Just as important: we need to re-learn how to pad our percentage against some bad teams again.
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I thought we kinda showed that against West Coast when then blocked the middle.
We were 7 goals up before they did that…
And 2 games separate 6th to 13th. Talk about a battle.
Yeah but there’s other factors like the umpires, Stringer and a Green got bad knocks, plus the umpires. Back 6 probably got a bit tired too.
Not all of our first 50 points came through the middle either, but it’s the threat that we might that makes us unpredictable.
We didn’t just win 4 from 5 just by playing one way either.
Winning it out of the middle makes a big difference too, not just Saad and McKenna breaking through the zone.
Can’t underestimate how important our midfielders chemistry is, considering it’s been completely overhauled without Jobe there.
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The brand
all this talk of brand reminds me of
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But some - a lot - of those things have already happened. They’re not “should”, or “will”.
I think there’s every chance we finish 9th or 10th. As long as our gamestyle doesn’t regress, I have no problem with that.
Impressive stuff.
Polar opposite to early season which was likely:
Part learning something new. Part anti-Neeld
In any case it’s all working now. May it continue!
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Love those clips from Harding.
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Yep I find him super impressive.
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Another adjustment obvious in the first clip is stringer is holding his position deep inside forward 50. In the first 8 rounds he would have been encouraged to be within 50m of the ball so we would have won it and had nobody to kick to, then the ring a ring a rosey would have started. Either a mistake by the players pushing too far up or neeld directing it. Has made a big change since the geelong game stretching the field having at least one player leading out of deep forward.
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You did see the number of scoring shots they had compared to us from 10 minutes into the second quarter?
Courtesy of a run of about 15 free kicks their way!
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Sure, that helped them. Consider though that we had 10 scoring shots to their 21 from the 10 minute mark of the second quarter. They completely shut us down. How much of that was umpires, us taking our foot off the manic pressure, injuries, who knows. But its pretty concerning.
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As a contest the game was over and decided by the time we kicked goal # 8.
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Eagles were always going to shut us down after the hiding we gave in the first qrt so I wasnt surprised what did please me tho is that we still held our defensive structure for the remaining 3 qrts a lot of the Eagles shots on goals were rushed or under pressure
In the part you bolded, i stated that “rather than what would have happened previous years where they would have stopped our scoring completely and steam rolled us in the end”
Not sure how good your memory is but i can remember many trips to Subi and the WACA where we have struggled to score at all once we have been shut down and ended up getting thumped.
You took a line from several paragraphs out of context as the next line after your clip shows “Maybe the club is finally gaining some real resilience, i’m not sure yet and won’t be convinced until it’s basically a fact but maybe this crappy year will end up being the making of these guys”
We scored 4.6 in over a half of footy. Maybe it isn’t zero, but that is awfully low level of scoring. If they’d kicked accurately, they might very well have steam rolled us.
And yes, I was focusing on one bit. That’s why I bolded it! Maybe I should have added some more context to make it clear we weren’t exactly on opposite pages, but that’s also why I quoted the entire post.
No doubt it’s not good scoring and they could have won for sure but once again context is important.
We aren’t a good team, a good team would have won that game by 20 goals once the Eagles were rattled like they were but small steps mate. Maybe with us winning all our interstate games so far and managing to rattle the eagles on their home turf (when i’ts usually us in that situation, as per the dockers earlier this year) we are making the small steps. I don’t know and as i said i won’t be convinced in this team until it’s virtually irrefutable but i would also like to keep both eyes open for signs things are progressing and after our form slump it appears we may be taking the small steps to becoming decent again.