Gutsy Win

[liz]

Originally posted by sharpie

Disappointing to see Crouch get absolutely destroyed by Chapman after last week's effort.

Generally agree with your comments but not this one about Crouch. No-one played particularly well yesterday - Kirk was about the only midfielder you could say had a good game - but I thought Crouch was the best of the rest. Admittedly some of his disposals let him down badly but at least he was working hard and going in for a second effort to make up for his mistakes. Overall I thought it was a reasonably lively performance.

Was he on Chapman for the whole game? Didn't really notice to be honest. And if he was, I didn't think Chapman was that critical to Geelong. He took a couple of very good marks on leads, but defending against them isn't Crouch's forte.

Kelly was clearly their best player - and BOG. Shame it was the wrong Kelly!

[Xie Shan]

I was just thinking the world must be going mad when Kelly plays for Geelong and Ablett plays for Sydney!

There are worrying signs - people have complained about the poor disposal, but at the ground it seemed like there were a lot of "missed" tackles by Swans players and most of the time when we gathered possession they seemed to be surrounded by Cats players. The forward line let them rebound from defence too easily.

I'm still worried about our decision-making under pressure - it has let the team down over the last couple of seasons.

That said, I wouldn't rate that as bad as the St Kilda draw in 2002 - it does remind me of the Roos game the week before (the Cressa free kick one) - I remember that the Roos were a lot more desperate for the first 3 quarters in that game, as Geelong were on Sat nite. While it's not all doom and gloom, as I know there is a lot of improvement in the team, I still worry that there might be the danger of this year becoming another 2002 if games start slipping away through poor disposal like this one nearly did.

But it's a good reminder of the fine line between their best and worst! I know they CAN be top 4 again this year but it's going to be hard work.

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by sharpie
Doyle - giving him a run in reserves at this point is laughable. For 3 weeks he dominated that comp, and so it was definitely time to give him a go. A little patience is needed, plus whoever said that the short kicking play didnt give the tall slow forwards a chance got it absolutely right.

Something I'd like to put to the floor is whether a big lumbering ruckman like Doyle is even suited to our short-chipping, handball-happy rebounding style of game. Considering Roosey got rid on Ricky Mott for much the same reasons, what is to say that Doyle won't mould into the side into anything more than a bit-position part-time tall in the forward line.

Jason Ball seems to have no confidence at all when kicking for goal-two posters last night that were easily gettable. Maybe give him a run in the middle of the park with Goodsey? Still unhappy at LRT being dropped too. I thought he was very impressive mobility-wise against Brisbane and deserves constant game time in the Ones.

JF

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by Nico
Luke Ablett. Slow and not committed to the footy. Looks great on the end of a pass but doesn't make too many contests. Slows the side down when he gets it and dosn't seem to fit the running style.

I know this is only one incident, but once when a kick came down towards my goals deep in the 3rd quarter it was HIGHLY noticeable that Noggie made no attempt to get involved in procedings at all.

I know it is totally a one-off thing, but all of us behind the goals noted it immediately. He almost ran away from the marking contest it seemed at the time. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was crumbing, but it sure didn't look like it to me.

JF

[EMJ]

Thought McVeigh, Bevan, Kirk, Williams all stood up in the last quarter.
McVeigh is looking good as well as Bevan.
The B umprires really made me mad. They certainly didn't help the game style especially in the third quarter. Like Healey said on commentary they would have to be blind not to see a "free" when Maxie got KOed as far as I felt.
I was hoping the guys that went on the turf at the end were after the umpires - they deserved it - they were soooooooooooo bad they were hopeless.

[Sid]

Imagine if we played all quaters like the last quarter. It would have been a whitewash. Most of the time, we had trouble manning up. Geelong was kicking real straight to their players and our players just wasnt there for the contest, in the middle of the ground and in the forward line.

Its funny that when we win, its a huge team effort, when we play crap, its also a huge team effort because everyone was just not holding onto the ball.

Another excuse is that the umpiring was absolutely shocking.

[gossipcom]

They were saying on the Footy Coverage that Kirk had 10 possessions in that last quarter (I may have heard that wrong) but it meant he doubled his possessions in that quarter alone.

For a moment during that 4th quarter when we were kicking behinds I was thinking someone had moved the goal posts - because we had 3 shots of goal that hit the posts on the weekend.

[Bleed Red Blood]

Originally posted by gossipcom
They were saying on the Footy Coverage that Kirk had 10 possessions in that last quarter (I may have heard that wrong) but it meant he doubled his possessions in that quarter alone.

Comparison to Hird's last quarter?

It is so annoying down here there was about three articles about Hird this morning in the age, sick of it .... I read them anyway, I couldnt go without football over breakfast.