His acceleration is awesome but he’s as un-agile as almost any player I’ve ever seen at his size. His kicking is just NGE, and he has a weird lack of intensity at times.
They are going to drop Roberts so they can play Shiel, Redman & Prior and it’s going to ■■■■ me.
Hobbs really ruined his game a little with a poor last quarter, but to me he’s shown he’s got plenty to persist with. I want him playing every game this year.
The big up and under kicks are bizarre - it doesn’t look like he’s shanking them. It’s not a technique thing, it’s a rush of blood IMO.
I had a less than ordinary night. Since l can’t watch the footy l went for the Aus V SA cricket stream instead, only the match was washed out. Trying to listen to the game was also an issue as my internet kept freezing and finally packed it in at the 24 min mark of the last quarter, but l wasn’t worried, l was sure we would hold on for the win, which we duly did. All in all, it was a wretched night.
It was excellent hearing Geelong fans in the crowd getting frustrated, bagging the chumps and claiming they were being hard done by. My favourite moment was when an Essendon player took the ball right on the boundary. One yelled “that’s out” and another chimed in with “he was half way to Torquay!”
also great to bump into @jackie_mihocek at the Commo before the game. I rated the bombers as probably 12th on the ladder this year. Might have to upgrade that ranking based on what I saw tonight. What do you reckon Jackie?
A lot to like tonight - good pressure many great tackles, numbers at the ball and matching Geelongs physicality for the first time in eons. No passengers and many fine plays amongst the turnovers. We can still improve our disposal selection and accuracy but ball movement much better. Young players shining and I feel we have the depth to go full season sharing the load.
Should we have a reasonable run with injury we can challenge for top 6
Accolades to Draper Kako Tsatas Jones Caddy Bryan. -all showing great improvement
In what is by far the most important moment of fatherhood, I sat my six-week old daughter on my knee and turned the game on for our first daddy-daughter football match.
A few seconds after the opening bounce, she very audibly filled her diaper.
I’m taking this as a good omen for the season to come.
Gamestyle. I didn’t mind it. I liked that we tried to move the ball on with more speed than previous seasons, but I feared that we’d ‘over-do’ it and get caught on the rebound. What I saw tonight was a more conservative approach where we went with speed when we could, then slowed it down when we couldn’t.
Fitness levels. I thought we were pretty consistent through the night. There didn’t seem to be a time when we we looked gassed or settled for less and coasted. A very high majority of the players looked ready and primed for the season.
We didn’t give up. After the good start, Geelong clawed their way back. We were able to wrestle the momentum back and get things going our way. We saw signs of that early last year against St Kilda and GWS.
A few Geelong slingshot plays. They got their running lions up play through the middle going a few times per quarter. It was pretty slick ball movement and usually came about from a poor entry into the forward line or turnover with a lot of players out of position in their full ground press. I think in the regular season, Geelong will exploit that a bit more and make us pay for our errors.
Straight kicking. It won’t last long, but our goal kicking was on point.
Our forward line movements. I did like that the unit seemed to be working as a group to free each other up more than previous years. One moment was when there was a mark on the forward flank in the third quarter (it may have been Langford) and usually we kick to the pack 20m out or to the group of players leading to that spot, but what eventuated was it isolated Caddy in the pocket with his defender and that’s where the kick went. It didn’t pay off, but stuff like that is what the coaches would like to see. I specifically liked that all the medium and small forwards (including Langford) worked their way up the field to give the other forwards some space.
Our backline. It looks pretty good. Shiel is slotting in perfectly well. I’m hoping someone takes that spot from him, but he deserves first crack at it. I thought McGrath was pretty good too. I’m not a fan of the kamikaze run off the back of the square into the centre square, but it does make sense if teams ‘high half forward’ does begin running up to the stoppage more often (which was the case late last year). It’s a good way to try and combat it to begin with.
Our small defenders. I thought they were great. Geelong had Miers, Stengel and Close who don’t need much space to cause some damage, but I thought we did well to minimise their effect on the game. I’m not sure who the matchups were. McGrath was one, maybe Roberts and the third could have been Shiel.
The ruck situation. I found it interesting that they went with Draper one out in the first half. I was expecting Bryan with Draper in the forward line for the whole game. I thought Draper did better in the ruck during the first half than Bryan’s second half, but the Bryan/Wright combo definitely out performed the Draper/Wright combo. Ending the Wright trial sat quarter time was the right thing to do. Hopefully, we play Wright in the VFL until he’s worthy of a spot in the AFL team.
The midfield. It was definitely workman like. Very disciplined and it’s clear we tried the Hobbs & Tsatas duo with the third player being one our normal midfielders. I don’t think that carries through into the season though. I just can’t see us playing all of Merrett, Caldwell and Durham
elsewhere on the field more often than not.
The usual tactical stuff. I’m not a fan of Jones on the wing, but it worked tonight. It looked like we were trying to drag one of the Geelong tall defenders (Blicavs) out of our forward line to get a better matchup in the forward line and in the ruck. I’m hoping this was situational, but I think this’ll be a permanent style we play. I thought Jones performed pretty well.
Another tactical ploy? It looks like we’re trialling flexible play / positioning a bit more than previous years. You’ve got Martin forward and back. Merrett was in the backline and also in the forward line. Langford was more of a high half forward. Perkins was high half forward with some midfield time. Kako was great as the dangerous forward at the base of the pack, but was also effective working his way up the ground and delivering into our forward line.
A few stats to be mindful of…
We clearly won the hitouts and gave our midfield first opportunity more often than not.
We dominated stoppage clearances. Last year, we were better at centre clearances, not so good at stoppages elsewhere. We flipped that tonight and still won the centre clearances. And just to point it out even further, that was with Tsatas, Hobbs and Caldwell or Merrett at the CBAs against Bowes, Atkins and Knevitt (a few times Holmes was there). We were ‘outsized’ and still won the clearances.
Whilst we were moving the ball quicker, we were controlling possession for greater periods than the opposition. We were doing that last year too and getting burned on the rebound though. So that’s a bit of a watch.
Tackling around the ground was elite. 50 tackles is a good number given we also controlled possession. We’re going to have to push this to 55 to 65 during the season as we cannot rely on controlling possession for so long.
On to other individuals…
Martin. Seemed to be playing wherever he felt like it. On the forward line in the first half then switched between wing and behind the ball in the second. I’m surprised he wasn’t lining up at the second bounce.
Hobbs. I thought he was okay. His stats look great, but some of the decision making was poor. His body work in the middle is pretty poor, but he’s shorter than everyone else in the midfield. I also felt he ‘got in other players way’ a few times by hunting the ball when he could have held off the scrum, or shepherded. Regardless I think he gets a bench spot in opening round.
Tsatas. His kicking is better. But still needs work. One thing that cannot be questioned is he knows how to get his body into position at the stoppage and use it to his advantage. He has some pretty good ground ball hands too. He should be start as our inside mid from opening round.
Gresham. I thought he was almost non-existent watching the game. He did look dangerous a few times. That time where Hobbs hacked it forward, Gresham picked it up, side stepped to change angles and got the ball was Durham is what we want to see more of from Gresham.
Zach Reid. I liked what I saw from him. He’s definitely talented and a huge step above Hayes at the moment. Hopefully he can stay on the park.
Durham intrigued me. I think he lined up on the wing at times, but he was predominantly forward. I can see the reasoning as he can be a decent mark and can also apply a good amount of pressure. I just didn’t expect 0 CBAs at all.
Duursma had a rough night. I get Geelong is a tight ground, but his kicking was way off all night. There wasn’t much overlap run, but I think that was more the way the game is played in Geelong.
McKay. I thought he was very tentative. For the half of the season from round 1 last season, he marked everything in sight. Teams were actually trying not to kick to him, because he’d outwork his opponent. Tonight, he fumbled all the marks and even found himself out of position after handing over opponents. I’m sure he’ll be fine, but it was just a large drop off from last season. Probably just shows how important a pre-season is for him.
Roberts. It looked like he played more off the backline. I really don’t like this position for him. I think he’s better from the wing forward, but it’s pretty clear we want to develop his defensive habits.
Hayes. It’s pretty clear he’s not ready. He’s fine to develop in the VFL unless there are injury problems to our tall defenders.
Haha I have a daughter who is 7 weeks old and she was incessantly crying for the whole first half. Reminiscent of her father most weeks watching the Dons.
I’m hoping she’s the change of luck we need and not doomed forever.