catempire
Hall of Famer
Hopefully my report covers this.
Collingwood jumped out from the blocks and kicked the first few goals of the match. At that stage, I was thinking we could be in for a tough day.
Number #65 (not sure who that was) was playing on Rocca who was looking dangerous and kicked a couple of early goals. They played on each other for the entire game and Rocca clearly took the honours but let himself down with poor kicking for goal.
David Johnson was his usual reliable self. He was assured in the backline which contained a lot of inexperienced players. He took marks and used the ball well. I would be comfortable seeing him in the AFL team when needed.
I really like the look of Gillies. He played on a variety of players. First Dawes (who didn't get a sniff) and later on Bryan. He was on and off the ground a lot, perhaps still feeling the effect of last week's knee injury. He is confident and assured even as a first year player. He backs himself and takes marks and is good on the spoil too. We have made a real find here and if he doesn't see senior action this year, it's only going to be a matter of time.
Laidler played mainly in defence but spent some time forward as well. He was a bit quiet late after the incident with the fence that has already been discussed. Really like his use of the footy and he takes a nice grab.
Hunt played at half back and did a couple of nice things but a couple of blunders as well. He looks like he'll need plenty more VFL time to get used to playing senior footy.
Donohue impressed me for the first time. I've never really seen anything in him before, but he looked more composed and used the ball pretty well. Think he was playing more forward than usual.
Dawson Simpson was the main ruckman with Mumford missing and West in the senior team. He did pretty well against Wood and Bryan. It's fair to say he's not going to be a Cox/Ottens type ruckman but he's going to be pretty formidable (ala Sandilands) at centre bounces due to his height. He did a couple of nice things including receiving a handball in close and loping away and delivering a 40m pass to someone leading out from CHF. This opportunity to do more ruck work while Ottens is out will benefit him further.
Scott Simpson continues to disappoint me. It wasn't a great day for leading forwards as the delivery was pretty poor. However I'm not sure he has a great mind for the game. He continually led up far too close to the ball carrier rather than providing a target closer to goal where we really needed it. Perhaps it was coaching direction but his choice of where to lead was still poor. It's a shame because he has the ready-made body for AFL footy but he doesn't seem up to it, at least yet. Kicking is also very suspect.
Tenace was possibly our most prolific player. He played through the middle and was creative and mostly did well. A couple of trademark brain fades but there's no doubting he is a top liner at VFL level.
Gamble kicked 4 goals which included 3 set shots and 1 open goal. He also hit the post with a nice left foot snap that would have been goal of the day. He was a handful for Goldsack, so it's good to know he was playing on an AFL-experienced player. In the second half he pushed up to play more through the midfield and he got a bit of it there too. He will be back in the AFL team before too long.
Overall, Geelong had the upper hand in the first 2 and a half quarters through better efficiency going forward and kicking for goal. In the third quarter, Collingwood found their range and hit the lead. Geelong did OK in the last to stay with them and fight it out. The team seemed very young and inexperienced so it was a good effort, IMO.
It was great to see Matty Egan working with the backs at the quarter breaks. He was providing advice to young Gillies and the others. Also had James Rahilly working with the mids.
One thing that annoys me about VFL football is that the standard of umpiring is pretty atrocious. It was poor against both sides and the Pies fans clearly thought they had the worst of it. Geelong was repeatedly pinged for holding the ball when a player had no prior opportunity to dispose of the ball. Very frustrating.
