Half Time Musings

[sirlothie]

A relatively rare Magpie sight to be a lazy 6 goals up at half time, what indeed has provoked such a decisive advantage?

I personally don't rate the Kangaroos any less than the Bombers, I must say I reckon Mick has instilled a vastly more attacking mindset in this game and it's hard to argue that this has not delivered vast dividends.

9 individual goal-kickers also demonstrates a great amount of teamwork and faith in each other which in my experience is the hallmark of all the great teams. Corrie had injected class in his first game.

Regaining our leader in Maxwell has injected a degree of toughness and leadership. Fraser and L. Brown seemingly learning to work well in tandem.

Impressed with Cloke's added application. Noone clearly dominating but each man doing his part seemingly overwhelming hapless Kangaroos despite best efforts, they haven't played badly but we still seem to have their measure and an answer to their every thrust.

May this continue!

Early part of 3rd quarter confirming this as so. C'arn the Pies!

 

[Optimax]

Playing and controlling the corridor through out the night probably helped.

We played wide and central all night and shit the roos down fairly happy

 

[Axl the great]

Boy what a difference it makes when we dont go as wide as per normal.
When we did we went between the middle and the wing and moved it quickly with purpose and gee! all of a sudden it opened up for us, it gave a more direct approach and brought more players in to the game, maybe Mick did listen after all!

 

[Quicky]

We set the tone for this game right from the start. What impressed me the most was our positivity. Our ball movement was quick both wide and centrally and we just backed ourselves. I liked it that we mixed our gameplan up as well - it was great to see Pendlebury switch play in the first quarter and i'd love to see more of it - and to see us use the corridor more often. I think both Wellingham and Corrie played fantastic games.

Wellingham in particular seems to relish the step up to AFL level. I've got to eat some humble pie on criticising Corries inclusion as he didn't put a foot wrong all night. I was particularly impressed with his 5 tackles but his run and finishing skills were both very good. Our mix was a bit more even tonight with Roccas exclusion from the team. I thought we were playing one too many talls the last few weeks.

After copping alot of criticism I thought Barham had a really great game. He seemed to handball a lot more which was a positive sign. Still turned the ball over once or twice but not nearly as bad as last week. His Clanger count will look worse than it should courtesy of a few soft free kicks against him. He really needs to learn how to disguise some of his defensive pressure I feel. But his tackling pressure and positioning were first rate.

And lastly some rep to Josh Fraser. He played some great footy against some very good ruckman after a very hard week. Loved seeing him come back out after copping a hard knock in the third (??) - inspiring stuff. Would still like to see him have some support but great effort from Fraser.

The only players that had bad games IMO were Clarke and Cloke. Clarke was found out a few times defensively and gave away some soft free kicks. I've given him some big wraps this season but it wasn't his finest display tonight. Cloke needs to be involved more in the game. He was too quiet before half time.

Other than that a great night from the boys

EDIT: We look a lot better when we can manage to create one on one contests across the ground. We found it a lot harder when Petrie went back and plugged the defense. Need to create this situation more often. Oh and O'Brien was pretty ordinary on Edwards which really surprised me.

 

[Snag Breac]

I finally understood last night why all you lads are so enraptured by Pendlebury. Was Gary Ablett that good when he was Pendles' age?

I agree, Quicky, that Clarke's game wasn't up to its usual standard, but his kicking is superior. And I thought Cloke did some very good work. We did give away some stupid free kicks.

Actually, now I'm really confused about free kicks. When does a push become a hands-in-the-back?