22 spots. 23 players.

[HSVKing]

Gardiner can't be dropped.

If he wasn't in Ross' finals plans, he would not have played on Saturday night. If he didn't play, I reckon we may have had a press conference announcing his retirement already.

On top of that, the time he spent on the field, I thought he was magnificent. He could be the X factor we are crying out for this finals series.

+1

Stark reminder, in the course of just half a game, of how much we've missed him.

In that half though we stank, either the set-up wasn't working or we weren't applying ourselves properly…

Looking into that, if it wasn't for Gardy, I reckon we would have been further behind. He ran his guts out and was wherever the ball went.

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

It will come down to matchups. I think with guys like Jetta and Rohan playing forward, we will still need Geary in the side.

Considering we got by with possibly the tallest backline in history last week, even though they had Betts and Garlett forward, I see less need for Geary this week. Not sure where Geary played last week, but every time I looked at our defensive set-up, at centre bounces, he wasn't in there. It was usually Zac, Blake, Fisher, Raph, Gilbert, and Dempster/Goddard.

[dragit]

It will come down to matchups. I think with guys like Jetta and Rohan playing forward, we will still need Geary in the side.

Considering we got by with possibly the tallest backline in history last week, even though they had Betts and Garlett forward, I see less need for Geary this week. Not sure where Geary played last week, but every time I looked at our defensive set-up, at centre bounces, he wasn't in there. It was usually Zac, Blake, Fisher, Raph, Gilbert, and Dempster/Goddard.

Who played on Betts and Garlett?

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

Every time I looked at them it was someone much taller. Gilbert was on one of them most of the time, from what I saw and others were rotating on them, like Raph, Fisher, Dempster and at one centre bounce we had Blake starting on Betts! I was really surprised and was concerned we would be too top heavy down back, going in to the game, but it worked out OK this time. After Gram did a good job on Garland the week before, I expected him to get one of Betts or Garlett this week, but it didn't seem to happen. I imagine Geary and Polo would have spent some time in the back 50 at some stage, but I don't remember seeing either of them start there at any centre bounces. For one I think Carlton only had 5 in their forward line, most, if not all the time. So they may have been playing on the extra one, around the wings.

[spert]

No change for me.. The Swans killed us from HB last time more than anything, and we stopped the Carlton HBs having influence last week, so I reckon RL will not risk a change when the formula is working...at the outside if a change is made it would be Ray for Armo. Roo as sub!