this potential crack.
Summary: All up, we've got a damn good list that will challenge for the flag for the next 2-3 years. Lovett and Peake have addressed our lack of pace, but there's still a question mark over the structure of our forward line and the ability of our midfielders to win their own ball. That would make our two biggest needs a classy medium forward and a tough in-and-under midfielder. If we don't keep Ball, we need to trade him to fill one of those holes. Armitage is the natural replacement for Ball, so a trade for a medium forward would be the ideal outcome.
