Review Unofficial Practice Match: Essendon vs Gold Coast, Austworld, Thursday 23rd Feb @ 5pm AEDST

[JT_the_Man]

Just watched it, could barely tell who was who at the start of the coverage but feel it got better as the game went on. The commentary however, did not.

Takeaways -

Menzie is an absolute gem.
Voss will play senior football at some stage this year.
Davey is firmly in the picture for round 1. I’d pick him.
I’m not sure if Archie Perkins is even in our best 22 right now? Not too sure where he fits.
Setterfield must play.
Baldwin was solid in defence. That might be worth persisting with.
Caldwell was very quiet. Again, as weird as it sounds I’m kinda wondering whether there is even a spot for him in round 1?
Langford quiet.
Durham impressed early.
Tex was lively late.
I liked Snelling’s pressure.

I have a few more thoughts, but I’ll finish with this one for now.

Tippa

 

[jdstorm]

Quite a few of the young guys/VFL players really stood up. Lots of selection pressure on more familiar names that’s for sure.

Encouraging signs with the backline. Especially Ridley/Redman. If Zerk and Cox can find themselves in there this season could be a decent defence.

Durham, Martin and Langford looked good as the 3 wings and Langford especially offers a bit of class as the 3rd tall.

Setterfield also looked pretty good as the 3rd mid.

Storyline of the forward line was the smalls. Going a smaller more mobile forward line seems the way to go this season. Going to be a struggle to fit everyone in the side

Disappointments.

Most of the name guys. McGrath, hind, Sheil, Caldwell, weiderman, Jones, Heppell all looked quite poor

Going to need to show a lot more going forward or they will struggle to get a game

 

[ant555]

Have watched the first 3 periods a couple of times now.

The 3 times we let the GC move the footy down the ground easily came from our poor turnovers and our blokes being out of position. There was another of a free kick we gave away. All of them resulted in players out of position and unable to find a GC player going the other way.

Suns played a 7 man defense a fair bit.

Wright dropping at least 4 marks he should have taken made the long options look poor as we got no results from it.

Jones did not have a big game possession wise but his pressure was very good. He actually created a few scores with his efforts. Just want to see him leading at the ball more but in saying that the way the ball came in did not help.

We where solid defending kick in with a number of intercepts or stoppages created. Only 1 made it inside 50.

Shiel was better than I first thought. Had a few average kicks and handballs but did a lot of inside pressure work creating rushed kicks or stoppages from tackles or pressure. Was in there scrapping at most contests.

Perkins has a long way to go with his midfield craft. Rowell took him to the cleaners in period 3. He will be playing VFL if they are going to teach him midfield.

Heppell ended up being the best of the wingers over the whole 3 periods although he was not outstanding.

Parish was making tackles

Back 6 looked good defense wise.

Forward structures need some work but having 3 genuine small forwards did work.

Too many long bombs to forwards on 2 or 3 defenders.

The main thing I liked was the forward pressure was good and when it did not create inside 50 turn over it did create a number turnovers in the middle.