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No, worst case fear among BF fans is that he gets selected in the seniors more often than he deserves because he was a "captain's pick" in the off-season. And because of being selected in the seniors like that he keeps a more deserving youngster (Bedendo? Cleary? Gallagher?) from gaining an earned spot and valuable seniors experience.  Or denies a more mature player a spot and they go to another club (Lachie Young, Pat Lipinski, etc).

However I reckon this fear is a bit overstated.  It started with people saying "Billy Gowers ... WTF?" and has grown as an article of faith ever since, even though an erratic Billy Gowers ended up being our leading goalkicker in his first year.

You can understand why the coach and MC would want to give a mature age pick their chance, once we've put him on our list.  If they didn't, we'd instead be whingeing about why we got some cast-off onto our list and never gave him a game.  "What a waste of a list spot!"  They saw something in him and believe he can play a vital role, even if not becoming a star.

Eventually if it doesn't work out and they don't deliver ... they get delisted. Like Billy Gowers. Or Hayes.

These list acquisitions (Gowers, Scott, McComb, Hayes, Hannan, Gardner, McNeil, Sweet, etc) are low risk for potentially handy reward.  Everyone is saying how Geelong has done so well with cast-offs and late picks so I think it's defensible that we too use a few spots for those sorts of players.

I'm not yet convinced on Baker but I'm happy to see how he goes and if MC see enough talent and form to select him I'll back him in ... at least until the time when his form in the senior side shows that he's not up to it.  And when he does get a game let's hope he gets at least 2-3 games in a row to settle in, as we'd want for any debutant.