“It is obviously disappointing but if the match committee feel I need some match fitness than that’s fine. You always want to be in the senior team and I’ll be working on getting back as quickly as I can,” Barnard said today.
Harvey said that Barnard needed to get four quarters under his belt. “He missed to games through suspension then spent time on the bench against the Kangaroos. We then had the bye and he again came off the bench against Geelong. When you add all that up we just felt that he would benefit from four quarters of football,” Harvey said.
“I suppose we also had to make a decision with Steve Alessio as well. We saw David Hille get a knock early against Geelong and if he had been seriously hurt we would have been without a ruckman. Alessio gives us some back-up and he will be important against some teams we are playing in the coming weeks.”
Harvey said that Barnard’s form had been reasonable this season. “When he has come on he has got some of the football and given us that crash and bang we need around contests. He hasn’t been dropped because he can’t get his hands on it. Plenty of good players have been asked to spend a game or two in the VFL and have come back bigger and better,” he said.
The figures would back up Harvey's suggestion that Barnard is missing for fitness reasons rather than form. Barnard is averaging 12 possessions a game this season - numbers accumulated in about a half of football.
