Round 2 vs GC

[crackedactor]

Assessment

decent win.
Seems the team is starting to gel.
Goodes looked out of sorts, and boy does AJ leave a big hole.

Agree 100%, that AJ does leave a big hole, likely the most underrated player in 2012.
Goodsey look likes he was playing another game besides AFL, His worse game for about 2 years. I hope its a injury problem and not father time catching up! Best game by Parker for about 2 years, so that was great to see. Another Ordinary effort from Jetta, just no spark from him this year.

[Auntie.Gerald]

wow

[ugg]

Found it interesting that Ted shifted to the smaller forwards when GC only had two tall forwards in their zone

[Zlatorog]

Another poor performance, but an improvement on the last week. They are still 2-3 weeks away from being match fit. If the players like Jetta, Goodes, Bolton, Shaw and Grundy don't lift their game by then, Horse will have to look at alternatives or changing a game plan.

[Ludwig]

A few observations

It's hard to tell how you're going playing in the wet conditions. You don't really know how much the conditions effect the skills.

The core of our midfield is looking solid with everyone putting in good performances. I am especially impressed by how hard Hannebery goes. He never stops giving 100%.

Pyke just may be our number 1 ruckman. The GF performance was no fluke. He's even improved from last year.

I will give Goodes the benefit of the doubt that the knock to his knee last week hindered his performance today. He did have one of those inexplicable days. But we know he does play through injuries and never shows it.

Quite a poor game from LRT. I don't know what his problem was, but was really out of sorts.

We gave away 7 free kicks to Charlie Dixon; something's not right there.

61 free kicks in the game. I think the AFL have gone overboard with the interpretation of free kicks. They are going to have to lighten up a bit. It's ruining the game. Too much head ducking and minimal contact drawing easy frees. And they are not rewarding good tackles for holding the ball, but are paying them when a player has no disposal option. Just crazy.

I don't know if we can play both LRT and Mattner in the same squad. We need to get some more drive and energy out of our backline. Next week I would go with LRT since NM play 3 talls. We need to start looking at a future without Mattner and Shaw. We have plenty of options. Let's not make the same mistake that the Saints made. We have to play some of our next line of players now.

[alt_mattr]

Three of our champions has quiet games and we still put together a handy win - a lot to like about this performance. I would like to see Pyke back himself to kick in play because his goal kicking is excellent and with a bit less run about I think the hand-ball off was less effective today.

I noticed last year the big men waiting 55 meters out on the wings when the opposition kicks in from a behind and again today we got a couple of goals that way.

Everitt looked the goods today, some smart play and good kicking. I am really starting to love watching Reid play. I first noticed in the grand final that his tackling is excellent and he is chasing opponents down all over the place. This guy is turning into the total package.

One whinge though, I am sick of listening to commentators giving glowing reviews of Gold Coast even as they lose by significant margins. I see the tactic of giving dozens of early draft picks to expansion teams as having failed miserably. The best of the AFL's talent for the next decade are getting beaten week in and week out. They are being wasted in losing sides and not contributing to the quality of the competition. But all we ever hear is how well they did for 15 mins of a 30 min quarter and how they can be happy with only losing by 6 goals. I gave them a free ride for year one, got quietly frustrated in year two, but we are up the the 46th (or is it 44th thanks to byes?) game for the Gold Coast Suns - when will they be judged by the same standards as other teams?

[johnno]

What I noticed was that the Suns stayed with us when conditions where wet and slippery(the great leveler). Once it dried out, we were by far the dominant side. We put a 40+ margin on them in around a quarter and a 1/2 of dry weather football!

Best game by Luke Parker by far.

Pyke has improved big time.

Goodes had a dirty day but was also extremely unlucky on many occassions.(the out of bounds on the full on the far wing & the missing out on a set shot at goal 15m-20m out when Everitt played on and missed to name 2).

We will improve.

[swans_premiers]

Unfortunately I missed the game, but I'd take a 41 point win any day of the week.

[ShockOfHair]

Reasonably good win. Much improved over last week. Some of our ball movement was very good and we ran out the game very well.

Loved Jack's tackle on Ablett. Also enjoyed Mummy's chase of Smith and Goodes' expression after Everitt played on.

McVeigh's first half was sensational; a true captain's game.

[DeadlyAkkuret]

A lot to like and a lot of improvement. Reid seems more confident, hopefully a bag of 4 or 5 goals is just around the corner for him.

Our midfield containing Hannebery, JPK, Jack, McVeigh, Parker, ROK and sometimes Goodes must scare the hell out of coaches.

Everitt deserves a few games. Even with his errors he still ended up having a really solid game.

Mummy and Pyke are currently the best ruck duo in the league.

The Suns aren't that easy win that people assume they are. They're getting better and I'd rather player Melbourne or even the Bulldogs than Gold Coast.

[Swansinger]

AG was off the pace , but he will get better. Same for LRT. JK's 28 touches hardly lit the game up. We were not great,but we were still much better than GC over four quarters.As the saying goes,you want to play your best football in September,not April.

[Captain]

I don't know if we can play both LRT and Mattner in the same squad. We need to get some more drive and energy out of our backline. Next week I would go with LRT since NM play 3 talls. We need to start looking at a future without Mattner and Shaw. We have plenty of options. Let's not make the same mistake that the Saints made. We have to play some of our next line of players now.

I'm glad you aren't in charge of team selection.

The 2 players you mentioned are probably in the first 5 or 6 picked every week. They aren't high stat getters, don't get the most fantasy footy points, don't have sublime skill but they are heart and soul, unbelievable team men, do jobs that you wouldn't even notice and are always there to be relied on.

It's also no coincidence that Marty and LRT would be the 2 players Roos goes on about the most and gets frustrated that people don't rate them or their value to the team.

[Primmy]

decent win.
Seems the team is starting to gel.
Goodes looked out of sorts, and boy does AJ leave a big hole.

What he said. And what I said after the game.

And also someone mentioned Dre playing like he has no intention of being dropped - maybe not the most talented bloke out there but he has no plans on dying wondering this year.

Would like also to give a couple of claps to Lukey - his endeavour is admirable, not always perfect but........ my enduring memory of early Jude is of him bouncing around the outside of the packs like an over excited labrador pup......at the same stage of his career I consider Luke to be a little more advanced in his skills than Jude was back then.

[Melbournehammer]

I think mattner is probably our most underrated player. He is always the one that goes third man up, and as the gf demonstrated he provides us with enormous run when he pushes up as a hbf, rather than when he is playing the accountable defender. There is no way I would be dropping him.

Goodes is a bit of an enigma for me. He starts seasons quite slowly, but his performance yesterday was unaccountable defensively and appalling offensively. Further his body language was terrible. But he was unlucky. He would run to the back of packs and the ball would be spoiled forwards and then he would go front and centre and it would sail over the packs head so I could understand his frustration. Having said that, he was smashed by his opponent on the day, absolutely beaten senseless. You just wouldn't want to see this repeatedly.

Finally and importantly the umpiring repeatedly penalised players playing from behind - goodes, grundy, lrt, Mumford all conceded front position on a day where the umpires repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to reward the player playing in front. It was disappointing that we couldn't react to that over the course of the game.

Still all in all a win is a good result and the real season starts next week I think.

[Melbournehammer]

One other thing - I am wondering whether teams are focussing more on jpk than in the past because rok has certainly been much more prominent in the first couple of games