Say what you want about woosh’s match day coaching but Hinkley had a very bad day yesterday. Westhoff started as a loose man in defence. Talk about ceding the initiative. What’s more he stayed there until late in the game, never having any particular influence at all.
It’s ironic that this move was probably made in reaction to how our talls dismantled them last time and we moved a key component of that away from our forward line.
No doubt. It was very unusual for the spare not to chop us up. But Westhoff’s positioning was all wrong. He was setting up very close to the deep key forward and spent a lot of time trying to block runs rather than playing the ball and trying to intercept. Very weird.
From last year’s backline we had lost Kelly, Gleeson & McGrath.
All smart footballers.
Replaced with Saad.
Much as I like McKenna & Saad I’d call them instinctive rather than thinking footballers.
Sunday we put two smart footballers in Hooker & McGrath back in defence.
I think Guelfi and Heppell held their width and timed their runs well to provide outlets.
Although this lack of transitional running is still my biggest worry in terms of being genuine top 4 there was some improvement.
I think putting JD on the ball at times also asssisted this - he might not mark but he at least crashed packs and created more chaos ball than Stewart as a relief ruck.