Until I read this post I wasn't fully aware of this, but looking at the stats now I can understand a lot more why I felt we were absolutely destroyed in the clearances.
Yet every 2 seconds another Sydney player dived forward for an 'in the back'. Never seen a side dive so much in my life. I mean they're a bunch of scragers, constantly pushing the rules but the flopping/diving was out of control.
Pittard is a super footballer and was clearly BOG for us. He gets put under epic pressure as per our game plan but does the job most of the time. Sadly tonight the only time I felt confident was when he had the ball and given he is known for a mad moment or 2 that is a worry
His goal kicking has been erratic at best last year and this.
Was a bad look.
Agree completely with these posts. It was terrible. Keep things the way they were and focus on the main game of winning football.
Boak took a couple of big hits last night. Teams are hitting us hard. We are too nice. Gray was one of the few players that looked physically and mentally tough enough last night. Most didn't look up for the fight imo
Thought this all last year and its nice to read others see this as well. Very obvious flaws in his game
Gus pulled that stunt many times last season and it was discussed by several of us at the time
Let's forget all this rubbish and concentrate on winning a game of football.
we are too small. its been mentioned breifly in the past but in reality we are physically too small. constantly losing clearances, tackles, contested possessions. no point having a team of fleet footed lightweight runners who look very pretty running wide getting easy possesssions if you cant physically match it with other teams. the bigger bodies of sydney taught us a lesson, we were outfootballed at the basic things you need to do to be a good football team.
Mentioned briefly?. I have been banging on about it for years. So has Ford. Seanybruz will tell you about our long discussion that my worry with getting Burgess when it was rumoured in late August 2012 was that we would be skinny middle distance runners not big bodied hard arses under his strategy. Rondinelli in his podcast explained how we are dropping muscle mass so we can run more. Bugger running and slingshot footy. When you have enough strong big KPF and KPD you get away with have big bodied mid fielders who concentrate on winning footy not playing slingshot footy.
They players cant put on size because they have been directed to take it off.
Most of the problem comes before the pre-season with the selection of the players. A 190cm/85kg player can put on muscle and get to 190cm/95kg but they cannot magically become a 195cm player, we simply do not have enough strong players between 195cm and 205cm. The only one's we had on the ground were Trengove, Redden, Ryder and Westhoff. And with 3 of them with barely an pre-season or gametime and the other woefully out of form it's not surprising we were monstered.
So we arent really contender then. Just a good team who will go the distance win plenty of games and might luck out in late September with innovation. I will have to pare back my expectations.
