Not sure how you could suggest last year was against better opponents. They are/were a rabble on both occasions. Last year they had lost to the Lions by 10 goals the week before and they lost to Port by 19 goals the week after. We only beat them by 33 points. They didn’t have Ablett or Lynch and they had a caretaker coach.
This year, despite being a similar rabble, they are parking the bus as others have said, to try and limit the damage as much as possible.
Our performances last year and thus year were rubbish against them. It’s a matter of opinion which performance was better.
Not our best game skill wise, but for the first time in many years, we showed up clearly not “on” and we still managed to get the job done.
Almost clinical - winning the games we need to win. The fact that we’re starting to win more and more games interstate (and this one very convincingly) and that supporters can feel a bit more comfortable knowing the team will do what they need to do just to get those lower expectation games won, it’s a massive bonus.
Lloyd on the footy show today seemed pretty upbeat and excited about the game to be honest. Think he can see the club has turned a big corner here.
Slippery night
Interstate
Significant injuries
Essington first half
We overcame it and switched on in the second. Thrashing minnows isn’t the only measure of a good outcome against them. There were some important positives out of this that bode well for our short-medium term. For mine, the continued upward trajectory of THE is very pleasing. He’s finally showing that he’s got a very good football brain and the skills to match. He’ll be a very, very good player for us.
It’s taken I while, but I’m actually starting to think we will get some decent development out of a frustrating year.
We got molested by GC in that first half. That second half of first quarter, when they had like 19 inside 50s to our 2 or something…that was a disgraceful 20 minutes that even our top ups in 2016 didn’t play any worse.
Then when we did out play them, we missed so many easy goals and over possessed and kicking it straight to May in our goal square. That was not great to watch at all.
We are so mentally fragile that we get dragged down to the levels of a really bad team, when we play against one. We have done this for 15 years…it’s like our past players from Knights era have somehow passed on this skills to our current team too.
I’m still in shock at how well McKernan and Brown seem to be holding up tbh.
Brown in particular is showing some real class and intelligence with his repeat efforts, gut running. Was highly rated as a junior and a highish draft pick (16?) - can see the talent that has been significantly suppressed by his injury history - good on him.
Will take the win! It was cold, slippery & away. Also wonder if player mindset is affected at the start of the game after spending a day wandering around the Gold Coast pre game. Such a holiday feel up here- very different to other games. It did take them a while to switch on.