Bradman & Dom are both great players who both matter a lot, but I think Josh Morris sums up why the wider players who've been sorted out first are Lucas, McEwen and Manuleleua:
I could be wrong about this, but I do think we're actually *less* reliant on Dom in attack than we were in 2023, even though he's leading the comp in line breaks. Feel like in 2023 there were a lot more steps & moving parts involved in creating that space out wide, and also we were working towards getting Dom 1-on-1 opportunities rather than putting him away totally untouched down the sideline. Also feel like in 2023 a lot of our breaks were capitalising on the edge forwards not drawing a lot of defensive attention, eg Lachie Fitz running into acres of space or onto easy 1-on-1's because the outside men rushed up so hard on the back 5 players.
This season with Fletcher, Brown & even Sandon threatening to cut back inside, and also shaping to play short to fast, powerful edge forwards running good lines - I don't think it's hyperbole to say there are not the 36 good edge forwards running around right now that you'd need for every team to have two good ones, and we have three - that space kind of seems to be there whenever we want it even off a slow as **** play the ball, like if the defence has committed 3 men to a tackle that seems to be enough of a trigger to hit the go button. And then Dom gets sprung free down the sideline constantly because it's the least bad option for the defence rather than because our entire game plan revolves around setting up a play for him, if that makes sense.
I absolutely think we should keep Dom & I am by no means downplaying that cheat code factor he still has where if you just get him the ball near the line 1-on-1 or even against multiple scrambling defenders, he's probably scoring. But I would bet the arse doesn't fall out of the attack if we lost him this time.
The one player who did a good Dom impression was Fletcher Sharpe because he's not only fast and a tackle breaker, but because he has those instincts, and can nail stuff that other guys like Schiller & Jenkins seem to struggle with eg moving laterally on the ball in the air in those slingshot shapes we like. Dom's the most dangerous winger in the game at that but he's not the only guy who's good at it, and I trust POS to identify other guys who are.
