But with a quick look at the magnets on their board they decided on midfielder Will Paulin.

By the end of the game the pair's decision would be vindicated by a best on ground performance from their makeshift ruckman in the 22.16 (148) to 6.14 (50) victory over South Rovers.

Now the Threlfall-Quick-led Blues have a third ruck option behind Ratu Inoke, who was unavailable on Saturday, and premiership tall Bronte McCann.

"Will has a good spring on him and he jumped and competed all day and he was also still good at ground level," Threlfall said of Paulin's performance.

The two-time premiership coaches expect Inoke to return for their side's upcoming encounter against Kolora-Noorat after the bye next weekend.

McCann, who has an injured thumb, is expected to return the following week against Merrivale.

Threlfall was also pleased with the progress of his key-forward pairing of Jesse Dalton and Aaron Searle. The duo kicked 10 goals between them in the 98-point thumping of the Lions at Nirranda.

Searle finished with six, after his five the previous week, and Dalton added four majors to the Blues' final tally of 22.

"They were really good," Threlfall said. "Jesse presented high and got plenty of the footy outside the 50 and swang around and sent it deep.

"Searle was playing as the deep forward and he is a strong one-on-one and he got quite a bit of it down there."

Threlfall said the pair had adjusted to roles previously held by Gary Robinson, who is yet to play this season, and the departed Travis Graham.

Rovers coach Adam Matheson conceded his side needs to improve its skill accuracy after a performance riddled with turnovers.

"We had a focus going in on possession of footy and we just gave it to them early," he said.

"To Nirranda's credit they put a lot of pressure on us and we just didn't handle it.

"The disappointing thing is that we have trained all season under pressure and today we let ourselves down and even sometimes today under no pressure we turned it over.

"All we can do is work hard on it at training. I think we have lost a bit of confidence in our skills and we will be trying hard to get that back."

Matheson said he was pleased with how his side had bought into the game plan but again lamented his side's accuracy.

"I thought we stuck to our guns after we had trained all week to try and spread their press and we utilised our exits points pretty well and got over the back a couple of times," he said.

"But we just didn't finish off through goals. You have to take them against quality side's otherwise once you give them the ball back they're smooth and slick with their transition and they went coast-to-coast a couple of times."

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