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Weekly Prize - Join Any Time - Tip Round 10
The Golden Ticket - MCG and Marvel Medallion Club tickets and Corporate Box tickets at the Gabba, MCG and Marvel.
This was worse than the Hawthorn loss
In what way?
I think the opposite to be honest, but would be interested to know what made the hawks game preferable.
Settle down everyone. We have just come off a 6 day break from a game played in 35 degree heat. We lost because we couldn't run. Everybody was dead on their feet.
Our skills were shyte. Our pressure was shyte. We looked slow. It was fatigue.
Mayne and De Boer more so, but we can't afford to have all three of those players down in the one game. With Walters out, there goes all our forward pressure.Most worrying to me are Mayne, De boer and Ballantyne. All 3 have been off the mark for quite a while now.
Silvagni can and has played at both ends of the ground . If you play him off the bench you can insert him into the game where ever we are being hurt .Hill's easily been one of our best players this year and was good again tonight. He was one of few players who could actually hit a target. He didn't dominate tonight but was still one of our better players. You make a good point about Silvagni, just don't think we can play four tall defenders.
Mayne and De Boer more so, but we can't afford to have all three of those players down in the one game. With Walters out, there goes all our forward pressure.
I don't know that Balla is out of form per ce. I think with the emergence of Walters he's now being asked to be more defensive. He does seem to get to the right spots for a crumber and he still has that x factor around goal. In saying that he probably needs to work on keeping his feet and his contested marking has slipped a little, IMO.
Five foot nothing FP/HFF's shouldn't be involved in contested marking though.
He has been keeping his feet far better than in the past.
Agreed. Although he has been involved in several marking contests of late and I can't remember a single one where he took the grab. Lyons gamestyle dictates that the smaller guys like Balla and Walters will be targets inside 50 at times. Walters seems to grab them more often than not. Overall though, I feel Balla does his job and isn't/shouldn't be in the firing line. He's certainly not our worst, by a long margin.
As for keeping his feet, agreed it's better, but he does slip from time to time. I think his ability to accelerate probably contributes a bit - His legs are too quick for his body!
Doesn't have much help either. Saturday proved that he needs another small forward there to help him. Ballas was good, but he can't do it all and he can't push up the ground too much if hes the only small forward. Really hoping Crozier takes his opportunity, it's his spot if hes good enough.Balla is copping the number one small defender now that Walters is out.
Life is suddenly a lot tougher for him.
Was anyone else critical of our setups around the stoppages? The Swans players seemed to man the permiter of every contest and simply flick the ball out the back to unmarked team mate. Even if we won the ball first they simply applied enough pressure to cause a spillage. I thought our endeavor was pretty good generally but we just didn't seem to have guys positioned in the right spots around the packs..
Hawks did the same thing. Waltzed it out to someone out the back from the stoppage & then kicked to the spread. We looked flat footed, a day late & a dollar short.Was anyone else critical of our setups around the stoppages? The Swans players seemed to man the permiter of every contest and simply flick the ball out the back to unmarked team mate. Even if we won the ball first they simply applied enough pressure to cause a spillage. I thought our endeavor was pretty good generally but we just didn't seem to have guys positioned in the right spots around the packs..
Hawks did the same thing. Waltzed it out to someone out the back from the stoppage & then kicked to the spread. We looked flat footed, a day late & a dollar short.
I agree, I wonder if we are letting teams have an extra person through the middle with us having a loose man in defense. This could allow the opposition to simply have a man 10m away from the pack for the easy hand ball and then bi-pass our loose man by accurately passing the ball.
We are allowing it by setting up Johnson behind play, and betting on interception at half back outweighing reduced clearances. Not everyone is putting their +1 in the middle though. Essendon tried it and we creamed them. Not that you could always tell on the telly with the awful camera work, but it seemed to me Sydney were like us actually playing their extra at half back most of the time. They just had better numbers around the ball because they were working harder and smarter, aided by the ridiculously small size of the ground. (Reminds me of nothing more than when the U18s had to play on the U12s oval once. Wasn't even the same game.)
I was at the game, so didn't get the perfect view of it. What was clear was the loose man was not working. I think the hawks and Sydney have worked out that if you kick it short and quickly do another kick the loose man is useless.
I agree this may just be a case of us not working hard enough, I am not sure.