Voting is as usual: you have 15 votes to award pretty much as you will, with the following provisos: [1] 15 votes in total, no more, no less. [2] No more than 10 votes for any one player (even Sam Walsh or Patrick Cripps) [3] Three players at least must get a mention. [4] A grade for the game, A+ (what I want to see) to F-.
Binns: 42 possessions, 11 marks, 5 tackles, 5 clearances, but in the last couple of moment he had a couple of serious mistakes. Still, he got leather poisoning.
Casey wanted it more, especially at the end. We have too many who are not hard nuts. Many of them were disappointing tonight.
[1] We really missed Cerra when he went off, he had 21 possessions in just over 2 quarters and really foiled many of their attempted centre breaks. We need to get him right and in form for the finals. After the season maybe we should see some sort of hamstring specialist, as he's getting too many of these.
[2] Alex Cincotta! He was brilliant tonight, slaughtering Pickett again and doing some marvellous defensive things.
[3] Our defence was so much better this week than last week, even with a few blemishes in the last quarter. McGovern had a difference because he attacked the ball. Kemp did well until he had a brain fade and didn't punch. Weitering was probably BOG, he was that dominant. Cripps and Walsh were very good, but they never dominated like Weitering did.
[4] Free Kicks: My God, we were crucified. I don't want to go through all of them, but there were so many after half time! Without them, Melbourne wouldn't have got close. But that big tackle on Petracca near siren time: absolute Gold!
[5] Ollie Hollands played his best game for the year (by a huge margin), but he needs to learn to be more aware of players moving in on him. Three HTBs is not good enough. His efforts in the first half, on the other hand, were excellent.
Wonder how Will Hayward will be treated by our blokes......
Probably not well. ON BF they're saying he will stay in Sydney or go to SA. We've put forward a decent deal, but ... Now this is BF, so the salt is in considerable supply, but it bodes poorly. To be honest, if he doesn't get a kick, I'll be happy.
More experience this week, but we are a very tall side. Not sure all the talls will be on the ground at once. That Phillips is Emergency tells a lot about how he is going. Not providing the drive we'd hoped for.
Our forward line looks unbalanced, but our midfield looks much better than it was a couple of weeks back. I can't see Fantasia as rover. He badly needs to get some ball though.