Game Day - R18 vs Hawks

[Ludwig]

Some carnage today for Collingwood with a win by the Crows by 16 points. Never thought I'd be barracking for the Crows but I was today. That puts the Crows into the top eight and the Pies drop out to 9th.

Hehe, do you think Eddie will blame this on COLA and the Academy??

Eddie will be calling for a COLD (Cost of living decrease), since it is so much cheaper to live in Adelaide they can retain quality players like Sloane and Danger, which Eddie believes rightfully should be playing in Victoria. If the AFL had a COLD, Collingwood would have won the game. How unfair.

[Nico]

Clarkson is an amazing coach. They targetted our lack of speed of some players. Laidler, grundy, goodes.

Grundy didnt have an obviois matchup, a nd can be slow, that's why he was subbed.

You forgot Parker. He doesn't play well at the G. By his own admission he is slow. He couldn't keep up with the speed of the game. ROK plays the G well and he is deemed too slow to get a game.

[Nico]

I agree with most of your points.

Though Goodsey can't run and is being found out....It's a problem. Horse and co need to find a way of covering his lack of acceleration.

I also was pleasantly surprised with Towers, he did a great job as sub, his pressure was good and he has really quick, clean hands.

We had a few of our usual suspects down last night...Kennedy, Smith, Jack, Pyke, to name a few.

If we play them again, with Hanners and Shaw in, I hope they do play Sewell, he'll be found out like Goodsey.

IMO, we'll beat them well next time around.

Agree on Towers, but he was too slow to move it on as time was running out. He did the suburban footy thing and went back for his kick rather than looking to move it on.

[Nico]

Hope you're wrong about jack too. I have to say I thought he just made some bad decisions last night that's all.

Agree 100% about Rohan

Agree Jack made a couple of handball errors. A problem we have at the moment is our midfielders are not getting close to goals apart from McGlynn.

[Matimbo]

I thought Rioli was out for the season? You're right though. I guess, as others have mentioned, several of our key senior players had off nights, while theirs generally played well.

The injury list shows Rioli out for 5-6 weeks, so a possibility to return for the finals but I think Lake and Sewell were more critical outs. If they are both back in a finals games against us, their match-ups are quite different.

[ScottH]

Agree Jack made a couple of handball errors. A problem we have at the moment is our midfielders are not getting close to goals apart from McGlynn.

The Jack handball to Lloyd(?) where he got cleaned up was a shocker.
That was straight after Jetta kicked straight to the hawks. Twice. right in front of us.

[Nico]

We can pick the eyes out of the game if we want, but in the end it was a match between 2 fairly equal sides that could have gone either way. If we play them in the GF we can expect the same.

I thought we had the better of them most of the game, but dropped off enough during that period from midway through the 3rd to midway through the 4th where they kicked 9 goals that determined the game. Horse will surely be disappointed in allowing that change in momentum. And even during this period, you wouldn't say that Hawthorn were dominant. It was more that they were able to string a number of disposals together and kick the goals when it counted. Smith's 3 goals really hurt and Breust can cause so much damage with just a few touches.

It was just the slightest drop off in manning up and chasing that let them move the ball forward. I don't think that will happen in a GF. We also dropped a number of marks in defence that we should have taken. It was a lot of points for us to concede regardless that it was against a high scoring Hawthorn team. It will be a good game to learn from.

We have 5 games now that we should win and seal a top 2. We can probably even lose one and still end up top 2. The game was far more important to Hawthorn than to us, even though it meant we could have rapped up top 2 with a win. Now we will have to keep our intensity up for the rest of the season.

The positives were the good games from Rohan and Towers. Cunningham and Lloyd continue to play decent footy. I loved Lloyd's bullet kick to Buddy that set up our first goal.

But boy Lloyds inexperience showed in the last quarter when he had a shot for goal off one step, when he could have run in and nailed it.

[Nico]

Some carnage today for Collingwood with a win by the Crows by 16 points. Never thought I'd be barracking for the Crows but I was today. That puts the Crows into the top eight and the Pies drop out to 9th.

Hehe, do you think Eddie will blame this on COLA and the Academy??

And then on the Dermot and Ed show after todays game, the tool gave Hawthorn his pat on the back for the week for beating us and painstakingly greasing up to Hawthorn on a number of fronts in another smirking backhander to us.

[ScottH]

Hawks are the first team to kick more than 13 goals against us, and the first to score more than 100 points against us.
They are also the only to team to kick 10 or more goals against us up to 3 qtr time, and they have done it in both games.

[The Big Cat]

Everything else aside, being at the game I thought everything seemed to conspire against us. Ball bounced over our heads or sideways away from us, or smothers went to them both when we smothered and when they did. Hanners an enormous out as his run is crucial. Three crucial decisions that cost us goals - Goodes "mark", unrewarded tackle on Hill in the goal square after he had taken four steps and Cunningham getting poleaxed in the head in the pocket where Hawks took it to the other end for a goal.

The "Laidlaw-Duopolo" moment every one is talking about was caused by Rampe's shocking shot for goal which went straight to Gibson and away they went. I think Lloyd's "bunch of flowers" shot at goal also went the length of the ground.

[mcs]

Everything else aside, being at the game I thought everything seemed to conspire against us. Ball bounced over our heads or sideways away from us, or smothers went to them both when we smothered and when they did. Hanners an enormous out as his run is crucial. Three crucial decisions that cost us goals - Goodes "mark", unrewarded tackle on Hill in the goal square after he had taken four steps and Cunningham getting poleaxed in the head in the pocket where Hawks took it to the other end for a goal.

The "Laidlaw-Duopolo" moment every one is talking about was caused by Rampe's shocking shot for goal which went straight to Gibson and away they went. I think Lloyd's "bunch of flowers" shot at goal also went the length of the ground.

We got crucified when we turned the ball over last night. Come finals time, a few of the younger guys need to go the safe option more often than to go for the glory - we have long been masters of controlling the tempo when on the back foot, last night we really struggled to do that.

[liz]

I agreed with Longmire's assessment of the game - that the Hawks were better for longer and that overall had more good players on the ground. We can look at individual umpiring decisions that could have gone another way but I am sure Hawks fans can do the same. Victory at the MCG in September will require the team to play better all round. Not by a huge amount, but better, nonetheless. I have no doubt they are capable of it.

[Flying South]

I'm not bagging Jetts as I thought he had a good game. But noticed another example of when he ran hard into space on the wing and had the opportunity to run inside 50 and kick the goal. But elected to kick to the the top of the square from about 60m out. He seems to have a couple of moments in a game where he just doesn't back himself. But at other times he does.

[CureTheSane]

I didn't think the Goodes mark was a mark.
If it had been paid to a Hawthorn player, I would have been pissed.

[Melbournehammer]

I took completely the opposite view. He had control. At the ground the ball had just stopped in his hands. On tv viewing the ball just stopped in his hands. But we would have been beaten in the centre square and turned it over in the back pocket anyway