Not a hard question. Palmer walks back into the team when the coaching staff decide he's ready. When that time comes he can have anyone's place except for Pav's or Sandi's, so he's hardly competing with Flinchy.
Pearce, Dodd and Deboer will always be there or thereabouts for best-22 candidates. Murph'll kick lots of goals for Souths ... and Byron, I'm told, is considered a spunk rat, so I guess the chicky babes will be hanging out at Claremont for most of the year.
As for McPhee, it's true that he will no doubt continue to struggle to hit the side of a barn. Old dogs don't learn new tricks. But, as others have pointed out, we got him for the price of a ring-pull on a beer can, and there's little doubt that he provides useful cover for a number of options. He'll never compete for any individual player's position (if he did, he'd lose), but it's also undeniable that he didn't get to play at this level for the past 7 or 8 yrs by performing as he did on Sun night.
He's better than we've seen so far, and for now we ought to leave him alone and let him settle in.
As for Hutchy, I think it may be time for all of us to hit this link again:
www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=66523756594&ref=ts
