Bryan with his hands on the ball again. With some extra kilos he might be a great back up for Draper eventually.
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Bryan was much better at centre bounces that when wrestling at stoppages tbh. That just needs time in the gym.
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Ambrose aside, sounds mostly positive.
Good to see the boys in the ilk of Fantasia, Zaharakis, Merrett and others that have been in the modified group get some fitness up. We need to be much fitter earlier on than we showed last year which was pathetic in the pre-season games.
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6.4.40 to 1.3.9 into the wind for the last quarter was brutal.
Don’t go Raz
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You said you would not be happy. I expect a meltdown damn it!
I’d love for him to overtake Draper.
Who is/was number 12 ?
Ok some quick thoughts today:
Harrison Jones is a player to watch. He moves smoothly… contests well and a nice kick of the footy. Boy can run.
McGrath and Parish basically swapped at the half. McGrath played and dominated the first half and then Parish did similar in the second. Critical these guys take the next step and today was really pleasing.
Bryan might not get discussed too much but he did some things that really jumped out at me. His hands were always first in the ruck and his mobility around the midfield was a huge bonus. Players were comfortable to handball to him and let him create something. Serious talent there.
Merrett getting a lot of praise but personally i found him very rusty. He got the ball a lot so you know that will change fast. No worries at all.
Langford was the inside tough bull today. Leading in clearances and doing the hard stuff to get the ball out.
Cutlers 2nd half was huge. Just came out of nowhere after a quiet first half. His kicking if he can use it wisely with decision making could be a huge weapon. Pleasantly surprised.
Ham had a great game today. Wing running player we desperately need. Has a good head on his shoulders so makes good decisions. I am happy for this kid to be best 22 such is the weapons he brings to the team.
Francis did the general type role down back and he created 2-3 attacks from defense that lead to goals. Seems so much more settled and knows his game
Mutch/Begley were for me the only ones i thought were off their game. Effort was fine. Mutch just a bit slow to release footy and Begley decision making really off. Early days however
Laverde was dangerous all day kicking 3.3. Hit the post twice. Biggest feature was his overhead marking. Looked very aggressive in air contest.
Overall the ball movement had flashes of what you hope for in 2020 with some old habits creeping in. This is to be expected with the very first game. I still feel like this year it may take us to mid year to see results of what Rutten and Cara want from the boys. Ruttens instructions at 3Qtr time was interesting. He talked about the Demons flooding players back. He stressed to look for the 20 metre kick when moving ball forward. Lower your eyes and not look to bomb it in with our forwards out numbered. We were doing that consistently most of the first half. I am glad to hear coach stressing what he wants and they semi responded to it ok. Our composure got better as the game went on.
People will say Demons had only 8 listed players. Very true. In the 2nd half however our under 23 players was the team that got our game plan going… they smashed them
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awesome, nice passage from Nigel about 5 minutes in
Excellent selection of highlights there, apart from the lack of Francis hip-and-shouldering.
First quarter of todays game. Assorted other views / settings for the rest of the game. Desperately trying to find some good 4G reception to upload the others as my home cable has such crappy upload speeds.
Make sure you choose 1080p settings. Ambrose injury at 9:00.
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Interesting how players are judged differently
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Cutler I think
Ha, I pretty much used the Ham wording above to describe Langford.
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Can’t really see what’s going on. Thanks for posting though.
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Quarters 3 & 4 are much better. First time out with the gimbal so more of a test run than anything. I’ll upload the rest anyway. Am sure there are some die-hards here that will sift through the footage.
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Just watched the highlights. Raz looked so embarrassed kicking that second goal - basically begged someone to tackle him. Good win boys.
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Thanks