Wonderful post, b4l and it perfectly sums up my thoughts as well. Personally, I'm sick of seeing guys in the team skate by on potential the last few years. Some of you are quite happy to see an awesome game by Vidot and a few others sandwiched in between 3 or 4 poor performances and that's fine but I'm sick of it. If I wanted to keep seeing that crap, they should've just retained Griffin. I'm glad that Bennett keeps rewarding players like Maranta who is probably the most improved player at the club, imo.
I do get why people make such strong case for Vidot and Copley. When you compare guys like that to Maranta, it's obvious they're bigger, stronger and faster - why does Bennett keep persisting with this little guy despite having more talented options at his disposal? Doesn't make sense. I believe the reason is those players just don't deliver on a consistent basis and they haven't worked on the errors in their game as effectively as Lachlan has. People are entitled to their own opinions but they're not entitled to their own facts. Maranta is playing better than Copley and company - that's a fact. Whether he actually is a better player than them is what those guys have to prove.
Personally, I always envisioned Maranta evolving into a Jason Nightingale type of player. Not overly flashy but he sure knows how to take a bomb as well as score and save plenty of tries. I sometimes wonder if Dragons fans bag him the way Maranta gets hammered. Is there a Dragons forum? If such a dark and dreery place exists what did they make of his double in the 2010 decider. Was rubbish about how his tries weren't exciting or flashy enough posted? Did they say 'I'll take the trophy but I'm still not happy you can't score unless you're within 20m'? Do they now just accept that if he's been in the team this long he must have something going for him? Does Maranta dare to dream?
