Post of the day …
It ain’t Neon conditions, that’s for sure.
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Another good play by Smack (rucking), another awful one by Long.
62-89
Ferry is forward but it’s not getting there.
Draper doing all right down back, rebound fifty.
8.14.62 loses to 12.17.89
Scoreboard already zeroed out.
If we’re not getting fried by the chumps, we’re getting screwed over by the weather.
In better news, I saw a truck with the plate 1•TIPPA on the way down.
We’re gonna win.
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Can’t believe our seconds are worse than last year considering the players we had missing
Something has to change surely or maybe we just have to realise our list is poor
There’s quite a few very average VFL-listed players getting games right now: e.g. Younan and Luxford.
(And AFL: have got little from Redman, Long’s highlights are comfortably cancelled by him running into trouble all the time, etc)
Today we probably won a bit over half of the game… except on the scoreboard. Gotta play to the conditions, and take those chances.
And looks like we aren’t getting much from Hocking either who I thought would have dominated at this level
Thanks for the play by play action today.
Another great call!
Missing Nick Hind today.
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Our seconds benefited from the top ups last year, these guys were generally the best VFL or recently retired AFL players available. Granted out younger players had more senior time, but the older players missing were replaced by the top ups and if the younger players were playing in the ones a lot of the time the top ups were in the twos. The top ups probably were in better form than some of our VFL playing senior guys coming back as well (having had minimal/no time out of the game).
This year and particularly over the past couple of weeks, resting players means that while players are being promoted to the seniors the rested players obviously aren’t dropping back into the twos.
Also, with the seniors playing their games after the VFL games, another player or two are being held back for the ones just in case.
On top of this, the mayhem of swapping around players in the ones creates similar lack of consistently playing together in the twos.
Just as our senior team will improve in the second half of the year, so will our VFL team.
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The more I watch of us the more I realise that our structures and positioning are killing us at times.
The game today was lost with our inability to get someone free on the second or third handball as we kept running to the wrong place to receive.
I don’t think cattle lost us the game
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We seem to struggle in anything but pristine conditions, more than most teams.
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Is Redman really struggling?
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It’s a good ground for flying a kite. Not so good for players who expect to play indoor footy and train inside a shed a lot of the time.
TVSC is one the windiest joints around, no excuses.
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Is it simply the lack of cattle or the structures?
Always seems that if there is a 5 goal breeze we seem to always only win the quarter by a goal or two but when we are against the breeze we lose by 3-4 goals that quarter
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Just home from the game. I could write about 10 pages about that game, but I’ll try to summarise. I’ll leave individuals to a later post, and talk about the game first.
In the first half (not so much the 2nd), our tactics were just dumb and way inferior to Port. With the wind in the first, they clogged our forward line. When there was a stoppoage, for example, around midfield, there would be about 2 pairs of players to their attacking side and about 7 pairs in our attacking half. We got zero players running free in space when we had the wind. They ran the ball into an empty forward half about 3 or 4 times and could well have scored more than just the one goal against the wind, running the ball into the space created by pushing up into our forward half.
Come the second quarter we just failed to do anything equivalent. When we had a spare back, he would be too far up the ground, at times 30-40m from the ball, instead of 60-70 back, allowing for run and a kick oon the wind. I think they scored 3 walk in goals by moving the ball quickly on the wind to space, with us pushing too far up the ground. It was blowing a farkin gale and we had our last defensive players up on the halfway line when they kicked out!!
Additionally, we tended to kick long up the line into the wind, which is risk free, but Port did a good job of kicking it short and holding possession, and at times running the ball.
In the second half, we were cruelled by the conditions, as DJR said. It was wet and slippery for most of the 3rd and the wind dropped off for 15mins after the rain stopped. And then it blew harder than ever in the last. Our last quarter was quite good until they broke our resistance late. We couldn’t play completely defensively, given we needed to score.
Overall, there was no shortage of effort, and we won our share of the contested footy, maybe more than our share, but we hacked it forward for most of the 3rd (conditions didn’t help). They definitely handballed their way into the clear and ran the ball better than we did.
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