Positives.

[BeinPurplenGreen]

Well, that's yet another Friday night loss out of the way - a good reality check I thought, and a fairly competitive effort from us - we were right in there until the last five minutes.

Most of our guys went in hard at it for most of the game - but some disposal errors and poor goal-kicking really hurt us.

Here are some thoughts from me - please add your own positive vibes!!!

1. Great, great effort from Grover and Taz. Grover in particular really added some attacking drive from the back half. And kept Roughy quiet too...
2. We really ran that game out - considering Mundy was off hurt for most of the game, and we had a 6 day turnaround, and we had our longest road-trip of the year, I was expecting us to fade in the fourth quarter. Instead, we kept right on trucking, and if we kick straight in the last quarter we win. Much better than our fade outs last year.
3. The young kids kept having a go. Even when they made errors, or had really bad nights, they didn't drop their heads or wimp out - they kept throwing themselves around.
4. MJ standing up when the game was in the balance - he's really working his way back into form.
5. The way we played close, hard checking man-on-man defence - and sustained it for most of the night against some of the top midfielders in the comp. Shows why the zone should be filed away for good for us.
6. Having an awful second quarter, kicking only 3 goals in a half of footy, and still getting within 4 kicks of the premiers.
7. Being that close when Rog, Elvis, Mundy, Peake and Murphy have only limited infuence on the game, and when some of the young stars have slightly off nights (Ibbo, Hill, Hinkley)
8. Seeing Harvs so focused and steely eyed for the duration of the game - though he was out-coached in the end, most of his matchups were worthwhile, and he made some decent gameday changes.
9. DeBoer's tagging effort and niggle - I think we may have found Creepy Crowley MkII.
10. The amazing intensity of our tackling - that was career best effort tackling from a number of our players, and really good to see.

Views??

 

[DockerA]

Agree definately, well said.

MJ really had a great game last night, when he was up forward in the 3/4 everytime the ball came in he took a grab or made a contest to bring it to ground.

I was also impressed with how the dockers didnt just fall away. Normally when we get close and have all the play, but are unable to capitalise, like last night, and then the other team goes down and gets 1 or 2 against the play, the dockers often end up getting spanked, but last night even though they missed their chance, they fought right to the final siren.

 

[Swanny36]

Sorry to intrude, I usually don't, but I was really impressed with Greg Broughton last night, don't think he got much of the pill but his attack on the ball seemed really good, I don't know how old he is or anything like that, it was the first time I have seen him.

I really liked the look of him, put his head over the ball and attacked the contest at full pace numerous times, which as really good to see.

 

[zolloz]

I was also really impressed with Broughton's attack on the footy, some real fierce contests. Hope he stays in the team next week to see if he can back it up.

 

[hedgehog]

2. We really ran that game out - considering Mundy was off hurt for most of the game, and we had a 6 day turnaround, and we had our longest road-trip of the year, I was expecting us to fade in the fourth quarter. Instead, we kept right on trucking, and if we kick straight in the last quarter we win. Much better than our fade outs last year.

I was also impressed with how the dockers didnt just fall away. Normally when we get close and have all the play, but are unable to capitalise, like last night, and then the other team goes down and gets 1 or 2 against the play, the dockers often end up getting spanked, but last night even though they missed their chance, they fought right to the final siren.

After half time we could have easily let them blow us off the park, but we fought back hard, despite, as mentioned, a 6 day turnaround to come within 4 goals of last years premiers. Kicking for goal in the third term was dissapointing but not fading away was encouraging.

 

[BeinPurplenGreen]

Pav's game was also fantastic - and really pleasing to see that Sandi is starting to take some contested marks down forward - although his kicking obviously needs work...

 

[estibador]

I had already heard we'd lost so when I got home to watch the replay on Fox I was fearing the worst and expecting to see us put in a limp performance like we have so many times in our history in games like this.

But I was stoked with our intensity and tackling and the way we fought the game out right to the end. You can never be happy with a loss but at least I was satisfied that our players threw themselves into every contest 100%.

Keep playing like that and we're a very good chance to win the next two.

 

[Tazmania]

A lot of criticism from other team supporters on other boards but in reality it seems they are non-supporters with little understanding of the long-term frustration and heartbreak of the Freo mob.

Whilst we lost last night it seemed that Freo finally had something going for it that has been missing for a long time...heart.

Good stuff.

 

[DRDGroup]

I loved the look the Suban. Even though he missed those 2 crucial shots at goal, he was always hard at it and never stopped chasing. You can tell he is really determined to succeed and his passion and heart is in it.

Also, did you notice at the 3 quarter time break when Harvey moved the guys into the 50m arc, Suban was the one that was drummin up the players and setting the mood in. He did it last week before we broke through the banner as well. Excellent leadership material.