I know this isn't the majority view, but to my eye when we've had all of Tabs, Cox and CamMac in the team, our forward structure has looked good. Where we fall apart is where we get smashed in the clearances, and our players follow the ball down to the back 50. Where most see the lack of forwards as the cause of our problems, I tend to see it as a symptom of other problems.
We just shaded Collingwood in the middle yesterday, meaning we weren't always launching our attacks 150m from goal. That really makes a difference. We also managed to force a few turnovers with our tackling, which again has been lacking this year.
I think we will be able to eek out wins with a forward line based around Tabs and Cox, but they would need to show a bit more improvement to form part of an elite forward line. Tabs continues to look very dangerous in the air, and was a good target up the ground. But his kicking into the forward 50 and at goal is sub-par. A couple of times yesterday he had the ball 70m from goal with Freo favoured two on one in the forward 50 and he found the one each time. He wasn't the lone ranger, but you just can't burn chances like that. Cox wasn't much better.
I also though Cox and Tabs got in each other's way a bit again. There was one play in the first quarter when Tabs literally ran into the back of Cox and took both players to ground and out of the contest. Hopefully another good pre-season together will see them build better chemistry.
Perhaps it's a pipe dream now, but there was a world in which we could have had two Hills, Walters and Bennell kicking into the forward 50. Tabs and Cox might not be elite all-around players, but they are good enough in the air that if they can just get to the right spot, those other players would make it work.
