We'll see how we against the cats. I'd only play one ruckman this week. The cats have historically surrendered clearance dominance to win field position.
Brisbane vs Geelong is a bit of an anomaly given the torrential rain and the Big O getting subbed out. In that context, Conway got 41 hitouts, Blicavs got 18 and Hawkins chipped in with six. That’s 65 to 35 but the clearances were even at 51 all.
We need to establish a clearance dominance as we did over GWS and that’s not going to happen if we take Geelong’s rucks too lightly. They have Stanley and Neale waiting in the wings and Sam De Koning can take a turn in the ruck.
Another consideration is the absence of Tom Stewart. There’s a case for Stewart being the Cat’s most important player and their defence will be weaker without his intercept marking. Stretching their defence further by “resting” a ruckman in our forward line and making their marking defenders accountable.
Then there’s the idea that, rather than worrying about what the opposition might do well, we just go to work and make them worry about us.
However i'll take issue with 1 point. TDK is no longer a specialist ruck. He can be a genuine forward option now, which was something that had been lacking previously. He was always capable of taking the odd mark and kicking the odd goal, but he is doing that more consistently now and showing the small forwards how to crumb the ball as well. He's become a much more all-rounded player.
Pitto as #1 ruck plays to his strengths. TDK as #2 ruck/forward plays to his strengths.
It might be a bit different when we play on a windy/wet deck in the middle of winter, but in ideal conditions of Marvel, it works.
Yeah, nah; De Koning is a specialist ruck! He attended 60% of the ruck contests against Adelaide but only took part in around one third of the ruck contests against GWS. He doesn't go on to the ball at the end of quarters to give Pitto a break or when the opposition big dog has a spell, he rucks at critical times and wins crucial hitouts (44% to advantage while Pitto managed 36%). How they divide up the ruckwork will depend on conditions, the opposition and the state of the game but we're playing two specialist rucks, one of whom has attributes that make him a potential ruck/forward. De Koning needs to do a lot of work on his forward craft, running patterns and marking if he is going to realise that potential. Importantly, oppositions see that potential and can't afford to leave De Koning without a tall defender when he does "rest" forward. That takes away their ability to double team Harry or Charlie with their third tall defender or ruckman.
The thing is that having De Koning jumping over and/or into the opposition's first ruck makes life easier for Pitto too. Our two gave Briggs a decent going over and I'm sure that Riccardi wished that he was somewhere else when it was his time to spell Briggs.
That was probably De Koning's best game and it was definitely Pitto's best. The challenge is to keep working on the dynamics and getting the best value out of both of them.
I don't really get the criticism of Charlie. He has a role to do and he does it really well. We have a plethora of small and medium forwards who are there to apply defensive pressure in our forward line. Charlie's main challenge is to get separation from his opponents.
Jeremy Cameron is being touted as the best player in the game at the moment and he has laid six tackles to Charlie's five. Somehow I don't think Scott or Vossy will be telling Jeremy and Charlie that they're not working hard enough.
Just before the end of the second quarter, Kemp gathered the loose ball and handpassed to Walsh. Kemp ran on and received the ball back forward of centre. Kemp could have blazed away and hoped for Harry to mark (Charlie was in the backline) but he spotted Ollie Hollands heading inside 50 on the flank. A perfectly weighted kick allowed Hollands to mark and he slotted the goal.
Back in the middle and a perfect tap from De Koning enabled Hewett to break away and pinpoint a pass to Kennedy. Kennedy kicked the ball to a contest and the ball was spoiled away from Curnow (back from being a loose man in defence). De Koning made it to the contest, crumbed the ball and snapped the goal on his wrong foot.
Those two goals got us back into the game. They also highlight our young, developing talent and the value of our established players like Hewett and Kennedy.
It's worth going to the replay to see how well De Koning and Hewett combine for the centre clearance; excellent ruckwork from De Koning and superb positioning, anticipation and execution from Hewett.
Then there's Tom's ability to get from the centre to the next contest, gather the ball and snap truly. Most ruckmen in that situation would play it safe and drop back into the hole or amble forward in case there's a stoppage.
Was a Dandenong support even though I lived in the Northern Suburbs near the Preston ground. They were the good old days, VFL on a Saturday and the VFA on Sundays.
Princes Park on the Saturday for me (when I wasn’t running around in the Ammos), then Coburg City Oval on the Sunday. Coburg vs Preston games were always special regardless of how each team was going.
Id persist with Lemmey at CHB in the VFL.....and Id be looking to give Moir a senior game or two sooner than later as the sub initially. Lemmeys blonde mate down back in Lewis also played an ok game and looks a solid player. Not sure Id be keeping Mirkov or OKeefe.....
I think the Mirkov experiment is coming to an end but O’Keeffe is worth persevering with. His last VFL game was very good and he can pinch hit as a key forward.
I wouldn’t be rushing Moir into the seniors but I’m sure he’ll be demanding a game before the season’s out. He did OK in the pre-season games and should adjust to the tempo without too many problems. He has been a bit wasteful with his kicking for goal so let’s hope he gets his radar aligned.
Lemmey looks a better player down back and maybe a chance to make a Key defender, won the ball well and used it ok for a big fella although his opponent from the WAFL who has a famous VFA name in Jimmy Miller had a decent game too. The other player who looks a class above most is Moir, dont reckon he will ever play too many four quarter games but everything he does is classy even when he tackles(laid a great one in the last quarter) and he knows where the goals are and plays with a bit of maturity. Binns can hit a target and runs hard, but lacks a bit of physicality when tackling and also can hang back a bit when he needs to be attacking the ball. Cincotta was ok without being great and both Okeefe and Mirkov lowered their colours to the Port ruckman(Flockhart?) who was impressive. Xavier Maher was BOG but for me remains a good VFL player only....
Calista got a fair bit of the ball but he and Miller were thumped in the ruck by O'Keeffe and Mirkov even if our midfielders couldn't capitalise. But, a good ruckman needs to do more than just win the hitouts and our two need to improve their marking, linking up, positioning and being a presence around the ground. Flockhart looked to have done his knee but came back on and picked up where he left off. Miller did a good job of the key forward second ruck role.
I wonder if Lemmey is playing back while Sam Durdin is out (suspended?) or if it's the direction his career is now headed. If he can play CHF with the same energy and application that he's showing at CHB, he could be a genuine key forward option. Perhaps he's just one of the many key forwards who play better footy in defence.
We didn't have that many AFL listed players out there, but I think that Moir showed the most potential. He works hard off the ball he will be rewarded for that.
Harry Lemmey laid a great tackle; long arms just reached the guernsey of an opponent who thought he'd run away from his slower opponent only to be reefed backwards and into the turf.
I think Harry looks more comfortable and involved in defence.
The two rucks worked exactly as the match committee desired today. Can they repeat consistently ?
It seems that Crippa is a huge fan of the two rucks structure and had been advocating for Pitto’s recall to address the clearance deficit. While that worked against Adelaide, Pitto and De Koning didn’t contribute enough around the ground to compensate for the loss of run and Harry’s input as second ruck.
Everything clicked yesterday with Pitto and De Koning dominating the hitouts, our mids dominating the clearances, Pitto pitching in around the ground, De Koning kicking goals and forcing GWS to put defensive effort into him, and Harry getting up the ground for telling contested marks.
There’s nothing wrong with playing two rucks, provided that they can do more than take part in ruck contests.
Don't be under any misapprehensions here, we were horrible in the first half. They applied some serious pressure and we once again fumbled & bumbled. Kicking for goal was atrocious as was the delivery into the forward line, same issues that cost us the game against the Crows.
The fact that Voss had to send Curnow deep into defence late in the second to try and stem the bleeding was a tell-tale sign of howbad we really were.
After half-time, we started to apply the pressure and bit by bit we edged our way back into the contest and as our confidence grew, we started to run all over them.
It was a very good win and one we just had to register after last week's letdown.
Lots of good players for the second half, way too many passengers, frauds & flat-footed onlookers in the first.
Somehow, our guys have to find that ferocious gear from the first bounce instead of halfway through the match.
Must acknowledge that sensational feat of pure athleticism from the Giants defender Aleer who spoilt McKay in a marking contest after an incredible leap that came from nowhere.
Bring on next week please.
As I posted previously, Charlie has taken over Silvagni's role of helping out in defence from time to time. In other words, Charlie has the licence to decide when he should be an extra in defence. To me, leaving it up to Charlie is great coaching by Vossy and reflects his philosophy of giving the players and assistant coaches responsibility.
We struggled for 15 minutes in the second quarter but controlled the rest of the game quite comfortably.
Our goal kicking did let us down some and could have robbed us of another world record for goals from centre clearances. Even so, we had 12 goal assists, scored from 57% of our inside 50s and kicked goals from 32% of our inside 50s. We had nine individual goal scorers, seven of whom were part of our forward rotations, and five multiple goal scorers. That is pretty impressive in the context of a high pressure game against the flag favourites. The Carlton of midway through last season would have folded after GWS's second quarter run of goals. Once we clawed those two goals back at the end of the second quarter, the result was never really in doubt .
Aleer's spoil was also spectacular in that he hit the ball straight to Cottrell for an easy goal. Athleticism is all well and good, provided you get the footy basics right.
According to coach Kingsley" its hard being Toby"...sometimes I agree he doesnt get calls go his way due to his previous reputation but he was undisciplined tonight and the incident with Boyd showed he had little duty of care imho and there was another I'm sure I saw with Kemp I think it was where he took a swing at him while contesting the ball falling to the ground. Good to see both Cowan and Newman looking after Boyd too and letting Toby know he wasnt going to get away with his BS.... Hogan struck Young in the jaw as well and that should be looked at too.....credit to Young when Weitering got his corkie and couldnt run it was Young who got the job on Hogan and shut him down and showed some physicality which has been lacking in his game...
Young showed a nice line of niggle that I haven’t seen before.
I think that he was below his best today and, like all of our defenders, was unsettled when Williams was subbed out. Like his teammates, he did step up when Weiters and Newey were hampered by injury.
Boyd is always the defender I choose to omit but I think I’m going to have to re-think that. His defensive work today was excellent, particularly when he was switched to Greene, and his ball use was typically good.
Greene reminds me of a pit bull - no matter how much the owner says “he’s friendly”, you’re still wary of getting bitten. He’s lucky Boydy got straight up and should only cop a week.
The MRO won’t consider Hogan’s past offences but he should go back to the punch to the jaw that concussed Sam Rowe. Young’s reaction suggested heavier impact than it probably was. I’d give him a week but he’ll probably get a fine.
