Bulldogs Gameday Thread

[nomae]

Everitt looks much more at home + dangerous in the forward line. And Johnson is an absolute gem.

[neilfws]

Pyke seemed to have an iced thigh at the end. Just a corky or similar, hopefully. We'll need him now as the straight swap for White - permanently :-)

[Swannette]

Imagine the ribbing he'll get!! Good young player with a great future. Alex much better today I thought. Agree about lots of work still to do on fwd line. Reid will b a superstar. Happy to get a win over the doggies considering what they did to us last year in both ha and final. Go swans.

[ScottH]

Richards playing a great game - agian

He seems to have taken over as the General down back from Bolton of the Craig variety.
Having a stellar season so far.

[ScottH]

Everitt looks much more at home + dangerous in the forward line. And Johnson is an absolute gem.

Can't agree more. Both had good games, and I think it was AJ's best so far.

As for Nipper, had a go, looked calm under pressure. Got a well deserved goal.

[Bas]

Poor crowd of 10,100.

Very important win and now with Port next week at home, should hopefully settle the Swans for the big game against the Hawks.

[robamiee]

and both very winnable games....which can set up our season...

[giant]

Golden Boy Gordon not only debuts but drops the F word in his post game interview with Colbert.

Put that down for the HOF.

How was the look on his face when he realised what he'd done? YOu could see him thinking "what's mum gonna say?" and "that's the last time Fox interview me after the game".

Add Tadhg's Gaelic "bounce" and Pyke's soccer goal and it was entertainment all round.

Wish we'd put the game away on the 3rd qr but.

[GongSwan]

Great fight from the boys, the young blokes really stood up today, as did Ted, Reg and ROK in a welcome return to some good form. I don't think Goodes carried us over the line here, but we should have been further in front at 3rd quarter. Need to kick those goals. AJ and Reid look to be real players of the future, get 50 games and a couple pre seasons into them yv got two KPP players u can build a team around

[Doctor]

Highlights:=
- After the first 10-15 minutes our backline was excellent. I get the AJ hype now. He looked very composed for a 3rd gamer.
- Everitt up forward was generally a success
- Pyke
- Hanners looked far better than he has for a while, although his disposal by foot was still off a bit
- McVeigh's improvement
- Gordon's first goal and first live on-air profanity, along with his Sam Backo-esque look of contrition

[robamiee]

thats the thing we dont put teams away..we dont beat teams by 30-40 points and it usually is because of our goal kicking...this year more than most % is going to be critical as you would think as the Suns play more the losses will be by smaller amoutns.

[Jeffers1984]

and both very winnable games....which can set up our season...

Weather permitting for both.

[liz]

He seems to have taken over as the General down back from Bolton of the Craig variety.
Having a stellar season so far.

If Ted isn't leading the B&F at this point... Well he damn well should be

[ugg]

It's no co-incidence a win came with a lift in the senior players' performance. Goodes, O'Keefe, McVeigh and Grundy (obviously out last week) all had much improved games today. We can do all the chopping and changing we like with young players, a lot of whom did very well today, but it will make only a marginal difference. We're still riding a lot on the performances of our senior and experienced players.

[mcs]

Oh I enjoy the one day a year when its only 15 minutes back to my place from the footy.

- A most enjoyable day at the footy, not due to high quality football being on display (both sides made plenty of skill errors), but because we got the 4 points as we needed to do. We have an awful lot of work to do if we want to even get within reaching distance of the top 4, but wins like today help. Should have buried them in the 3rd quarter however.

- 1st 15 minutes was absolutely woeful but after that we were the better team. Teddy Richards had a super game down back and seems to have inherited the powers of Craig Bolton since his retirement. Whatever he is doing different this season is working- bravo Teddy. The rest of the backline generally worked pretty well- only a few times did we get caught out today and for large parts of it the Dogs really had no avenue to goal.

- AJ clearly showed today why he was bought back in- if he can build on his first three games for the club (I thought he was very composed and very good today) then he will soon be a permanent fixture in the team. Certainly he will be harshly done by if he is the man to make way for LRT. Grundy was better today as well- kicking still off but his defending was much more like the 2010 Grundy.

- Our midfield still really worries me- we really do drift in and out of games through there at times. Pressure is still not good enough at times, and too many times the Dogs cleared it easily. Too often today our midfield was a couple of steps behind- the dogs weren't good enough to use the fair bit of open space they had at times today, but other teams will rip us apart if we give them so much time.


-ROK also has me worried- he got a lot of possessions today but I'm worried about how easily the dogs were able to run off him today.At least 5 or 6 times today his direct opponent at each time easily run off him and he couldn't go with them.


-Our forward structure is still a worry, but it was a bit better today. I still want to see TDL in there however. Sammy Reid continues to impress me- didn't have a big influence on the game today, but he did some really good stuff.


-Pyke showed today that he is becoming a more than capable footballer. Superb work to not only lay the tackle but kick the goal for his second. He is certainly improving and his ruckwork is very good as well.

-Gordon looks more than handy to me. Certainly should get another game next week as he did more than enough to justify it.

- I don't understand using Moore as the sub.... if you are going for a small guy as a sub he needs to be really able to put in hard for a full quarter and use pace to make use of having fresh legs. Moore can't do either... at one stage he got outrun by on the big Dogs players easily when chasing a ball out wide.

-Our biggest worry, as it has been all year are our skills. We struggle to put 3 kicks together and so often we turn the ball over cheaply. Our skills are good enough to make the 8, but at the moment no where near good enough to challenge for the top 4.

-The next 5 weeks are very important to our season- 4 wins would be a par result, but I think we can beat Hawthorn at the SCG, so I'll only be really happy if we make it 5 from 5.

-Poor crowd figure today- its been a lovely day in Canberra today and it should have been full. Ticket prices are rubbish though- I couldn't remember what I'd paid for mine but when I got my ticket out today- $51 for a ticket in the Bradman stand (Which was half empty). If they charge silly prices like that, diehards will pay it, but a lot of casual people won't (the rest of the ground wasn't particulary cheap either). With an uncompetitive GWS team to be playing down here next year they'll be lucky to get more than 5 or 6 thousand to each game.