Game Day North vs Bulldogs. Preseason game 1. Welcome back Maj.

[Roosurgence]

So pretty much what I’ve said most of pre-season, despite the outcry of some people?

MacMillan has been absolutely deplorable and Turner, Garner and Zurhaar not far behind him.

McMillan has been deplorable for 3 years. A player of his experience should have breezed through a game of that intensity, but instead he brought the same crap defending and ball butchering skills to the table.

Sorry to say but Turner, that was trash. I would rather play young players with upside than a guy who brings nothing to the table.

Same old Atley, quick but clueless.

I hope Zuhaar hasn’t been drinking his own bath water because this game will spit you out pretty quickly.

I’m starting to worry about Jed, the guy is a wrecking ball, but a turnover merchant. The game has no room for players that can’t use it, no matter how aggressive they are.

On the positive, I like what I saw from Xerri and the little cameo from Curtis Taylor. Larkey tried hard battling one out. Walker showed something and Thomas showed enough to get us excited.

But like many have said that was a hard watch and not what you want to see so close to Round 1. Based off tonight we are closer to the bottom 4 than the top 8. I know it was a practice match, but that performance was pretty horrible.

 

[giantroo]

Shaw: The pressure was on early. The Dogs looked in really good nick, and they played some good footy.

Shaw: Maj has obviously been out of the game a long time, but he did some good things and worked his way into the game.

Shaw: We had some big names out, but with that comes opportunity. Some of our kids had a opportunity to play against a good team that played finals last year.

Shaw: Josh Walker has come in and done really well. He’s fit in really well with our group, and he played well tonight.

Shaw: I was a bit disappointed with the free kicks we gave away. We want to be hard, but fair.

 

[Virgin Dog]

Thomas was outstanding for you guys - everyone already knew he's going to be a gun, but I thought he'd be at least another year or two off. Doubt that now, kid looks ready to perform. Xerri really surprised me too.

 

[The Nostradamus]

TT and Bonar complement each other quite nicely.

I’ve got to take some positive out of tonight...

Keen to see this develop more with Jy and LDU

 

[TurnoverMerchant]

Thomas was outstanding for you guys - everyone already knew he's going to be a gun, but I thought he'd be at least another year or two off. Doubt that now, kid looks ready to perform. Xerri really surprised me too.

You guys played really well and I think everyone is ready for 2016 again

 

[Fish Sticks]

Ah big footy never fails to disappoint... the melts on here over a pre-season game are laughable. We had 5 of our top 10 players missing & dogs were almost at full strength. They are a better team than us & I expect them to seriously be pushing for a flag this year. We ain’t gonna win it, we never were.
We are scraping into the 8 at best. That’s just were we are at... the sooner everyone gets used to this fact, the better.
The main concern for me is that the A+ graders like Bont always tear us apart. We need to find a tagger ASAP.

 

[King Corey]

McMillan has been deplorable for 3 years. A player of his experience should have breezed through a game of that intensity, but instead he brought the same crap defending and ball butchering skills to the table.

Sorry to say but Turner, that was trash. I would rather play young players with upside than a guy who brings nothing to the table.

Same old Atley, quick but clueless.

I hope Zuhaar hasn’t been drinking his own bath water because this game will spit you out pretty quickly.

I’m starting to worry about Jed, the guy is a wrecking ball, but a turnover merchant. The game has no room for players that can’t use it, no matter how aggressive they are.

On the positive, I like what I saw from Xerri and the little cameo from Curtis Taylor. Larkey tried hard battling one out. Walker showed something and Thomas showed enough to get us excited.

But like many have said that was a hard watch and not what you want to see so close to Round 1. Based off tonight we are closer to the bottom 4 than the top 8. I know it was a practice match, but that performance was pretty horrible.

Agree with everything except the Jed bit.

At this stage I'll rate that game a: hmm

 

[Yoko and me]

Personal preference aside do people genuinely believe that Rhys will play Turner, Macmillan & McDonald in our Rd 1 team?

Serious question, because if so he fooled me into thinking he’d make players earn their spots

If he is serious, one of the three plays. McDonald will definately play if Williams is suspended.

 

[Virgin Dog]

You guys played really well and I think everyone is ready for 2016 again

God I hope so <3 we were given a bit of a free run in the midfield thanks to your outs, and generally we get ruined by the dominant KPFs (aka Brown), so we're still yet to see what Keath can do down back, plus what the Bruce/Naughton combination offers up forward

 

[King Corey]

I rated McDonald well above Turner and Macmillan tonight.

 

[Event Horizon]

It seems North is still North. Shaw has a long way to go to become the savior and change the 20 year old trend


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Thomas was outstanding for you guys - everyone already knew he's going to be a gun, but I thought he'd be at least another year or two off. Doubt that now, kid looks ready to perform. Xerri really surprised me too.

Your boys were really sharp and set up really well behind the ball and at clearances.

 

[Roosurgence]

Agree with everything except the Jed bit.

At this stage I'll rate that game a: hmm

I love what Jed brings but if you are going to play midfield you need to be able to use it or get it to someone who can. You can’t fault his endeavour, but his ball use was abysmal tonight.

 

[Virgin Dog]

Ah big footy never fails to disappoint... the melts on here over a pre-season game are laughable. We had 5 of our top 10 players missing & dogs were almost at full strength. They are a better team than us & I expect them to seriously be pushing for a flag this year. We ain’t gonna win it, we never were.
We are scraping into the 8 at best. That’s just were we are at... the sooner everyone gets used to this fact, the better.
The main concern for me is that the A+ graders like Bont always tear us apart. We need to find a tagger ASAP.

Dogs weren't at full strength btw - missing Bruce, Naughton, Wood, Duryea, Libba, Suckling and English from our 22. But I'd still say North suffered from their outs worse than we did. Your midfield was severely neutered which didn't help, and Brown would've been a huge difference

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

Still have too many players getting sucked into contests.

Still allowing loose men off contests.

Still playing stodgy, unreliable players in important positions.

 

[Event Horizon]

Not too upset with that result, the quality of players we were missing meant we were always going to struggle, but I was happy with the intent from the players, the execution will need to improve. Some of the youngsters showed some positive signs, Xerri looks to have progressed further than i had expected, Mahoney looked okay at times and will improve as he gets used to the speed of the game. Taylor, Scott and Bonar also looked good at times.
We may have got beaten handsomely by one of the premierships favourites, but overall I think there were more positives.

Didn’t realize the Dogs are premiership favorites. They are the side we should be beating in regular season if we are serious about finishing in the top half of the ladder.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Grogg]

God I hope so <3 we were given a bit of a free run in the midfield thanks to your outs, and generally we get ruined by the dominant KPFs (aka Brown), so we're still yet to see what Keath can do down back, plus what the Bruce/Naughton combination offers up forward

Keath is a very good pick up and just what you guys need down there.

Wouldn't worry about Naughton too much. I reckon the biggest hurdle he will face is if teams restrict his space, but I think if he's bulked up he's got the smarts to match.

 

[Roosurgence]

I rated McDonald well above Turner and Macmillan tonight.

I would have rated a lump of steaming turd higher than McMillan and Turner tonight. Zuhaar can join that list as well, he was garbage.

I’m hoping guys like Curtis Taylor, Will Walker and Mahoney come on so the Turner experiment ends. I’m not sure what happened to Turner, but he was playing better footy in his first year than he is now.

 

[Virgin Dog]

Keath is a very good pick up and just what you guys need down there.

Wouldn't worry about Naughton too much. I reckon the biggest hurdle he will face is if teams restrict his space, but I think if he's bulked up he's got the smarts to match.

Yeah I hope so. Speaking of pickups, was not expecting that from Walker. Close to your best today, and dude came for nothing. I know its a small sample size, but he looks like a classic case of a player completely reinvigorating their career by moving clubs. Will be very handy, and makes your already strong spine look even better.

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

I rated McDonald well above Turner and Macmillan tonight.

The latter two should have their free ride revoked.

 

[Virgin Dog]

Didn’t realize the Dogs are premiership favorites. They are the side we should be beating in regular season if we are serious about finishing in the top half of the ladder.


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Every year, regardless of how good or bad our two clubs are, the games will be absolute thrillers majority of the time. Plus I'd imagine both should be much closer to full strength when the real deal comes along. The North games always worry me more than most - I go in more confident against Richmond than I do against North

 

[Fish Sticks]

Dogs weren't at full strength btw - missing Bruce, Naughton, Wood, Duryea, Libba, Suckling and English from our 22. But I'd still say North suffered from their outs worse than we did. Your midfield was severely neutered which didn't help, and Brown would've been a huge difference

How many of those guys are in your top 10 players?
Maybe Wood & Naughton would just squeeze in....
Looks you guys are a better team than us, by a far stretch, but we certainly had more key players out than the dogs tonight

 

[Grogg]

Yeah I hope so. Speaking of pickups, was not expecting that from Walker. Close to your best today, and dude came for nothing. I know its a small sample size, but he looks like a classic case of a player completely reinvigorating their career by moving clubs. Will be very handy, and makes your already strong spine look even better.

Yeah he looks ok, eh?

Personally i think that Daw and Tarrant should be the pillars and if that's the case, then Walker isn't really suited to a 3rd tall role, but if we are going two Kp's and a floating Majak, then he's straight in.

 

[Virgin Dog]

How many of those guys are in your top 10 players?
Maybe Wood & Naughton would just squeeze in....
Looks you guys are a better team than us, by a far stretch, but we certainly had more key players out than the dogs tonight

For our top 10 players, I'd say Naughton, Suckling and possibly Bruce (can't say yet). English and Duryea are hard to replace, but probably outside our best 10. Wood and Libba hurts, but more replaceable than the others

But I did agree that your outs would have had a bigger effect, especially Higgins and Brown

 

[Virgin Dog]

Yeah he looks ok, eh?

Personally i think that Daw and Tarrant should be the pillars and if that's the case, then Walker isn't really suited to a 3rd tall role, but if we are going two Kp's and a floating Majak, then he's straight in.

Floating Majak is his best position imo. Absolutely carved us up in one of our games in 2018, was so fking frustrating. I reckon all 3 fit in your side well