Game Day Community Series. North Melbourne v wc Saturday 1/3/25 Bunbury WA

[Event Horizon]

It was the same last year. Run and take the wrong option or run and then turn sideways and crab kick.

But that’s ok. Let’s bag every other player on the list for making mistakes or the odd turnover, and give this guy a pass mark when he butchers it based on some notion he is super talented.

Mate he has the tools for the running game and has clearly been told to take risks and use these tools. Yes it often comes unstuck, but with experience his decision making during those runs will improve. It's very exciting what he can become

 

[Roosurgence]

Mate, I know everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I think you need a spell

Corr and Logue are both coming off injuries and will take some weeks to get back to speed. Corr has had the same every year for the past 2-3 and has proven himself to be a quality defender for the rest of the season.

I think you need to take a rest until the real stuff starts

Your definition of quality and mine differ.

We are building a list where we now are starting to have options, albeit that they are not 100% ready.

If we are going to lose games because of constant brain fades from senior players, which Corr is a big offender, then I would rather lose those games while blooding guys that will eventually take us forward.

People bag McDonald, but Corr makes just as many blunders as he does and I wouldn’t exactly say he balances those blunders out with exceptional defending.

The goal he gifted Dempsey last year sums up his level of defending perfectly and it wasn’t a one off.

This side loses games because our defence is like a leaky sieve that can’t hold up and gives sides a sniff due to momentum sapping brain fades. It’s not going to improve with the current personnel.

As for taking a rest. Aren’t we here to talk football and the players that represent this club or do we stick our head in the sand like the last 5 years and say it’s only practice and it will be right when the real stuff starts. That’s gone so well in the past.

 

[hilly]

This post will certainly have me exiled from Sensible Street, never to return, but I thought the performance in Bunbury was very encouraging. For the first time in a long while, we played some effective possession football, and did so without causing palpitations waiting for a disastrous skill error - to take one example, in the second half of the second quarter, with WC having got a run on, the team moved efficiently to F50 and then moved the ball back and forth across the top of the arc until Phillips put a long ball in. Commentators were bemoaning the slowness of the entry, lack of movement by the forwards, etc etc but IMO that wasn't the point of the play, which was to keep possession and allow the defence to set up behind the play and thereby take the heat out of the WC game.

Looking at this feature of the game from a list management perspective, we finally have a team that can move the ball by foot effectively, and handball at speed around the contest to get into open play. That to me was the biggest take away from the outing. And it's not just the usual suspects like Sheezel with the great foot skills - the replay is instructive for blokes like Archer showing real deft touch by foot.

I guess people see what they want to see - sure, Comben turned over a howler in the last quarter, so that moment tends to dominate impressions of his overall day. I prefer to look at his play in the second quarter, when he initiated a close-in handball movement under pressure in D50, kept running to be the last handball receive out of that congestion, and then hit a 25 metre dart to Larkey on his chest.

The eye of the beholder, and all that

I'd include Larkey's 'pass' that rebounded for a goal, and perhaps harshly Corr's handball that led to a goal.

 

[Themanbun]

Decided to go through our first quarter centre bounces to get an idea of what went well and what didn't. That was our best quarter by far so it was the happiest place I could spend my focus.

Centre bounce 1
Sheezel (Front)
Powell (Sweeper)
LDU (hit to)

Free kick to Powell, NM clearance.

Centre bounce 2
LDU (front)
Powell (Sweeper)
Phillips (hit-to)

Powell win and clearance but turned it over inside 50.

Centre bounce 3
LDU (front)
Powell (Sweeper)
Phillips (hit-to)

WAP wins the ball from the tap, gives to Powell, gives back to WAP, who turns it over going inside 50.

Centre bounce 4
We played two forward side hit-tos here, with no one at the front of the stoppage.

Powell (HT)
Phillips (HT)
Sheezel (Sweeper)

Powell wins the ball, gives to Sheezel as first receiver, who gives to FOS for the clearance, then receives again.

Centre bounce 5
Sheez (front)
Phillips (sweeper)
LDU (hit to)

West Coast wins the tap. Sheezel is too lax on his man, who gets a good run through the stoppage. Phillips wraps him up sweeping well off the back for a ball up.

---

All in all its good to see them sharing the roles.

With 1 free kick (a win to us) that leaves 4 properly contested centre bounces. But winning the next two clearances and turning it over through blind kicking was very ordinary. Not good enough if we want to take advantage of this midfield.

We won four out of the 5 and managed to draw the last one after West Coast should've been out. Turning it over at our 50 mark though is unfortunately as bad as losing the clearance.

On roles:

• Phillips seemed our strongest defensive sweeper, Powell our best attacking sweeper for when we win the contest.
• It was clear we were using LDU to neutralise their sweeper and utilise his strengths if he got out of the front of the stoppage.
• Sheezel did some very good stuff but made a bad defensive decision in the last bounce.

 

[Tas]

This post will certainly have me exiled from Sensible Street, never to return, but I thought the performance in Bunbury was very encouraging. For the first time in a long while, we played some effective possession football, and did so without causing palpitations waiting for a disastrous skill error - to take one example, in the second half of the second quarter, with WC having got a run on, the team moved efficiently to F50 and then moved the ball back and forth across the top of the arc until Phillips put a long ball in. Commentators were bemoaning the slowness of the entry, lack of movement by the forwards, etc etc but IMO that wasn't the point of the play, which was to keep possession and allow the defence to set up behind the play and thereby take the heat out of the WC game.

Looking at this feature of the game from a list management perspective, we finally have a team that can move the ball by foot effectively, and handball at speed around the contest to get into open play. That to me was the biggest take away from the outing. And it's not just the usual suspects like Sheezel with the great foot skills - the replay is instructive for blokes like Archer showing real deft touch by foot.

I guess people see what they want to see - sure, Comben turned over a howler in the last quarter, so that moment tends to dominate impressions of his overall day. I prefer to look at his play in the second quarter, when he initiated a close-in handball movement under pressure in D50, kept running to be the last handball receive out of that congestion, and then hit a 25 metre dart to Larkey on his chest.

The eye of the beholder, and all that

I think people losing their shit over these practice matches is laughable, but in saying that, the positive sign thing would have been something good to see 2-3 years ago. We are a long way behind where we should be as some of those recruited at the start of our rebuild are hitting the free agent age group. We can't get stuck in a perpetual cycle of rebuilding like other clubs were in the past, Saints, Carlton, Richmond, Fremantle, etc. It is a death loop not to make enough progress quick enough.

We can't have the expectation that people will step up and become Sheezel-esque, but we can expect people to step up and become say Archer-types who have come from nowhere to being good enough to start to build sides around. We were once a club that could produce warriors like Firrito, Wright, etc who weren't All Australians, but we could win consistently because they didn't completely **** up regularly. Defensively speaking, Archer is the only defender that has gone from zero to remotely above zero. Everyone else is dogshit defensively that we have developed and if you can't defend, you can't win.

I think those criticising 18-20 year olds are a bit out of touch with reality, our issue is we are relying on too many young kids to be older/more experienced than they are because the senior group isn't good enough and haven't been for a long time, it isn't the fault of the developing teenager. They realistically shouldn't be in the AFL side or be playing niche roles with a lot of support from veterans around them.

Comben has traits to be a good AFL player, but there is a lot of air between the ears when it comes to Footy IQ. Maybe that will change, maybe it wont. I am not a fortune teller but as a club if we can't stop the dumb goals we are in a lot of strife.

We lost to Melbourne by 3 points, Collingwood 1 point and West Coast 5 points last year. How costly are these cheap goals? We lost to Dogs by 17, Carlton by 19, Fremantle by 26. I can guarantee you will find more goals conceded to just amateur grade basic errors that weren't gifted to us in those games that was the difference.

If we can cut the dogshit crap out of our footy, those 3 win seasons are 9 win seasons and 12 wins is the generic border for making the top 8. If our seasons aren't over by round 4 and we are winning more games and the top 8 looks within reach, it will have a significant impact on the players, confidence levels and how they train and play.

It is essential we play our footy similar to how we started the second half of last season and that we defend a lot better, apply a lot more pressure all over the ground. If that happens then things will change for the better much quicker, but we just can't play guys who are going to gift wrap cheap goals to the opposition, we don't kick enough goals to be able to absorb that. If we are going to kick 20+ goals a game the sure, we can carry some sloppy defensive work.

My only real issue this preseason is that it looked more like last year's pre-season than it did the post bye period, and sure it is fine to say it is only practice matches, but young/inexperienced sides don't have the experience to turn on and off elite level footy as it is needed. If I don't see the foot to the floor in the pre-season with a young side, I am not expecting it round 1.

We just can't dish out more of the same. We have to start playing like there is no tomorrow, even if our season falls apart late in the year. We have to see more than feint glimpses of AFL grade footy, it needs to look a lot closer than a faint light at the end of a tunnel.

 

[Dastardly]

I'd include Larkey's 'pass' that rebounded for a goal, and perhaps harshly Corr's handball that led to a goal.

That one absolutely amazed me, had to rewind to make sure I'd seen it correctly

 

[Roosurgence]

I think people losing their shit over these practice matches is laughable, but in saying that, the positive sign thing would have been something good to see 2-3 years ago. We are a long way behind where we should be as some of those recruited at the start of our rebuild are hitting the free agent age group. We can't get stuck in a perpetual cycle of rebuilding like other clubs were in the past, Saints, Carlton, Richmond, Fremantle, etc. It is a death loop not to make enough progress quick enough.

We can't have the expectation that people will step up and become Sheezel-esque, but we can expect people to step up and become say Archer-types who have come from nowhere to being good enough to start to build sides around. We were once a club that could produce warriors like Firrito, Wright, etc who weren't All Australians, but we could win consistently because they didn't completely **** up regularly. Defensively speaking, Archer is the only defender that has gone from zero to remotely above zero. Everyone else is dogshit defensively that we have developed and if you can't defend, you can't win.

I think those criticising 18-20 year olds are a bit out of touch with reality, our issue is we are relying on too many young kids to be older/more experienced than they are because the senior group isn't good enough and haven't been for a long time, it isn't the fault of the developing teenager. They realistically shouldn't be in the AFL side or be playing niche roles with a lot of support from veterans around them.

Comben has traits to be a good AFL player, but there is a lot of air between the ears when it comes to Footy IQ. Maybe that will change, maybe it wont. I am not a fortune teller but as a club if we can't stop the dumb goals we are in a lot of strife.

We lost to Melbourne by 3 points, Collingwood 1 point and West Coast 5 points last year. How costly are these cheap goals? We lost to Dogs by 17, Carlton by 19, Fremantle by 26. I can guarantee you will find more goals conceded to just amateur grade basic errors that weren't gifted to us in those games that was the difference.

If we can cut the dogshit crap out of our footy, those 3 win seasons are 9 win seasons and 12 wins is the generic border for making the top 8. If our seasons aren't over by round 4 and we are winning more games and the top 8 looks within reach, it will have a significant impact on the players, confidence levels and how they train and play.

It is essential we play our footy similar to how we started the second half of last season and that we defend a lot better, apply a lot more pressure all over the ground. If that happens then things will change for the better much quicker, but we just can't play guys who are going to gift wrap cheap goals to the opposition, we don't kick enough goals to be able to absorb that. If we are going to kick 20+ goals a game the sure, we can carry some sloppy defensive work.

My only real issue this preseason is that it looked more like last year's pre-season than it did the post bye period, and sure it is fine to say it is only practice matches, but young/inexperienced sides don't have the experience to turn on and off elite level footy as it is needed. If I don't see the foot to the floor in the pre-season with a young side, I am not expecting it round 1.

We just can't dish out more of the same. We have to start playing like there is no tomorrow, even if our season falls apart late in the year. We have to see more than feint glimpses of AFL grade footy, it needs to look a lot closer than a faint light at the end of a tunnel.

Couldn’t agree more. These epically stupid goals we concede in the back half don’t only turn a potential win into a loss, but a lot of them have led to big momentum swings in games.

The worst thing is that a lot of them don’t come off the back of us attacking, which you can cop if we are looking to take the game on, but more often than not they are mistakes from players looking to take a soft option.

 

[amaz199]

That Larkey pass was unforgivable. Just didnt get anywhere near the intended target and turned it over in the most dangerous part of the ground.

 

[Roosurgence]

That Larkey pass was unforgivable. Just didnt get anywhere near the intended target and turned it over in the most dangerous part of the ground.

Classic 12 point turn around, well at least 7 point, we would have missed the goal LOL

 

[Groucho]

Who told them to do that, if you don't mind me asking?

I too would like to know this

 

[Waynesworld]

As for taking a rest. Aren’t we here to talk football and the players that represent this club or do we stick our head in the sand like the last 5 years and say it’s only practice and it will be right when the real stuff starts. That’s gone so well in the past.

There is a difference between talking football and obsessively bagging players out post after post

 

[Possession]

I think people losing their shit over these practice matches is laughable, but in saying that, the positive sign thing would have been something good to see 2-3 years ago. We are a long way behind where we should be as some of those recruited at the start of our rebuild are hitting the free agent age group. We can't get stuck in a perpetual cycle of rebuilding like other clubs were in the past, Saints, Carlton, Richmond, Fremantle, etc. It is a death loop not to make enough progress quick enough.

We can't have the expectation that people will step up and become Sheezel-esque, but we can expect people to step up and become say Archer-types who have come from nowhere to being good enough to start to build sides around. We were once a club that could produce warriors like Firrito, Wright, etc who weren't All Australians, but we could win consistently because they didn't completely **** up regularly. Defensively speaking, Archer is the only defender that has gone from zero to remotely above zero. Everyone else is dogshit defensively that we have developed and if you can't defend, you can't win.

I think those criticising 18-20 year olds are a bit out of touch with reality, our issue is we are relying on too many young kids to be older/more experienced than they are because the senior group isn't good enough and haven't been for a long time, it isn't the fault of the developing teenager. They realistically shouldn't be in the AFL side or be playing niche roles with a lot of support from veterans around them.

Comben has traits to be a good AFL player, but there is a lot of air between the ears when it comes to Footy IQ. Maybe that will change, maybe it wont. I am not a fortune teller but as a club if we can't stop the dumb goals we are in a lot of strife.

We lost to Melbourne by 3 points, Collingwood 1 point and West Coast 5 points last year. How costly are these cheap goals? We lost to Dogs by 17, Carlton by 19, Fremantle by 26. I can guarantee you will find more goals conceded to just amateur grade basic errors that weren't gifted to us in those games that was the difference.

If we can cut the dogshit crap out of our footy, those 3 win seasons are 9 win seasons and 12 wins is the generic border for making the top 8. If our seasons aren't over by round 4 and we are winning more games and the top 8 looks within reach, it will have a significant impact on the players, confidence levels and how they train and play.

It is essential we play our footy similar to how we started the second half of last season and that we defend a lot better, apply a lot more pressure all over the ground. If that happens then things will change for the better much quicker, but we just can't play guys who are going to gift wrap cheap goals to the opposition, we don't kick enough goals to be able to absorb that. If we are going to kick 20+ goals a game the sure, we can carry some sloppy defensive work.

My only real issue this preseason is that it looked more like last year's pre-season than it did the post bye period, and sure it is fine to say it is only practice matches, but young/inexperienced sides don't have the experience to turn on and off elite level footy as it is needed. If I don't see the foot to the floor in the pre-season with a young side, I am not expecting it round 1.

We just can't dish out more of the same. We have to start playing like there is no tomorrow, even if our season falls apart late in the year. We have to see more than feint glimpses of AFL grade footy, it needs to look a lot closer than a faint light at the end of a tunnel.

Great comment and agreed. I don't think any other team is as skilful as we are at shooting ourselves in the foot. Those backline mistakes are mind-numbing in their needlessness, but I'm almost more nervous these days to see us get out the back and be streaming towards goal under no pressure - I just KNOW that we will find some completely imbecilic way to turn what should be a certain goal into a rebounding opportunity and subsequent score for the opposition.

Until we cut all this dumb stuff out of our game we will not go very far. I want to say that most of West Coast's goals on Saturday came from us serving them up on a platter for them. We should have annihilated them, and instead we lost. What? Imagine what might happen when we come up against actually decent teams.

 

[Better Loosen Up]

Waterman makes bloody good defenders look shit. He’s a gun.

If that's the case, why did we choose to play Corr on him?

 

[Ichiro #51]

Just picking up on what another poster (can’t remember who, sorry) mentioned about teams losing I50’s and winning the game. I went through each of the practice games to see if a trend was apparent.

The bolded figure for each team is I50’s per scoring shot.

Cats 12.11 83 (58 I50’s) 2.52

• 17.2 104 (47) 2.47
• -11 I50’s won by 21

Tigers 12.11 83 (51) 2.68
Pies. 21.6 132 (53) 1.96
Pies +2 I50’s won by 83

Poos 9.12 66 (41) 1.95
Dogs 11.11 77 (62) 2.82
Dogs +21 I50’s won by 11

Lions 13.16 94 (51) 1.76
Crows 14.13 97 (56) 2.07
Crows +5 I50’s won by 3

Giants 9.12 66 (55) 2.62
Blues 18.16 124 (53) 1.56
Blues -2 I50’s won by 58

Suns 8.15 63 (63) 2.74
Swans 12.12 84 (46) 1.92
Swans -17 I50’s won by 21

Saints 7.7 49 (47) 3.36 (lol)
Powa 14.9 93 (43) 1.87
Powa -4 I50’s won by 44

Eagles 11.5 71 (36) 2.25
North 9.15 69 (43) 1.79
Eagles -7 I50’s won by 2

Freo 16.13 109 (45) 1.55
Dees 11.24 90 (63) 1.8
Freo -18 I50’s won by 19

Small sample size of course, but I do think it illustrates a trend that probably began with the Pies flag in 2023. Repeat entries ain’t what they used to be, and in fact trying to play that way with a distinct forward press probably plays right into the hands of a more efficient, direct team.

It also paints our performance in a better light by being considerably more efficient in terms of I50’s per score than the eagles. Unfortunately some sloppy deep defending allowed them to be much more accurate than they perhaps deserved to be.

And finally, hearty lol saints

 

[ChopChopDigDig]

Didn't get to see the game live, just finished watching now. Don't know what some of you chicken littles are talking about. We dominated the game, just didn't finish. Half their goals came from preventable skill errors - in saying that, our skills were better than in the intraclub and v Melb last week, so improving through practice matches.

If we just tidy up the finish, we win that game by 10 goals.

 

[DuckYeah]

If that's the case, why did we choose to play Corr on him?

Corr needed the hit out more than anyone else. The other two are useless.

 

[DuckYeah]

Who told them to do that, if you don't mind me asking?

Daddy. AFL owned club. Couldn’t have us having pick 1 and 2 as the rest of the comp would have gone into meltdown

 

[Better Loosen Up]

Corr needed the hit out more than anyone else. The other two are useless.

IT certainly looks like he did. Probably needs another 4.

 

[Tiberius]

Daddy. AFL owned club. Couldn’t have us having pick 1 and 2 as the rest of the comp would have gone into meltdown

Surely with the amount of money being tipped into the AFL by betting companies and the amount fans are wagering on every game, if it came out that the AFL were actually instructing the Suns to lose it would be the biggest scandal in Australian sports history.

 

[Themanbun]

Decided to go through our first quarter centre bounces to get an idea of what went well and what didn't. That was our best quarter by far so it was the happiest place I could spend my focus.

Centre bounce 1
Sheezel (Front)
Powell (Sweeper)
LDU (hit to)

Free kick to Powell, NM clearance.

Centre bounce 2
LDU (front)
Powell (Sweeper)
Phillips (hit-to)

Powell win and clearance but turned it over inside 50.

Centre bounce 3
LDU (front)
Powell (Sweeper)
Phillips (hit-to)

WAP wins the ball from the tap, gives to Powell, gives back to WAP, who turns it over going inside 50.

Centre bounce 4
We played two forward side hit-tos here, with no one at the front of the stoppage.

Powell (HT)
Phillips (HT)
Sheezel (Sweeper)

Powell wins the ball, gives to Sheezel as first receiver, who gives to FOS for the clearance, then receives again.

Centre bounce 5
Sheez (front)
Phillips (sweeper)
LDU (hit to)

West Coast wins the tap. Sheezel is too lax on his man, who gets a good run through the stoppage. Phillips wraps him up sweeping well off the back for a ball up.

---

All in all its good to see them sharing the roles.

With 1 free kick (a win to us) that leaves 4 properly contested centre bounces. But winning the next two clearances and turning it over through blind kicking was very ordinary. Not good enough if we want to take advantage of this midfield.

We won four out of the 5 and managed to draw the last one after West Coast should've been out. Turning it over at our 50 mark though is unfortunately as bad as losing the clearance.

On roles:

• Phillips seemed our strongest defensive sweeper, Powell our best attacking sweeper for when we win the contest.
• It was clear we were using LDU to neutralise their sweeper and utilise his strengths if he got out of the front of the stoppage.
• Sheezel did some very good stuff but made a bad defensive decision in the last bounce.

I have gone full nuff and subjected myself to the 2nd quarter, which was ugly.

Centre bounce 1
LDU (hit-to)
Powell (sweeper)
Phillips (front)

Phillips runs straight through the stoppage from the front, misses it. LDU doesn't contest hard enough against his opponent, who wins the ball. They have a handball chain which Powell disrupts, then Xerri turns the ball over getting tackled with no one to handball to.

WCE storm through, inside 50, mark and goal

Centre bounce 2
Same roles as previous.

LDU and Powell fumble and aren't clean. X wins the clearance, gives to McDonald streaming off halfback who hits Larkey beautifully on the 50.

Centre bounce 3
LDU (hit to)
Phillips (Sweeper)
Sheezel (front)

X taps the ball to himself, hacks it to a 50/50 and there's a scrimmage. LDU gets over and wins the scrimmage and we go forward.

Centre bounce 4
Same as previous.

X free kick against. WCE goal from inside 50 directly attributable to that.

Centre bounce 5
Sheezel (hit to)
Phillips (sweeper)
Powell (front)

Powell's opponent runs through the middle of the bounce, winning the clearance and leaving Powell behind. Luckily WCE turn it over and we win the ball.

Centre bounce 6
No sweeper here.

Powell (hit-to slightly forward of centre)
Sheezel (hit-to slightly defensive of centre)
Phillips (front of the stoppage)

Hit to Sheez who gives to Phillips who kicks it straight to Jeremy McGovern.

 

[shintemaster]

That Larkey pass was unforgivable. Just didnt get anywhere near the intended target and turned it over in the most dangerous part of the ground.

Larkey is big at gobbing off about delivery - which makes mistakes like that deserve a please explain. A senior player doing stupid stuff like that shouldn't get a free pass given they happily complain when it isn't delivered on a platter.

 

[shintemaster]

Another disappointing aspect of the game was that West Coast roughed us up after quarter time.

Everyone but Xerri failed that test.

An area to be cautious in given we are still the youngest team out there. Can't underestimate the physical players we've lost over last few years (JZ in particular). Obviously Parker / Simpkin back in changes this balance a bit, but LDU is our biggest mid and he doesn't player like that unfortunately. Needs to be some focus and this is where those fringe mature players (such as Tucker) need to brave enough to run the risk of slightly overdoing the physicality and earning the odd week off IMO.

Watching training recently Comben was practising the intercept mark then passing off to Daniel the play maker. He did this drill over and over under the supervision and instruction from Tom Lynch. Lynch was telling him repeatedly that if he has to kick the low dart pass, then it is probably the wrong option. Yesterday he attempted that exact type of kick and turned it over and they goaled from poor kick which then opened the gates for them with 10 mins to go. Not sure he is the defender many of us were hoping for after some promising signs last season. His one on one defending is poor, and his decision making questionable. We really need Will Dawson or Whitlock to come on asap, Whitlock I think the one with the most upside.

Not convinced on Comben back either but will say:

• Baby in football / game terms
• Still huge value in just getting him through full games / seasons
• If and when Dawson is ready there will (still) be a KP hole at FF given Darling's age

Given Corr is closer to end than start there is easily a spot for both Dawson & Whitlock when ready.

This post will certainly have me exiled from Sensible Street, never to return, but I thought the performance in Bunbury was very encouraging. For the first time in a long while, we played some effective possession football, and did so without causing palpitations waiting for a disastrous skill error - to take one example, in the second half of the second quarter, with WC having got a run on, the team moved efficiently to F50 and then moved the ball back and forth across the top of the arc until Phillips put a long ball in. Commentators were bemoaning the slowness of the entry, lack of movement by the forwards, etc etc but IMO that wasn't the point of the play, which was to keep possession and allow the defence to set up behind the play and thereby take the heat out of the WC game.

Looking at this feature of the game from a list management perspective, we finally have a team that can move the ball by foot effectively, and handball at speed around the contest to get into open play. That to me was the biggest take away from the outing. And it's not just the usual suspects like Sheezel with the great foot skills - the replay is instructive for blokes like Archer showing real deft touch by foot.

I guess people see what they want to see - sure, Comben turned over a howler in the last quarter, so that moment tends to dominate impressions of his overall day. I prefer to look at his play in the second quarter, when he initiated a close-in handball movement under pressure in D50, kept running to be the last handball receive out of that congestion, and then hit a 25 metre dart to Larkey on his chest.

The eye of the beholder, and all that

I'm mostly with you on this. Feel quite comfortable with the step up over the practice games. We still have a mountain of work to do (keep banging on about it but remember still the youngest team in the comp) but I saw much more maturity of effort. Still maintain we have officially hit the bottom - albeit with bumps ahead - and will now start to show how we will look in 2-3 years.

Mate he has the tools for the running game and has clearly been told to take risks and use these tools. Yes it often comes unstuck, but with experience his decision making during those runs will improve. It's very exciting what he can become

Sheezel has broken people's brains. It's just not realistic to expect every 18 year old to make the decisions of a prime 25+ gun. He hasn't even played a full season yet - a little patience is needed.

 

[Shinboner1]

Waterman makes bloody good defenders look shit. He’s a gun.

almost won the coleman last yr

 

[big_e]

Larkey is big at gobbing off about delivery - which makes mistakes like that deserve a please explain. A senior player doing stupid stuff like that shouldn't get a free pass given they happily complain when it isn't delivered on a platter.

That happened - dare I say it - right in front of me. Konstanty certainly gave it to him. And to be fair, Larkey did look devastated. He owned it and then cracked in at the next opportunity, as he should.

 

[R00StaR]

I called him a slightly above average kick and people wanted my head

lol yes but its not like you're shy in taking heads yourself

All part of the fun and games of BF. Come game day we're all family.