Gawn also had 12 possessions in each of those games. He had 25 against O'Brien, whose supposed main strength is his mobility and accountability around the ground.
Which is twice as many possessions as Jacobs had. Gawn was too busy delivering the ball on a silver platter to Melbourne's mids as he absolutely slaughtered Jacobs in every facet of the game on both occasions. At least O'Brien managed to keep up in the hit out department (actually he had more) in his 9th game of AFL football.
Unsurprisingly, Melbourne smashed us in the clearances in both matches last year. It was pretty much even last week.