Which horses mouth are you quoting Ockham? I hope it isn't the same horse who decidied Brock McLean was worth a first rounder.
Setanta is not great player, but is he better up forward than Thornton?
Surely the horse you speak of doesn't rate TbIrds forward press, or Hammo and Warnock when they are up there for that matter. TBird is slow, any defender in the finals will run away from him. Setanta is not a great tackler, in fact, understandably from a hurling background, his tackling is poor. But pressure is not just about tackling, it is about closing down space which you can do if you are quick, and it is about reflexes from a big guy making him harder to kick around.

We need to get away from this mind set that Setanta has to be great or he is nothing. We are playing Bret Thronton as a key forward. Setanta just needs to offer more than he does. And on Friday's evidence he could hardly fail to. And forget the TBird as a 'swingman'. He will only go back if he fails up forward which would suggest he can't play both ends. As a defender he is behind about 7b other guys. He has been reasonable recently but he is not a forward and will not give us much ag finals oppo.

I am not sure that Waite's defensive pressure is great either. And Hendo has been ordinary in attack this year and very good in defence.

Setanta has many deficiencies but is quick tall agile and handles the ball very well at ground level and is a reasonable lead and a pretty accurate kick. He is not Buddy Franklin, but is he better value than TBird? In Waite's abscence isn't that the only question, and wasn't that partially answered on FRiday?

Play him to his strengths (and not as an unmoving marking target in the square, and I reckon he has a bit to offer).

Betts as sub. This is something I think RR suggested in the Bullants thread and I believe is worth trying. Hopefully this would give Eddie a bit of a wake up before the finals, and it allows us to experiment with our forward structure and possibly catch the opposition out to a degree. You never know, it might bring out the best in Garlett too.

A wake up call? Huh? I don't get the criticism from yourself and RR re Betts. What has he done wrong lately? 25 goals in his last 9 games. Even last week I thought he played pretty well - just missed a few he should have kicked, but I thought he was quite creative despite the lack of goals. He also copped criticism on footy classified and I think it was one of the most lazy criticisms I've seen - Betts has been in great form and was a long way from our worst on Friday night.

Eddie is a good player but I'm not the first person to say that he's been generally disappointing in big games for us over his career. We need him absolutely primed for the finals. If using him as the sub in Round 24 makes him hungry for the following week (and lightens his workload ahead of the finals), then I'm all for it. It might also make our forward line less predictable for the Saints?

But anyway, you needn't worry....I doubt very much it will happen.