the criticism of Zeb was warranted earlier in the year, but he's getting better and better. the errors and missed tackles he was making earlier in the year were truly unforced and deserved scorn. he has cleaned up his act massively over probably the past month. he's still getting manhandled a bit with the ball (although less than earlier in the year - he looks like he's getting more confident)... but he's also running a lot more lines and functioning very well with T and co over on the left. he's also digging in and doing quite a lot of work that others just seem disinterested in.
the forum groupthink is just very slow at adapting. Zeb is busy getting back to his best whilst everyone seems to just want to stew on his early season form (which were really his first games he got to string together since breaking his neck). many blokes with Zebs injury never come back, many are never the same, but Zeb is truly bucking the trend. he's only played 11 games of football since having an injury that would end many careers. it would even be reasonable to say he may not be back to 100% until next year.
with Willie gaining fitness, McKinnon continuing to develop and Tetevano due back soon (i assume)... not to mention Costigan... it's not like Bennett doesn't have options. the worst Zeb has seen thus far has been a 1-week drop to the bench in round 2. since then his improvement has been obvious and consistent aside from another game where he had a true case of the dropsies (and who in the team hasn't?). i seriously feel that our backrow is the least of our worries at the moment. i think Bennett would be more than happy with Zebs progress and i feel his team selections reflect that. Zeb would be rotating with McKinnon far more often at the very least if there was an issue.
so yeah, have at my man crush... but make sure you can back it up beyond "burrr... he's missing some tackles". a FAR more legitimate criticism would be his lack of ability to get over the advantage line, particularly coming out of our own end... but the truth is he's never been particularly strong in this area. it's not really what he brings to the team. where you want Zeb is when you're in the oppositions half. then the real Zeb comes out in full and his value is clearly obvious. we haven't really spent much time in that area of the field lately. ultimately i think the truth is he's just not up to 80 quality minutes yet. if he were playing the first 60 of every match then his error rate and missed tackles would be way, way, way down. he's probably capable of 80 quality minutes if we could just hold onto the ball for any reasonable amount of time.
