North ruckman Todd Goldstein and former champion Brent Harvey have backed Andrew Swallow to make a quick return to the senior side, after he was omitted for the clash against Gold Coast.
“The coaches have said we’ve got a lot of players pushing for selection so if you don’t quite perform at your level then you’re going to be out the door pretty quickly,” Goldstein told SEN’s Garry, Tim and Hamish.
“You’ve got to try and find that form and that’s what Andrew’s going to do and we have no doubt that he’s going to go back and play his best for Werribee.
“Andrew’s been a vital member of our side and our captain for the last five years. We know what sort of performances he can have.
“I reckon he’ll only be out for a week or two.”
Harvey backed up Goldstein's comments, also throwing his support behind Lindsay Thomas to respond strongly to his omission.
“They’re (Swallow and Thomas) both competitors,” he told RSN.
“They’ll bounce back. If they go into the VFL and play there they’ll both play very, very well and it won’t surprise me if they’re both back in straight away.
“I think when you’re 0-5 you’ve got to do something. From the outside you’ve got to be seen to do something.
“To drop Lindsay and drop Andrew, I think, sends a message to everyone that you’re on standby. If you don’t perform how we want you to play, you’ll go out of the team.”
Despite a winless start to the year, Goldstein is adamant it’s not all doom and gloom at Arden Street.
“We’re performing quite well for an 0-5 start,” he said.
“We’ve got to take a lot of positives out of it, but that being said it is a win-loss system and having no wins so far is tough.
“The boys are really upbeat still and understand we are doing a lot of things right and these things can turn pretty fast.”
It’s a look back to a reverse of the current situation – last year’s fast start – which gives Goldstein confidence better times aren’t far away.
“We went from 9-0 last year to only just scraping into the finals, so it can turn pretty fast and we’ve just got to tidy up a few things and get our skills right, and finish off those games and those wins will come.”
Although Goldstein won’t ruck in combination with Braydon Preuss this week, there were promising signs in their partnership earlier this season.
The 28-year-old believes they’ll be able to grow together with time.
“We both feel we can play in the same side. We have such different strengths as well that we really complement each other in the way we play our footy,” Goldstein said.
“It took me and Drew (Petrie) three or four years to really get the hang of how to play together and how to do that smoothly.
“After only two or three attempts at it, I don’t think me or Braydon have quite got there but we definitely have the potential to turn that into a good ruck combination.”
Goldstein has been given the all clear to face the Suns after limping off in the dying stages of the loss to Fremantle.
“I’m all good. Luckily I did my ankle about three weeks ago, so I knew how bad it could be,” he added.
“I nearly got up after two days then so I was pretty confident the seven days would have me right.”
