A couple more points on SUNS after sleeping on it.
I had look at BF threads. I am a bit surprised but most other club fans were quite positive about SUNS performance against Crows. They enjoyed the game and think we are on the way up. Definitely more positive than most SUNS supporters.
All I hope for now is that Witts did not do ACL. There were players who did ACL when a player fell on their knee from the side (Lions Rich was a typical one). Morris saying that he talked to SUNS and they fear ACL made me expect the worst.
All that talk about bad recruiting, list management - I don’t buy it at all. Like we should draft Pescud, Gore. Jeez, all these are speculative picks. No other team touched them.
As for recruiting more rucks. We had 4 rucks - Witts, Smith, Day, Conroy. All are done - hopefully only for a half of season except Conroy. No other team would cope with these injures. No other team has more rucks on the list.
St Kilda lost Marshall, Ryder. So they are playing McKernan who was useless against Wright (who actually was also very ordinary in the ruck).
Lions lost BigO and Smith (who is below average). Now Ballanden and Fullarton were getting obliterated by Grundy.
Crows are ahead of us. Another overreaction. Yes, they beat us but that does not mean they are ahead of us and we are irrelevant. They played well so far this year. I like their pressure and Sloan and Laird played really well in the middle. But they got a lot of issues ahead of them including plenty of old players close to the end of their careers.
There are no ifs but if Crows had our schedule, if Witts did not get injured, if we took our chances (again), if the game was played at Metricon - I would put money on us.
The game against Carlton will tell us more about SUNS. Yes, we will have no ruck and it will hurt us but I expect a lot of players who struggled against Crows will improve after 8 days break. And there were a lot of players who struggled to perform. Without watching replay - Collins, Sexton, Brodie, Swallow, Ainsworth, Markov, Luko.
We definitely made a mistake just bombing it into I50 late when only King was there. More poise and gradual build up was needed. On the positive side, when the game was on the line I liked how Ballard, Powell, Anderson, Greenwood, Burgess, Lemmens, Holman went about it.
Limited rotations, 20 mins quarters really stretch players. How teams control the game is pretty crucial. No teams can go 100% for 4 quarters. Every game I watch, teams slow down at some point, in late parts they just keep possession, walk it, gut it out.
Probably only after 5-6 games into season one can properly assess how teams go. Injuries unfortunately will play a big part as usual. It’s a bloody even and difficult competition. So far only North looks in trouble. The rest - anybody can beat anybody on the day.
I had look at BF threads. I am a bit surprised but most other club fans were quite positive about SUNS performance against Crows. They enjoyed the game and think we are on the way up. Definitely more positive than most SUNS supporters.
All I hope for now is that Witts did not do ACL. There were players who did ACL when a player fell on their knee from the side (Lions Rich was a typical one). Morris saying that he talked to SUNS and they fear ACL made me expect the worst.
All that talk about bad recruiting, list management - I don’t buy it at all. Like we should draft Pescud, Gore. Jeez, all these are speculative picks. No other team touched them.
As for recruiting more rucks. We had 4 rucks - Witts, Smith, Day, Conroy. All are done - hopefully only for a half of season except Conroy. No other team would cope with these injures. No other team has more rucks on the list.
St Kilda lost Marshall, Ryder. So they are playing McKernan who was useless against Wright (who actually was also very ordinary in the ruck).
Lions lost BigO and Smith (who is below average). Now Ballanden and Fullarton were getting obliterated by Grundy.
Crows are ahead of us. Another overreaction. Yes, they beat us but that does not mean they are ahead of us and we are irrelevant. They played well so far this year. I like their pressure and Sloan and Laird played really well in the middle. But they got a lot of issues ahead of them including plenty of old players close to the end of their careers.
There are no ifs but if Crows had our schedule, if Witts did not get injured, if we took our chances (again), if the game was played at Metricon - I would put money on us.
The game against Carlton will tell us more about SUNS. Yes, we will have no ruck and it will hurt us but I expect a lot of players who struggled against Crows will improve after 8 days break. And there were a lot of players who struggled to perform. Without watching replay - Collins, Sexton, Brodie, Swallow, Ainsworth, Markov, Luko.
We definitely made a mistake just bombing it into I50 late when only King was there. More poise and gradual build up was needed. On the positive side, when the game was on the line I liked how Ballard, Powell, Anderson, Greenwood, Burgess, Lemmens, Holman went about it.
Limited rotations, 20 mins quarters really stretch players. How teams control the game is pretty crucial. No teams can go 100% for 4 quarters. Every game I watch, teams slow down at some point, in late parts they just keep possession, walk it, gut it out.
Probably only after 5-6 games into season one can properly assess how teams go. Injuries unfortunately will play a big part as usual. It’s a bloody even and difficult competition. So far only North looks in trouble. The rest - anybody can beat anybody on the day.
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