WayneJudson42 wrote:Sadly, the changing nature of the game; the quikcer tempo; new rules... and now the 4 boundary umps, means that certain player "types" are no longer suitable unless they can adapt.
X is clearly "adaptable" so he should be given every opp, and I suspect he will.
Players like L Fish, and Goose may struggle.
It's all well and good to refer toa "cadre" or "core" or whatever you wish to call it, but footy is about wining flags... and there should be no sense of "nostalgia" attached to the process.
The question is, how long do you keep under performing players to avoid rocking the boat?
Well, partly it depends on what sort of contract you have them on: eg, Fiora has demonstrated this season that he deserves to be delisted IMO, but probably won't be because he has another year left on his contract.
Ferguson, Leigh Fisher, M Gardiner, C Gardiner, J Gwilt are all out of contract and are therefore right in the firing line: even though I reckon that all of these other than Ferguson are more worth persisting with than are Fiora and, probably, Rix.
Goose at his best (ie, before the Eagles game at the Dome in 2006) was entirely suited to the "modern game": a strong, high marking defender who was also a pretty good user of the ball (and had a thumping kick). The Goose we've seen cameo performances from in the past 2 seasons is nothing like the same player. Whether or not he is worth hanging on to is entirely a medical matter: as it is for X and perhaps Kosi and Raph.
For mine, the only pathway out of the Saints for these four players before the end of their careers should be delisting or (preferably) early retirement through injury. I don't want see our club to trade away another Joel Smith.
The other 6 I listed in my previous post - Riewoldt, Ball, Dal, Joey, BJ and Sam Fisher - I would like to see all retire as Saints , preferably with a premiership or two to their names (along with Milne, Lenny, Blake, Baker, Gilbert and, hopefully, a substantial number of the players we have recruited in the 2006-08 period: possibly including Cousins).
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."
- Jonathan Swift
