Young took five marks, but not one of them was contested. Instead, he struggled to read the ball in the air and didn't even try to take a mark. He punched, sometimes with both hands, and he didn't make many good contacts. It reduced his effectiveness remarkably.
I think a lot of players stuggled to read the ball in the air last night. Harry had a similar problem at the other end.
In the end Young and Weitering didn't have great games, but if we'd said before the game that Hawkins and Cameron would only get 5 between them we would have thought they'd done really well, and that would have gone a long way to us winning. We probably just expected more than 3 from the Harry/Charlie combination.
Hayes had 23 possessions last night with a 73.9% efficiency, on a windy night when there were loose balls and miskicks everywhere. That efficiency is better than most of his teammates. Yep, some of the turnovers didn't look good, but he wasn't Robinson Crusoe.
If we'd been hitting targets and holding marks in those conditions McKay would have had quite a few more opportunities.
With so much ball hitting the deck or misdirected Geelong just handled those conditions mujch better than we did.
Geelong are a good side... but they've peaked early
Seriously though, I'd like another crack at them with a few more players back, equal breaks (as Kruddler mentioned), and perhaps more settled weather conditions. Harry had a night to forget...dropping marks, but also some of the kicks to him were way off due to the breeze. Weitering probably needs a couple more games to get back to his pre-injury form
I don't think we really dropped our bundle, we kept fighting to the end, they were just a better side on the night.
I caught the game in patches due to visitors so someone who saw the whole game feel free to correct me.
In the parts of the game I saw both Setterfield and Dow were prominent in terms of possessions but their disposal was often rushed and not really as 'hurtful' as the numbers would suggest.
But that was the game in general...pretty scrappy, lots of turnovers and scoring seemed to be a chore for both sides.
Gov and Pitto seem to have got through OK Curnow looks to have hurt himself again.
McGovern 17 disposals and kicked a goal late to help win the game. Played mostly in defence Pittonet 15 disposals and 22 hitouts. Dow another 30 possession game Setterfield had 40
Spot on DJC....the Voss stamp on things is pretty clear IMHO. He was a ruthless competitor. Saw Chris Scott on The Front Bar a couple of weeks back and he said as much when asked about who was the best of the Lions in those years. It's strange when you think back to late last year when all the talk was about who would be coach. I wasn't sold on Voss at the time but geez he hasn't done much wrong. There's still a few things to be ironed out but when you consider the players that we've had unavailable throughout the year, it's a pretty good result to be one game off the top of the ladder. I think 11 wins is on a par with 2013 and we've still got 6 games to go.
I think a bit of the indifference towards Voss last year stemmed for the fact that some may have still regarded him as that young Brisbane coach, fresh from playing. He would have grown and learned a lot in the subsequent years. Like players, you develop with the experience.
The successful Carlton coach was always going to have a bit of luck attached to it. The right man, in the right place, with the right list, at the right time. We're not totally there yet, but there's every indication that the 'planets might just have aligned' to produce that outcome.
I'm not sure if either of these have been mentioned but there were a couple of little moments that gave me an indication that this is a real 'team' who acknowledge the good and console the not so good. , One was when Curnow kicked a goal after a good bit of lead-up (chase and kick) from McKay. As McKay came to embrace him Curnow pointed at him as if to say this is the bloke responsible for that goal.
The other was when Cripps made a bad blue and Jack gave him a quick talking and encouragement probably saying something along the lines of.... "Don't worry lets, get on with it."
We used to worry about leadership. We don't need to worry anymore. We have it on every line.
Momentum changes are part of the game. Over recent years we've become experts at identifying (and fearing) them. The issue for us is the 'gap' between our best and worst, and a lot of that is down to attitude rather than skill.
The football we played in the first quarter would blitz most teams. For a while we forgot to work as hard as the opposition.
The best part of the game for me was the last quarter which in many respects was built on recognising we would have to regain that work effort to win.
The test will be if we can do it against the best. We get a chance to test that out next week
You just need to weather the storm when you lose the momentum. Ideally you have a flashy middle, followed by a flashy end......but we can't play North Melbourne every week.
The ability to score quickly is a string to our bow, and it helps us when we are all but out of games. Sometimes its almost unfortunate that we do so well straight out of the gate, rather than in the last quarter to put it beyond a doubt, but its better than not doing it at all.
When people make comments like this it makes me look back to 12 months ago. As soon as you see where we were, and then you look at where we are.....i find it hard to get too upset. This year was always going to be a transition year of sorts, we are WELL ahead of schedule. So sure, we are not odds on flag favourites and still have a bit to learn.....but did you expect otherwise?
I've no problem with where we are in terms of improvement. It's dramatic. We should probably play finals...even if we lose this one. I'd back us to win a couple of those we're not necessarily expected to win. But we're just not ready to progress too far.
The problem with the flashy starts is that it has the effect of giving the players a sense that it's all pretty easy. When the inevitable pressure comes we're too slow to counter it. You even picked it. I did too. Don't get carried away with sensational first quarters. There is too long in the match to go,
We're a team of 'showponies' When the going gets tough we just disappear.
That's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of these flashy starts because were always at risk of the momentum change. And once that's lost it is very hard to get it back...almost impossible to the level we played at in the first quarter.
One of the aspects of having a number of injuries is that it throws an extra burden on the remaining players. They not only have to perform their own roles but pick up the extra slack caused by a missing team-mate. That's not such a difficult task for a week or two. But if it's an increasing injury list over an extended period that eventually wears a side (and individuals) down.
So we need to look not just at the injury list but how players are coping with the extra responsibilities. Just as a example, Jack Silvagni is a player who gives 110%. He bleeds Navy Blue. He can perform multiple roles and as such is a valuable asset. But he's starting to show signs of a bit of wear and tear, both in his general play and his frustration levels (Opposition players just want to get in blues with him.) That's probably playing out to some extent across the squad. It's why games like West Coast will be challenging whatever the repective ladder positions.
