1. Whether to rest players next week. 2. Whether to play JA in the finals
1. As Mutts has pointed out 4th is a good run this year (win or lose the first finals match) and home games are important. Regardless I think we need to rest players. We cannot afford injuries and suspensions. Our top 13 players will have in the back of their minds not to get injured or suspended and that this is not a must win game - usually this means less than 100% and not playing well enough to win - so if we play our best side we may lose anyway. Melbourne are likely to rest most of their top 13 and give their reserves a chance. Reserves will be highly motivated and play like it is their grand final. Previous years the highly motivated reserves have beaten the, on paper, better team that is holding back. Another point is that a rest in the finals is valuable. However, if we get fourth a rest is not guaranteed and will be hard fought. We can get a guaranteed rest next week for our top 13 and should take it. Bellamy knows how to run a finals campaign and is in a very similar situation to us. I reckon he will rest and so should we.
2. BA needs to choose between giving Parra its best chance this year or whether winning without JA would be a hollow victory for him and also playing finals footy would really help JA's development. I think it is obvious both what a professional coach should choose and what BA will choose. For example, in the second last game of the year he decides to play JA as bench hooker above Rein. JA did as well as he could and nothing against the kid. But he is not a hooker and is not going to help us win a finals game coming on as bench hooker - not going to trouble teams from dummy half darts and always seems to find an errant pass or two in his short stints. Rein is a much better option and could really have used some big game (first grade) practice last week. I mean if we lose Mahoney, you would really play JA as hooker in the finals over Rein. Rein should have been given opportunity to get combinations going with the top 13. That would have been invaluable in the finals if we lose Mahoney but instead he plays JA. He realises that if fit, MM and DB have to play 80 mins in the finals and in the halves - finally he gets that. So where can he fit JA in. Now hooker seems the answer. But it is not. Rein should be well above JA if we wanted our best chance - only chance- of winning. We will see, but given that our finals bench and backup players should have been given time with the top 13 but that was wasted to play JA out of position I am not optimistic
Replies
Don't rest anyone pick a strong bench with no Jake. Beat Melbourne we play at least two finals game lose we most likely play one.
Agree
Who doesn't want a top 4 finish?!
Yep
Agree, we should go into this game with the mentality that we will win!
Yep, agreed.
Melbourne will 100% play their best 17 as they want a top 4 as much as us for exactly the same reason
Best 17 is non negotiable. Jake won't play has to be either Cartwright or Brown .
Wld love to see Brown back for final game & the semis. He must be fired up ready to go!
You are assuming the best side on paper will play their best. Usually this does not happen in these games. From memory our best side has been rolled by a bunch of highly motivated reserves in a round 26 game not that many years ago. You also need to factor in the risk of losing a key player for the finals. Roosters beat Storm but lost one key player to injury and had three reported to the judiciary with one key player getting 4 weeks. If that was us we probably would have had all 3 suspended. If that happens to us next week we have no chance in the finals. We have to take that risk in the finals. We do not have to take that risk in round 26. We will see what Bellamy does but it is definitely not 100% that he will play all his top 13 that are fit.
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