Review R1: The Good, Bad and Ugly vs. St Kilda

[Smoooothy]

Win reminded me a bit of R1 2015 win vs north under Walsh. Some absolute party time moments, a great team bonding win. The celebrations and joy in the team was great to see.

great comparison. it really did feel like that

 

[Ciao Giacomo]

Will agree to disagree - if you said he was average (or even a little underwhelming) but “terrible” when you admit you didn’t watch the first half seems like a weird call.

I believe the best way to judge a player’s performance is to

1) only watch half of the match

2) Then carefully check the stats

3) Then make a judgement on the quality of each player’s contribution.

 

[SugarShane]

Good:
Win reminded me a bit of R1 2015 win vs north under Walsh. Some absolute party time moments, a great team bonding win. The celebrations and joy in the team was great to see.

How good that our new recruits all got their moment to hit the scoreboard and celebrate with their new teammates.

Crowd cheering everytime Sid got the ball

****. It just sunk in that that was 10 years ago.

If the crowd keeps cheering every touch for Sid there'll be some hoarse voices before too long. Absolutely looked at home. Only question will be running out games, but definitely deserves to start next game.

 

[Brasher]

Curtin's second half was perfectly fine. At the level required. It was just his first half that was disappointing. Glad he was afforded the chance to work his way into the game.

Laird and Crouch were both great in their roles. Yes, they get a lot of little handballs etc, but that's what they're best at, and they have players all around them who have great legs but less ability to accumulate the ball than Laird or Crouch. It's absolutely their role to win the ball and dish out short passes - backwards if needed - to better users. I was happy with both today.

And why it was great he wasn't subbed, would have been a half of football lost in his development.

 

[Eagleboy2011]

Yeah, underdone for Marshall and Sinclair.

But to say there were seven important players not out there just isn't true. What they dished up is pretty much what they are

I'm happy with the win but yes, the Saints were down on personnel and some that played were underdone.
Not time to pop champaign corks yet. Next week will be a better test.

 

[Jeffcrowe]

I think Curtin has pretty reasonable footy IQ, at one stage on the half forward flank he was out of position knew he probably wasn’t going to mark it, brought it to ground in-front with a nice reach, crumbed it and dished it off.

I’d love someone to do his edits from the game , hopefully Vardy magic does

I reckon what he did do will show how potentially special he might be

Looking forward to see him being more involved in time

 

[Jeffcrowe]

Good:
Win reminded me a bit of R1 2015 win vs north under Walsh. Some absolute party time moments, a great team bonding win. The celebrations and joy in the team was great to see.

How good that our new recruits all got their moment to hit the scoreboard and celebrate with their new teammates.

Crowd cheering everytime Sid got the ball

Good call

Felt like start of a new era

Let’s see if we can back it up next few weeks though before getting too excited

 

[NSolis]

Love these comments on Rachele's massive improvement this year.

Rachele performed against the Saints just like he has performed in every single opening game.

2022 - 5 goals, 1 behind, 14 touches.
2023 - 3 goals, 1 behind, 18 touches
2024 - 3 goals, 0 behinds, 17 touches
2025 - 2 goals, 2 behinds, 21 touches

I think it's also the quality of his movement and ball use.

If you go back and watch the 5 goals that started the game, Rachele had a significant hand in 4 of them, after which the game was close to finished. In particular goals 4 and 5 were pretty much all Rachele creating something from nothing. Moved really well and played with a lot of intensity to go with his obvious skillset. Then he obviously went on to have a good rest of the game too and finished with a couple of his own. I think it was the best game of his career personally.

Has typically started seasons well and then faded obviously, hopefully the fact that he's apparently improved his fitness a lot in the offseason will help there. Ricciuto was saying he took 20 seconds off his 2km time.

edit: also if we are talking stats alone, 4 goal assists is an equal career best, 21 disposals is equal 4th best for his career, 6 inside 50s is 3rd best.

 

[DJ75]

No, Wayne Milera won’t be dropped from that. He should be, but he won’t.

Agreed. Milera had one of the lowest outputs on the ground. He (and we) are lucky it was against such a weak opponent.
Nank is still a better option and should be playing.

 

[DJ75]

Not sure if this belongs under the Good or Ugly (maybe both), but it was very noticeable to me that ANB and Cumming were much more vocal in terms of pumping up their teammates than some of our more established senior players.
This is particularly the case with guys who need a bit of a pump up.

Twice I saw players go out of their way to acknowledge the work of Curtin (mostly defensive, but also a bit of body positioning and a handball). The players were ANB and then Cumming.
On one occassion Laird walked straight past and ignored Curtin, on the other Crouch did it.

It's something that I've seen creep into our team over the years - senior players fully focussed on their own game and ignoring teammates (unless they themselves kick a goal then it's high fives all around).

I'm hoping the attitude of the new guys rubs off on the rest of the team and we see it happen more often and it's not just 'new guys wanting to fit in' behaviour and they become more like us.

 

[cmndstab]

Yep, amazing build of the backline. So many freebies that are core elements inc both KPD - Murray, Keane and Hinge. Worrell a bargain at pick 28 IIRC and Max also unders end of first round pick.

And so young and inexperienced overall meaning hopefully huge upside and further cohesion as they develop together. Love it

Even better, we didn't give up a first round pick for Max. We matched the bid with picks 46, 56 and 59.

Also throw in quality backups in Butts and Borlase from the rookie draft.

And hell, with Laird back there now, another rookie draft success story. And Nankervis (PSD draft) and Bond (pick 50) are both a chance to end up in there as well. Cumming is more of a wing, but to the extent that he drops back, he was a free agent.

Milera is the odd one out as a first-round selection.

 

[dogs105]

We know Murray called that.

 

[craig crowing]

Good win although against weak opposition but some good signs with our movement of ball although some kicking was off .
Some very good reflex handballs especially from Rachelle and Crouch was good getting the ball clear of bounce to moving player.
RT was huge early both in air but on ground and setting up players but still waiting for that day he is going to really dominate game to be BOG.
Thought our defence was just above average against a very very weak St Kilda forward line with Worrell outstanding and MM did well first game back.
Always exciting to have new players but thought all looked good at times with ANB probably best but certainly didn't have great impact on game .
It hasn't been by any other posters but I thought Peatling worked hard and completed well but was pretty untidy and mainly just kicked the ball with no direction with one going higher than long.
Dawson easily BOG and was most pleased with FOG and Rachelle s game .

 

[footy4ever]

I don't want to throw cold water over the celebrations, however I was more than a tad disappointed we didn't really kill off the Saints in the last qtr.

Really happy with most of our game but let's be real, Saints were hugely undermanned and probably had their weakest side for a long time.

First game, rust off, big win, mostly pleasing but no lid off for me until we score two wins out of Essendon at the G, Suns at Gold Coast and Geelong at home. Reckon Suns away is the hardest of that lot of games.

 

[footy4ever]

That was when Tex looked like the GOAT wasn’t it?

Waddya mean 'looked like'... he IS the GOAT buddy!

 

[Betts are off]

I am very interested to see how ANB plays next week. This will be his 91st game on the G, so over 3 times more games then Tex has played there (his 30th game).

 

[Jeffcrowe]

Good win although against weak opposition but some good signs with our movement of ball although some kicking was off .
Some very good reflex handballs especially from Rachelle and Crouch was good getting the ball clear of bounce to moving player.
RT was huge early both in air but on ground and setting up players but still waiting for that day he is going to really dominate game to be BOG.
Thought our defence was just above average against a very very weak St Kilda forward line with Worrell outstanding and MM did well first game back.
Always exciting to have new players but thought all looked good at times with ANB probably best but certainly didn't have great impact on game .
It hasn't been by any other posters but I thought Peatling worked hard and completed well but was pretty untidy and mainly just kicked the ball with no direction with one going higher than long.
Dawson easily BOG and was most pleased with FOG and Rachelle s game .

You’ll need to get used to that with Peatling , he’s not a polished ball user

But he’s got great , speed , agility , competiveness , tackling and ability to get there first to a ground ball

 

[whattagun07]

Something I said to my partner as we were watching the game yesterday; there were quite a few goals where we seemed to just get it forward, and almost walk it in. We made mistakes, and still somehow managed to end up with some pretty easy goals. It wasn't quite witches-hat stuff, but it wasn't far off.
Sure it was great to watch, but let's not be too seduced, as the quality of Oppo was poor.
It's a good base to start from though, no doubt.

 

[Crow_Magnon]

All in all a good first up win, against ordinary opposition. Got a bit loose at times and allowed a few easy goals, but our attacking game was much better. The likes of Cumming, Peatling and ANB have really added some leg speed and more pressure around the ground. I think we'll have a bit of thinking to do around Curtin's best role. At times we looked a bit top heavy with him on the field. Unfortunately we have a pretty full squad, but ideally I think he'd be better suited in a KPD role whilst he's learning the game. Otherwise it'd be better to use him when we rest Tex.

 

[Crom]

I don't want to throw cold water over the celebrations, however I was more than a tad disappointed we didn't really kill off the Saints in the last qtr.

I thought the Saints played pretty well, given how undermanned they were. They could've just given the game away and been belted by 100+. Ross' ugly game plan aside, to their credit they toiled away and bought the effort, which got them back into it at several points over the game.

 

[Danger in Texas]

You’ll need to get used to that with Peatling , he’s not a polished ball user

But he’s got great , speed , agility , competiveness , tackling and ability to get there first to a ground ball

I didn’t think Peatling’s ball use was bad yesterday, I’d have considered it pretty okay

He’s an upgrade on Berry on his athletic traits alone

 

[Eric The Red]

Best thing today, subbing Tex and allowing Curtin to play out the game.

A tick for Nicks‘ coaching?

 

[Eric The Red]

23 handballs

Yeah, but most of them were out of tight stoppages to a free Crow and resulting in a clean takeaway.

 

[Jeffcrowe]

I didn’t think Peatling’s ball use was bad yesterday, I’d have considered it pretty okay

He’s an upgrade on Berry on his athletic traits alone

Massive upgrade for mine

And kicks goals

Will never be a polished ball user and that’s fine as brings so much else , didn’t turn it over as you say

 

[Eric The Red]

Absolutely what we want - handballs to speed. Vital to have someone in and under with our runners

100%