North Melbourne ruckman Todd Goldstein has backed Andrew Swallow to quickly regain his place in the senior side.
The former skipper, along with small forward Lindsay Thomas, have been dropped from the Kangaroos team to tackle Gold Coast on Saturday night at Etihad Stadium.
Swallow is averaging only 16 disposals and three clearances a game so far in 2017 – well down on his output over the past eight seasons, while Thomas has kicked just two goals in five matches.
Goldstein told SEN's Garry, Tim and Hamish that he found out about the axings via Twitter on his way home from the club
“Andrew’s been a vital member of our side, and captain for the last five years. We know what sort of performances he can have, but obviously he’s got a few little niggling injuries and a little bit out of form and he’s trying to find that confidence,” he said.
“The coach has said, that we’ve got a lot of players pushing for selection, so if you don’t quite perform at your level, you’re going to be out the door pretty quickly.
“We have got no doubt that he’s going to go back and play his best for Werribee, and I reckon he’ll only be out for a week or two.”
The star ruckman said that he feels the team is performing well, despite the winless start to the season.
“We’ve lost three games by under a kick and we probably should have definitely won a couple of them,” he said.
“We’ve got to take a lot of positives out of it, but that being said, it is a win-loss system and having no wins so far is tough. The boys are really upbeat still and understand that we are doing a lot of things right.
“These things can turn pretty fast – we went from 9-0 last year, to only just scraping into the finals.”
The 28-year-old said that he’s “all good” for this week, despite pulling up sore against Fremantle on Saturday night.
“I did my ankle about three weeks ago, so I knew how bad it could be, and I nearly got up after two days then, so I was pretty confident that the seven days would have me right.”