I think the coaching roster, who actually have day to day contact with the players would have the greater impact on player retention than the recruiting roster. Particularly when you consider that 50% of the recruiters are based in Melbourne.
There is some significant fudging of reality going on here in the effort to make Bond and Co look better than they are. Desperate times it would seem.
Getting back to Tabs, I've noticed that when Pav is playing, the forward 50 entries are very Pav centric, which may explain why Tabs goal kicking is down when Pav is playing and why is suddenly jumps up when Pav doesn't play. Also, considering the very poor service we have been getting via our midfield for most of this year, getting 14 goals from 12 games isn't that bad. He has 14G 5B) Pav has 20G 19B, so Tabs has made better use of his more limited opportunities.
I'd question this insistence that he doesn't read the flight of the ball very well when his contested marking would clearly indicate otherwise.
For a young bloke getting his first run of consecutive games, he's actually developing very nicely and would likely have better numbers if our midfield was a bit more competitive.
Edit:
Contested marks for Freo so far this year...best is Tabs with 25 from 12 games. Next is Pav with 16 from 12 games. Suggesting he is poor at reading the ball in flight doesn't survive critical examination. Tabs is much better than some people would have you believe
