Had a weekend away camping with no reception. Game was recorded on the IQ3 and all media avoided upon return to make sure I was able to watch the replay. After a 12 hour slumber, I settled in with a mixture of camp tummy (not sick but not great) and anxiety. Which team would turn up, how long could we sustain the effort, would this be worth the wait…
Oh boy, what a glorious start to the week! The first half was near perfect football in my opinion. It was hard, physically tough and every single player was working for the team. Yes there were some missed passes or opportunities but it was unrelenting. I honestly haven’t seen that level of attacking intent AND hardnose all team defence for at least a decade. The Eagles were routinely taken to ground with at least two, sometimes three, Bombers clamped on. The tackling was good against Geelong but this was another level from my view.
The inclusion of Stewart seemed obvious for most of us a while ago and the last two weeks have proven that to be correct. The addition of another mobile, tall target has been invaluable to create real space in our forward 50 and Stewarts work off the ball is exceptional. It allows JD to float further up the ground, or take regular runs in the ruck without damaging the set up. Hooker was clunking them and was dangerous up forward. Eagles defenders were unable to stop all three talls and there was always an EFC tall with a height advantage. We all know that you can fall into the trap of going in ‘too tall’ but we are getting away with it because all three key forwards are mobile and Stewart and JD are actually elite in the ‘mobility’ side of things.
Small forwards have been awesome from preseason and continue to be league leaders at defensive pressure and work across the ground. They all seemed to finally get some reward for effort and snagged a few goals each. I was particularly impressed with Green who was known as a bit of a ‘front runner with goal sense’ and very unfit when he arrived… he has genuinely transformed himself into a hard working defensive minded forward… still with a goal sense! I imagine it has been really hard for him to do so, especially when Walla and Fanta would take plenty of the limelight but I was very impressed.
I was full lid off before the season and yesterdays game was exactly why I had such high hopes. I’ve put the lid back on and even after this win, it will stay on for me but wow it was good to watch. The mixture of talls/shorts was right, the mix of strength on the ball and speed was right and I think we finally got that run off half back that we needed.The chemistry between Leuy and the mids really allowed us to dominate but we need to be able to do that against the better ruck divisions to truly take that next step.
Hurley has returned to beast mode and that first half was sublime. You can watch the replay and realise that every single contest he goes to, he wins and often convincingly. AA form and clearly the best defender. The inclusion of McKenna was something I supported but his turnovers by foot continue to be an issue, I was very worried after he shanked the first two… but then the rest of the game showed why Ivan and others have such faith. He was simply tremendous and showed when he NEEDS to be in the team ahead of Gleeson. Between McKenna and McGrath we looked zippy on the turnover and created so many scoring drives straight down the guts.
Finally the efforts of Zerrett, Watson, Heppell, Parish and Zaka were elite. I foolishly stated we had one of the best midfields on paper before the season started but finally I saw that potential played out on the field. They all had a field day and were just unrelenting. If they can keep that work rate, we could be near unstoppable during games. So much to like and I am (clearly) pretty pumped about it. Well done to the jeering of that assclown Mitchell and to the tremendous crowd support (helped to get at least 2 ‘hometown’ decisions imho). Bring on more good times!!
