Surprisingly was actually ok
4th most effective player for us apparently
Tackle stats of our mids great to see!
Stewart seemed to thrive playing fwd/ruck and being up around the ground more. Green had a terrible first half but really came into it in 2nd.
Both would be certainties for rd1
Wayyyy too many handballs from Zac and Goddard. Not sure what’s going on there.
Top 10 for us from the day…
me too
Only saw the second half, so saw the good and evil, although not in that order.
I hope Gleeson’s not too bad as as an intercept marker/reader of the play, he’s A1.
Hadn’t yet seen SSS in an Essendon jumper but Smith was very impressive and Stringer did some very nice things. That goal he got from running forward in the third was a ripper. Didn’t notice Saad so can’t really comment.
Heppell, McGrath, Parish, Zerrett, hard to fault their tenacity. Smith also.
Tippa and Green thankfully came into it a bit. Neither would want to carry their third quarter form into the season opener.
Umpiring was baffling. Found every soft one we may have committed, but let Geelong do as they liked. Aside from McLachlan, Demetriou, and Fitzpatrick, Troy Pannell has no peer in terms of corrupt ****edness.
Agree with most here in that we should give Hooker a go in the backline. Not sure the other talls down there, aside from Hurley, are cutting it.
I was like Doc Larkins calling it an ACL then.
Stringer forward
Hooker back
The midfield…um, there’s no quick fix…just give McGrath and Parish all the minutes they can handle and go get a couple of big bodied inside mids in the trade period .
Stewart was great, considering he lost 7kgs to gastro last week.
Begbie had a stinker unfortunately.
Agree about the list suddenly feeling thin.
Laverde and Langford not in the team (for varying reasons), Francis unavailable, Begley not stepping up yet…plus now 3 or 4 best 22 injuries and things aren’t looking all that great.
Hard to say what to takeaway from that match. Players were incredibly rusty, and Geelong were missing Ablett and Dangerfield (mostly). I don’t expect Hurley to kick several balls straight out for throw ins because he missed players by 30m in the main season. Heaps of players took a while to get going, with McGrath, Stewart, Walla, Green, Hurley, Hooker and others significantly better in Q4 than earlier. JD didn’t get out of first gear.
We improved in the clearances from JLT1, on the back of Stringer (Q1), Zerrett and Heppell playing full games and Myers. On Heppell, he racks up the ball, but boy what he does with it is poor. Hopefully just JLT, but a really worry he’ll continue from last year. Belly was dominant early, but struggled more against Smith. Our Smith had another good game. If we could get Stringer a full game tank, he’d be a weapon. Don’t know how possible that is, and really a beyond 2018 goal.
On defence, it didn’t go well. We didn’t really have much drive out of it, either by running (McKenna, Saad, Gleeson) or by foot (Hurley, Mcniece). Combine that with a lot of poor defending, and there was a lot to forget. I don’t think a single defender had a good game. Hawkins tore up Ambrose and Menzel did the same to Gleeson, and those really hurt.
The forward line suffered early from players not up to pace and terrible delivery into it. Walla and Raz getting ball and delivering cleanly is so important, and we didn’t have that. It got better in Q4, partly as players found some form and as we trapped it in more.
Overall, a number of concerns and a lot of rust.
I’d personally be looking at Dea if Gleeson doesn’t come up. Though given Adelaide’s big forwards either Brown or Hartley could get the nod.
Wat.
And that worked out well
Tex will be out though so they may play a smaller fwd line anyway.
Brad Crouch is in doubt as well, isn’t he?
Far king hell, … really?
Apparently yes.
Yep.
Quite a lot of changes to their best 2017 side
Tex. BCrouch (but Gibbs in). Cameron. Smith. Lever.
I wonder if the penny will drop for a few over the Wanga game with that info???
We played so badly, I have to keep reminding myself Geelong are a top 4 team, Maybe that partly explains it.
Wind + first proper hit out for many
Skills were always going to be scrappy.
Hurls couldn’t hit side of a barn with basic kicks and TIPPA was rubbish with his disposal also
That said Cats are a good pressuring side
Tippa was poor against Tigers too,
