I think everyone could see he played a reasonable game.
I think sadly, it was the level of excitement that a 200 gamer playing a reasonable game generated that was indicative of his playing history.
Review GBU vs Swans - Round 2, 2019
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I think sadly, it was the level of excitement that a 200 gamer playing a reasonable game generated that was indicative of his playing history.
- Sep 28, 2016
- 9,820
- 19,316
- AFL Club
- Adelaide
Mackay plays plenty of reasonable games that people don't give him credit for. In fact reasonable games is really his sweet spot. He rarely goes to far out of that zone which is why people lump so much crap on him when he doesn't reach that 'reasonable' level.
Other whipping boys like Atkins and Jenkins have a different problem, they have a huge void between their floor and ceiling, so you never know which guy you are gonna get. Where-as DMAC's floor and ceiling is a eerily similar levels of play, which is at best the 20-25 range on our list.. Hence the whipping boy status!
Ok - so I've had a few days to get some real air back in my lungs after 4 days in Sydney.
Conditions: It was very slippery out there ... humid and gusty winds.
What I saw at the game
- Tex was huge. Strong and selfless.
- Jacobs was slow. He repeatedly did that thing where he jumps and lands before the ball is at a height to reach for the tap.
- Jenkins was lazy, is lazy. Lazy in his head, and lazy in his actions. If he could operate at an elite level for longer he would be a seriously good player ... but he doesn't. So he's not.
- Jones was brave and explosive. Gotta keep playing him.
- Sloane works his arse off, but his disposal was off in this game.
- Smith is getting closer
- Milera will be our best player one day, just so much skill and poise
- Seedsman is important
- Atkins was as good as I have seen him - hard at the ball and skilled when he had it
- Murphy provides a lot of pressure, but not much else.
- Mackay gets a tick from me, played really well
- Talia and Hartigan did their jobs
- Betts struggled against a great back man in Rampe
- Lynch is the link, he is under-estimated too often by supporters
- Kelly was good, he works hard off the ball and defends with intent
- Keath was a step up, really clean hands - good positioning (he still takes his eyes off the ball too often for me, that needs to be fixed)
- Knight was hard at it
- Gibbs was excellent, his disposal and clear thinking is essential
- Brad Crouch is a footballer and a half
- Laird, MCrouch were well held
- for Sydney ... Buddy and Kennedy are immense. Rampe is a close third. Lots of good youth coming through but some big gaps in the list imo.
Non-footy stuff
- the ground is tiny, and outdated. Not a great place to see the footy imo. Historic, but ordinary facilities and services.
- there were noticeable areas of sand on the ground and lots of workers constantly trying to replace divots
- the pre-game is funny because it is devoid of hype, was actually a nice change
- they have these terrible clappers that they all clack-clack-clack when the team runs out and when the swans kick a goal
- the crowd is badly informed, very low footy IQ (how I remember games at footy park) Lots of "Kick it!" and "Booo - that is against us" and "Yay - that is for us".
- they started the end of the game announcements (security, don't go on the ground, hope you enjoyed the scg...) with about 2 minutes to go DURING PLAY!!! Strangest thing I have seen at an AFL game. The swans were running out of defence and the announcer is talking about not going on the oval when the siren goes !!
- The 30,000 people streamed out of the ground and they had about 6 police officers stationed on the main roads ... no roads were shut, no changes to traffic. How someone didn't get run-over I don't know.
Conditions: It was very slippery out there ... humid and gusty winds.
What I saw at the game
- Tex was huge. Strong and selfless.
- Jacobs was slow. He repeatedly did that thing where he jumps and lands before the ball is at a height to reach for the tap.
- Jenkins was lazy, is lazy. Lazy in his head, and lazy in his actions. If he could operate at an elite level for longer he would be a seriously good player ... but he doesn't. So he's not.
- Jones was brave and explosive. Gotta keep playing him.
- Sloane works his arse off, but his disposal was off in this game.
- Smith is getting closer
- Milera will be our best player one day, just so much skill and poise
- Seedsman is important
- Atkins was as good as I have seen him - hard at the ball and skilled when he had it
- Murphy provides a lot of pressure, but not much else.
- Mackay gets a tick from me, played really well
- Talia and Hartigan did their jobs
- Betts struggled against a great back man in Rampe
- Lynch is the link, he is under-estimated too often by supporters
- Kelly was good, he works hard off the ball and defends with intent
- Keath was a step up, really clean hands - good positioning (he still takes his eyes off the ball too often for me, that needs to be fixed)
- Knight was hard at it
- Gibbs was excellent, his disposal and clear thinking is essential
- Brad Crouch is a footballer and a half
- Laird, MCrouch were well held
- for Sydney ... Buddy and Kennedy are immense. Rampe is a close third. Lots of good youth coming through but some big gaps in the list imo.
Non-footy stuff
- the ground is tiny, and outdated. Not a great place to see the footy imo. Historic, but ordinary facilities and services.
- there were noticeable areas of sand on the ground and lots of workers constantly trying to replace divots
- the pre-game is funny because it is devoid of hype, was actually a nice change
- they have these terrible clappers that they all clack-clack-clack when the team runs out and when the swans kick a goal
- the crowd is badly informed, very low footy IQ (how I remember games at footy park) Lots of "Kick it!" and "Booo - that is against us" and "Yay - that is for us".
- they started the end of the game announcements (security, don't go on the ground, hope you enjoyed the scg...) with about 2 minutes to go DURING PLAY!!! Strangest thing I have seen at an AFL game. The swans were running out of defence and the announcer is talking about not going on the oval when the siren goes !!
- The 30,000 people streamed out of the ground and they had about 6 police officers stationed on the main roads ... no roads were shut, no changes to traffic. How someone didn't get run-over I don't know.
Its too early to get a league-wide sense for this season, but from past seasons it depends on the club, specifically their coach's philosophy and to some extent whether they are rebuilding - some rotate heavily, others have set-ups similar to yours.
Hawthorn, for many years, used to start Cyril at the opening bounce, and would ultimately rotate every forward bar the back-up ruck through the inside group across a game. Conversely many of the top sides from last season use your strategy - Melbourne had their core 4 + Petracca & Jones as relievers, Collingwood's 3 + tagger were used for all bar 2 bounces against Richmond, and without Gaff, West Coast ran a 6 person mid group through to the Grand Final (Masten took a wing, and the other 5 - Yeo, Shuey, Redden, Sheed and Hutchings - rotated through the centre and the other wing) with a couple of bounces only for relievers.
You've also got the completely stupid, like Essendon running 8 through the square alone (13 including wings) in only a 4 bounce opening term against GWS.
I will say having basically only 7 guys rotating through the mid group overall (incl. wings) is very low historically with only West Coast, Collingwood and GWS doing anything similar last season.
Thanks for these, Billy Bob - very interesting. These are numbers you've counted purely yourself I'm assuming?
They seem a little off, as by my (poor) maths there should be a total of 46 starting wing positions (two wingers at 23 bounces) but our total is 50.
I'm certain Mackay started at least one bounce inside the square too. Went from Sloane/Crouch/Crouch to Sloane/Mackay/Atkins at one point.
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