Wizard Cup: Melbourne - West Coast

[The Shev]

Great win over the highly rated Eagles. Like last week, we got the early lead and maintained it throughout the match. Melbourne were hungrier and clearly better, although our finishing wasn't great. Second efforts and one-percenters were awesome.

Who was best?

White again, Ward was good, Bruce got the touches, Thompson, Green, Whelan...

Semi Finals!!!

 

[The Shev]

Godfrey was great too.

 

[Demonheart]

Originally posted by The Shev
Godfrey was great too.

One of Godfrey's best games. Heff played pretty well and Junior as well. Did anyone else notice some bad disposal by Williams when he was in the clear or am I being too harsh?

 

[The Shev]

And Wheatley was great. The super goal specialist. Our Wizard Cup star.

 

[lamby29]

Excellent: Bruce, Godfrey, Ward, Heffernan, Green, Williams

Good: Neitz, White, Davey, Thompson, Miller, Whelan, Wheatley

The rest were average to decent.

Is it just me, or didn't Walsh play?

 

[footyman]

Originally posted by lamby29

Is it just me, or didn't Walsh play?

injured in the warm up

 

[coasting]

Yep well done guys, you deserved to win.

Originally posted by The Shev
And Wheatley was great. The super goal specialist. Our Wizard Cup star.

He did play well but he had about 4 shots from outside 50 and only kicked one of them.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Was watching as a neutral observer though (although barracking for West Coast in a show of Non Victorian Solidarity ), and I just wanted to drop by and say how impressed I was by Melbourne's work ethic. Their tackling, smothering, second efforts and all those sorts of things were just brilliant - a lot of times I cringed at the way the Eagles were messing around with the ball, but it was just a case of them clearly being intimidated by the more desperate side. The way the Dees hunted in packs was particularly impressive, and even more impressive given the fact that they were soft as butter last year, AT BEST. Keep that sort of thing up for the entire season and they'll make the finals and then do some damage when they get there. Well done.

 

[Supermercado]

Just to inject some negativity into our state of excitement can I just say that if I see more last quarter fade-outs like the 2003 season I will ****ing crack it? They did their best to roll over and die last night but thankfully had done enough in the 2nd and 3rd to hold on.

And Williams was absolutely terrible. I'm not putting him in the Grgic/Chisholm category yet but he'd want to put in a bit over the next few weeks to even be considered for a spot in the R1 team.

And our kicking for goal was ****. Tackling varied between excellent and abysmal randomly throughout the game too.

But apart from that I was happy

 

[The Shev]

I didn't think we got overrun in the last quarter. If we kicked straight, then we would have won that quarter. Our midfield was still good. You have to remember that we played in 36 degrees just six days before it.

 

[BT]

Originally posted by rchowell
Was watching as a neutral observer though (although barracking for West Coast in a show of Non Victorian Solidarity ), and I just wanted to drop by and say how impressed I was by Melbourne's work ethic. Their tackling, smothering, second efforts and all those sorts of things were just brilliant - a lot of times I cringed at the way the Eagles were messing around with the ball, but it was just a case of them clearly being intimidated by the more desperate side. The way the Dees hunted in packs was particularly impressive, and even more impressive given the fact that they were soft as butter last year, AT BEST. Keep that sort of thing up for the entire season and they'll make the finals and then do some damage when they get there. Well done.

The key point for mine was our attack on the pill too. In the first two & a half quarters it was excellent & really put West Coast on the back foot. We stopped dead after that, fatigue is always a factor but West Coast did lift their rating considerably in the 2nd half. Not all of our mistakes near the end were brought on by fatigue though, the "Rabbit in the headlights" made a few appearances. It's not just Willo either, although we love a good scapegoat at Melbourne.

Overall it's great to be in the semi's but we'll need more out of our forwards, in particular Neeta & Robbo if we're to get over Geelong.

 

[The Shev]

Hopefully they fix up their accuracy. If so, I'd be very confident of a win over the Cats. And I also hope that Ablett doesn't recover in time.

 

[DanielKerr4]

Very good win to you guys. You beat us at our own game, physical hardness. Very impressed with that young fella Davey, god he is quick! He almost ran down Wirrpunda on a few occasions. You guys dont have a bad future, maybe not this year, but anytime after that.

 

[BT]

Originally posted by DanielKerr4
Very good win to you guys. You beat us at our own game, physical hardness. Very impressed with that young fella Davey, god he is quick! He almost ran down Wirrpunda on a few occasions. You guys dont have a bad future, maybe not this year, but anytime after that.

Cheers mate, we were fair dinkum on Friday & so we should be.

West Coast will be ok, key positions are a bit of a worry though.

 

[Exeter]

Originally posted by BT


West Coast will be ok, key positions are a bit of a worry though.

Well played Demons - excellent endeavour. Godfrey, Bruce and Neitz were all very good - Lynch should have played on Neitz, not Jako.

Not overly concerned about our KPPs, they are all very young and inexperienced and I reckon you'll hear more of Johnson, McDougall and Lynch before the year is out.

Our KPPs have been our weakness over the past few years but I think we've got the makings now of a good spine - they just need more time and epxerience.

Davey looks a likely type and Godfrey impressed. Ward played well too. WHite is one of the most talented big blokes in the comp, lets hope he can string together some strong performances this year as he's vital to your prospects.

Cheers