Gia is one of my top three favourite players at the club, but all these stats people are throwing around are a little bit disingenuous. If we've been watching games in whole, we'll know that Gia has been struggling when the game is there to be won, but has popped up late in quarters or games that are well over to kick two or three goals and bolster the scoreline. His best stats would have been in the Melbourne game and the one on the weekend against the Eagles when he kicked all three of his goals in junk time.

Leaving the stats out of it, however, he still has an important role in really finishing games and quarters off from the bench, and his class and nous are undeniable.

Thinking in the longer term however, he is CLEARLY underdone with his non-existent pre-season, and will only fall further behind as the season goes on, unless he plays himself into fitness (which seems to be what the conditioning team is planning on -- I wonder what his mid-week recovery load looks like). He is one player for whom it would be invaluable to be 100% going into finals, and I'm sure Rocket and the team have a management plan to get him peaking later in the season.