I know that everyone is excited about the additions to our list but I continue to battle with it.

1/. Treloar: We have recruited an excellent player...but one who simply does not fill a need. To me, he is more of what we already have...for FIVE YEARS. I worry about the impact on Bailey Smith, on Rhylee West...on our other young mids who really should be the ones putting us over the top. We already have a group that doesn't defend well in transition - I think Treloar is better than his harshest critics suggest (I mean, he knows WHO his opponent is even if he doesn't know exactly WHERE he is) but anyone who has watched our side in the past two seasons will know that we can be heavily scored against in transition and how exactly does Treloar help that? We are weak in outside mids...he doesn't play that role (and it is a genuine position with specific skills and responsibilities that take time to learn and understand...We are weak with regards hard-running, competitive hhf's and he doesn't really do that either...

Yes - I get it that he will be 'a rotator' but for us to get value from him he really needs to be spending the vast majority of his time inside the centre square - ditto Bont, Macrae, Liber, Dunks, Smith...only 3 at a time so how does this work??? Rotations are really dependent on the players and our mids are not exactly known (in recent seasons) for their selfless approach to the game...I wonder (and the recent "I wanna go to Essendon" saga with Dunks supports this) whether a couple of them would rather have 40 touches and lose than 18 touches and win. I worry Treloar also has this tendency and I worry his arrival at the club does nothing to address our areas of need.

2/. Martin: Where does he play? Ruck? If so, where does English play? I simply don't get it because to me this is simple maths - we cannot have two players in the side to fill ONE position. If we needed a bigger, stronger body, well, JT could have filled the bill of support player in 2020 (or 2019 for that matter)...but was never picked. You would have though St Kilda would have been the PERFECT opponent for him - two ruckman and they rotated in the Saints f50...and JT is an experienced AFL defender...but STILL we didn't pick him...why will we pick Martin??? I have heard the argument that we got him mostly to work with English at training and lift his level through consistent competition...I don't see it. There isn't much competitive work at training in any case, and with a drastically shortened pre-season...when will this happen? Or are we planning on playing English forward or back ahead of Bruce (goodness knows what his salary is) and Schache...and then using HIM as the support ruckman? Well...I don't know much but I am pretty confident you don't get better at playing in the ruck by standing inside forward 50m and waiting for the ball to be kicked in...

I know, I know. We WON the trade period and Sam Power is a genius and the world is a much better place, but I still maintain the players we need in our side right now are:

1/. Clay Smith - Aggressive, team first forward.
2/. Liam Picken - Aggressive, team first forward who could play mid if required.
3/. Matt Boyd - Aggressive, team first defender who understands how to play mid and can fill in as necessary.
4/. Dale Morris - Aggressive, team first defender able to play on smalls and talls.

If that is simplistic, well, it is intended to be so - but we need GRUNT. I guess in many ways Martin is 'all grunt'...but that means English goes forward and well, all grunt does not really spring to mind when I think of English as a forward. If you want to tell me Duryea can fill the Boyd role I am listening...but the others???

Treloar is an excellent player...Martin has been an excellent player. I just don't know if they are what we need right now in order to step forward as a footy side. I really, really wish I could figure this out.