Match thread.

[midaro]

Playing Devils's Advocate:
We trailed the bottom team on the ladder during the 4th quarter.
We still haven't beaten any team ranked higher than 10th on the current ladder.
We are still playing ugly football.

[SXP]

Originally posted by Glenn
Amen, might shut a few people up for a week.

Only a week

[Snowy]

Ball got a knock on his knee, should be all right according to Michael Roberts MMM.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by liz
As for the rest of it, not sure what all the complaints are about. It wasn't a great game but was still pretty decent. Both teams had a real dip, it was pretty free flowing for much of the time and we saw lots of goals. Those criticising it based on listening just to radio commentary from people who had it in its head that it was going to be a crap game should maybe watch it first.

I thought it wasn't bad to watch in that it was fairly open and not too many scrimmages. Our skills were rather mixed, but at least better than last week. We still mess around with it far too much and struggle under a bit of pressure. We still don't look particularly great, after all we played 16th!

[Thunder Shaker]

My thoughts on the game

I just got home from the game and here's my thoughts on the game.

I sat near the top of the Vertigo stand on the half-forward flank opposite the TV cameras and from there I had a decent overhead view of the game.

Malceski had a good debut. He started the game on the ground in the forward line. He had a decent amount of game time as far as I can see. He was even tried in the centre in the last quarter. I don't know if the goal he kicked was the first kick he had in the game. I hope it was.

The disposal from both sides was patchy. There were times when the ball was moved smoothly and cleanly, and there were other times when the ball was turned over for no apparent reason.

The game was relatively free-flowing. The 32-goal scoreline is fairly indicative of the quality of the game.

I enjoyed the first quarter particularly. It was so good to kick accurately for a change. The first quarter in particular was a demonstration of accurate goalkicking from the 50 metre arc. The goalkicking was so good that even Buchanan kicked one truly on the run in the last quarter.

[Snowy]

Yes the goal NM kicked was his first kick ; he joins and elite club.

[cruiser]

Yay! An enjoyable game of footy. Swans were 300% better than last w'end. I picked the wrong game to go see live. Never mind - todays was enjoyable on TV. Other than the umpiring. And LRT.

[liz]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
I thought it wasn't bad to watch in that it was fairly open and not too many scrimmages. Our skills were rather mixed, but at least better than last week. We still mess around with it far too much and struggle under a bit of pressure. We still don't look particularly great, after all we played 16th!

So what do you reckon of Lyon's commentary now that you've seen it?

FWIW, Schwarz (who caned the Swans - justifiably - after last week's performance) thought they were good. So did Dunstall and most of the C10 commentary team.

No-one is saying we should be installed as new premiership favourites, and yes we did "only beat the 16th team". But Carlton are still a decent outfit, Waite and Whitnall had great games, and our two experienced ruckmen had their pants pulled down by a debutant.

Happy to see the massive improvement over last week's effort but certainly not getting carried away. Freo next week will be an interesting test, depending on which Dockers team shows up.

[Thunder Shaker]

Yes, we beat the 16th team. However, ladder positions mean little this year in this year of monumental upsets. Collingwood were 16th when they beat the undefeated Eagles.

[punter257]

Originally posted by liz
Freo next week will be an interesting test, depending on which Dockers team shows up.

Lets hope the good dockers turn up and destroy the lions tonight, they will have heads the size of eddie mcguire and think they are the kings of footy. then we come along and continue there jekyll/hyde season

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by liz
So what do you reckon of Lyon's commentary now that you've seen it?

I think I wrote somewhere else that I thought it was a bit over the top. However, I can understand the frustration of Lyon and Healy who thought we messed around with it terrible in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.

FWIW, Schwarz (who caned the Swans - justifiably - after last week's performance) thought they were good. So did Dunstall and most of the C10 commentary team.

I don't really rate the comments from the Ch10 guys. I thought there were patches where you could say we were good and at least it was more open, but let's take into account the ordinary opposition and that we weren't good for too much of the game.

No-one is saying we should be installed as new premiership favourites, and yes we did "only beat the 16th team". But Carlton are still a decent outfit, Waite and Whitnall had great games, and our two experienced ruckmen had their pants pulled down by a debutant.

And despite that they struggled, which is hardly surprising when Stevens and Kouta weren't really match fit. Let's not forget some of their poor performances recently.

Happy to see the massive improvement over last week's effort but certainly not getting carried away. Freo next week will be an interesting test, depending on which Dockers team shows up.

It was a major improvement, but less pressure from the opposition certainly helps there. As I noted already, there are plenty of tests for us coming up, particularly if opponents put pressure on us, but also lots of winnable games.

[SimonH]

I really wonder what game the whinging commentators (and the harping afl.com.au reporter) were watching.

It's like the reverse of the Emperor's New Clothes-- everyone goes out desperate to see the most boring game of the season, where 8 goals beats 6. To their disappointment, they see a relatively free-flowing and at least averagely entertaining match where 32 goals are kicked. So they have to try to make up some new excuse for why the Sydney game plan is terrible.

The 'Swans failed to make Carlton pay/ were wasting a lot of possessions for not much reward' was apparently the Victorian whingers' catchcry in the 2nd quarter. Wasn't the game I was watching, where they were flogging us at the clearances and our principal opportunities were on the rebound. And unless you were watching the game with blue & white blinkers on, it's obvious that Carlton's flooding tactics were the far more aggressive and negative of the two teams. No doubt the Victorians also whinged that we refused to bomb it in long to a 2 vs 5 contest and turn it over, instead waiting for a goal-scoring opportunity to present (e.g. Malceski's excellent short pass to Luke Ablett in Q2).

And a big 'so what?' to the fact that the 6 teams we've beaten are now out of the 8. You can only beat the opposition that turns up. The 5 losses would be disappointing results regardless of whether North Melb etc had subsequently soared or plummeted. Nobody expected us to beat the West Coast Eagles today.

Not a perfect performance by any means, but who was expecting that? A very significant step up from last week, and hopefully we can improve on it again this week. And big ups to Malceski on a fantastic first-up effort. Let's not race to conclusions, but he'll be better than handy if he keeps that going for the next few weeks.

[ScottH]

Gr8 game, I thought the skils were well up on last week (not hard), LRT dfropped 4 marks he should of taken in the first half. Needs to take marks.

Malceski - looks good knew when to spoil and when to go for it.

Kennelly started us off with an excellent 1st term.

Jolly was good in the 1st term too.

MOL took a while to get into the game.

Hall was gr8, good show as captain.

Buchanon GOALED!!!! and had his head taken off a few times.

Leo was good too.

Bolton outstanding.

Thought Mathews had a good game too, and hit more targets than he missed.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by SimonH
And a big 'so what?' to the fact that the 6 teams we've beaten are now out of the 8. You can only beat the opposition that turns up.

Huh? A number of top 8 teams have 'turned up' and we've failed against them, often miserably.

[cruiser]

Originally posted by Dave
I loved Boulton's run through the middle ending with a superb kick to Magic.

Should clarify that it was Craig not Jude. Great run, 3 or 4 bounces then found his target in MOL directly in front who kicked truly. A match highlight.