Well...

[Charlie]

what to make of that?

[stellation]

Some Positives:

Nick Davis is a gun. 6 1/4ers, 8 goals. Can't wait to see him with some match fitness Did you see him chasing/doing the 1 %ers and being tough where people in the past have called him soft? If he can play like this all year we will go far and he will be AA (unless ch9 televise the announcement).
Adam Goodes looks to be moving back into form. Apart from that running goal/miss- bloody hell!
Brett Kirk. Make someone else be defensive at the stoppages and let him go get the ball!
Nic Fosdike. Starting the year very, very well.

Some Negatives:

Well, we lost.
Jude, is that you? Hello? Are you there?
Now that I gave attention to it, the game kind of showed (to me) that Ben Matthews DOES get all his touches in small little exchanges across half-back.

[Reggi]

Gee Stellation, I cannot believe your comments on Fosdike I thought he was absolutley appaulling. Other than Kirk our midfield was disgraceful.

We've been 'getting away' with playing Bevan, LRT, McVeigh, James and Doyle together and tonnight it told.

On tonight's performance our midfield is nowhere near good enough, Melb had too much easy contest possession.

When you see T Johnstone winning un-contested possession like that, gotta say we were very soft this evening

[ugg]

Did better in the 1% Nicky, but there was one contest in the 1st quarter where he tried to outbody Yze for a mark, lost out, immediately ducked his head and let Yze run away!

Agree with Kirk, and in the same vein also Crouch - I thought he was good in getting the ball out of the packs.

Fosdike - his disposal lets him down too often and he panicks a bit too often for a player of his experience. Serviceable player at best.

James - can't really fault him as Neitz got delivery from his midfield. Beaten on leads rather than in contests. Still, having 7 kicked on you cannot be a good thing. Worried about Lloyd now.

[Reggi]

Originally posted by ugg

Agree with Kirk, and in the same vein also Crouch - I thought he was good in getting the ball out of the packs.

Fosdike - his disposal lets him down too often and he panicks a bit too often for a player of his experience. Serviceable player at best.

James - can't really fault him as Neitz got delivery from his midfield. Beaten on leads rather than in contests. Still, having 7 kicked on you cannot be a good thing. Worried about Lloyd now.

Yeah good call Ugg. Must say at least one other thing, we played tonight like a team who's coaching staff had had a shocker at planning. There is no way they should have had all those easy clearances. They see too negate us everywhere, we had no answers, other than put Goodes in the midfield.

Fosdike is just going, his decision making for an experienced player was terrible, Bolton was held tonight and it cost us.

Probably it must be said that the loss of Maxfield cost us some strength around the footy..

Nick Davis made an impressive return. Our forward line was good. We lacked run out of defence as well. Which was probably what cost us most given that generally our midfield just breaks even

[stellation]

Originally posted by Reggi
Gee Stellation, I cannot believe your comments on Fosdike I thought he was absolutley appaulling. Other than Kirk our midfield was disgraceful.

You are absolutley right! I have no idea why I wrote that (well he did two good things that come to mind, but it was probably actually McVeigh) and if I was sneakier I would go back and edit my post

Yep, I was sitting wondering if we were actually playing a midfield for most of the game.

[stellation]

Originally posted by Reggi

We've been 'getting away' with playing Bevan, LRT, McVeigh, James and Doyle together and tonnight it told.

Good point. But even with the return of Schaubs and Micky O we are still going to have a very young team.

I want to see McVeigh stay in the firsts, at the moment he seems to be as good as any of the "experienced" midfielders with his limited opportunities.

[Nico]

Will someone please tell Kennelly to kick the bloody thing instead of trying to take 2 players on for the one/two that was never on.

The decision making when not under pressure was a disaster by most of the sides. What about Bevans worm burners in the first quarter. The hole team seems to want to be cute with their kicks for some reason. Not Jude though he just didn't get it.

[Reggi]

Originally posted by stellation
You are absolutley right! I have no idea why I wrote that (well he did two good things that come to mind, but it was probably actually McVeigh) and if I was sneakier I would go back and edit my post

Yep, I was sitting wondering if we were actually playing a midfield for most of the game.

Heh heh.

McVeigh might have been worth more of a run seeing as he can actually win the ball. To the naked eye our ball winning was terrible (not that we didn't know this).

[Charlie]

I'd say LRT is most likely to make way... did very little.

Second likeliest is McVeigh, think he'll stay though.

What's with the 'run straight towards an opposition player with the ball and try to get past him instead of kicking to a teammate' stuff??? Leo, Tiger, Baz, Benny, Willo... it's great when it works, but you do it too often and its bound to go wrong. They did it too often.

[gossipcom]

I was surprised that Willo and Goodes were the highest possession takers with 26 a piece.

All I can say is this. I'm not Leo Barry's biggest fan in the world and tonight pretty much summed up why I'm not and most likely why he will never be my favourite player.

Kirky saved us a hell of a lot of times from it being an even bigger margin than it was.

The only good thing that came out of that match was that our percentage wasn't shot to pieces.

[Rob-bloods]

I hate Telstra

I hate that bloody stadium it is jinxed for us and we have lost every 'big' game there. Was the win over Tigers our only victory there?

I am well sick.

[Nico]

It is only early with LRT as a backman, but doesn't appear to a backman's lemonade to me. Much better at rucking and around the ground.

Thought Doyle should have been used more at centre bounces. We seemed to get it away when he was there. They just took it from Ball's hitouts almost every time.

[ugg]

Can't agree with Doyle's performance tonight, I thought we were killed when he was rucking against White. Too be fair, White dominated the other ruckmen too, some of the set plays were too easy.

[taurus]

We missed Schaub's presence and experience tonight. Having said that, the match was a high quality with Melbourne playing very well.

I am starting to think that we may be a CHB short of premiership... (please tell me I am wrong!)