Club was in a hard place. With so many out with injury in the last few weeks, and beating 16th, losing to 12th, to win they needed to take a chance on a few that were coming back and not 100% right to go. A stable balanced team with the best players available is the best scenario, which we didn't have the luxury of. Getting the balance right with what we had was tricky.
Thankfully BL took their foot off the pedal, so there was some respectability in the score. Disappointing that we were so bad in the first half, but good that we didn't lie down for the whole game.
I was listening to most of it on ABC. Interesting that Harford and Murphy were talking about our lack of cohesion coming out of defence and we were making things up to get the ball out. It has been like that for some time as others have also commented.
It is this cohesion that we have lacked - we are great when we have the cohesion, but when it is missing we look ordinary and struggle a lot. So many things haven't ultimately worked this season.
I also think that we (the fans, media and maybe the club) massively inflated our win over Tigers (hindsight is wonderful). Tigers have been obviously pretty ordinary, so shouldn't hold a great deal of weight and maybe cracks were overlooked.
It was an entertaining game. No point in talking about if Charlie had kicked more goals than points or if bulldogs had kicked a couple of goals instead of points in the first, as the game changes as a result. Yes, we could have been a heap better, it appears we don't know our best combination(s) and take a few weeks to adjust with bigger name players coming in.
I am now sure that I don't know the rules around holding the ball etc anymore and it is making the game less interesting as there doesn't seem to be consistently applied rules (along with the odd return of others such as kicking in danger, not returning the ball directly to the umpire, insufficient attempt etc). The other one that gets on my goat is incorrect disposal. So many throws.
The outcry over decisions that are replayed several times, slowed down, viewed from 800 angles is way over the the top with over analysis and unfair to umpires that have 4 angles and a couple of them are a fair distance away.
