Did we really play that much better than last week?
To me it was similar output, only difference was the opposition were not as good.
I went along to Marvel last night (which I hate), our seats are behind the goals at the Latrobe St on level 2(which I also hate). At times it was hard to see the other end without looking at the big screen but some of the umpiring decisions left me (and those around me) utterly mystified. In the 3rd at our end, the were some not paid to us in the pocket that were insane. If head office think umpiring has never been better, think again kids.
In any case, I felt like at times watching us play last night was like extracting teeth without anaesthetic. Our blokes seem to know how to make the simple very difficult. Best players for me on the night were Florent, Cowan, Carroll, Walsh and Cripps later in the game.
Pittonet was terrible in the ruck against a makeshift ruck brigade and with McGovern did not take a single mark all night, not one. He even got out pointed in hit outs by Lobb.
The young fella in the 30 jumper showed a bit and will only get better, he looked a little lost early but got used to the pace of the game as the night wore on.
To the coaching staff, can we please stop living in the pockets making our shots at goal impossible, attack the farken top of the square from time to time.
A wins a win, happy for the boys to have got the 4 points in a very strange old game.
Jagga Smith was also much better this week. He had 25 possessions and the longer the game went on, the better those possessions were.
Cripps' last quarter: 13 possessions, 5 clearances, 4 score involvements, 3 centre clearances and most of his possessions contested. Huge!
He wasn't bad earlier: he and Bont sort of nullified each other, but when the final term started, Cripps lifted and Bont didn't. Bont had 24 possessions, but he didn't hurt us with them. I guess you could say something similar about Walsh: 25 possessions, 4 clearances, but did hurt them as much as Cripps did.
Our best 4 quarter player was probably Ollie Florent. He was huge! 28 possessions, 11 marks and 4 tackles. And some of the things he did were huge.
Not far behind him was Lachie Cowan. Cowan has been ordinary this year, but this was easily his best game. He marked well, he did some magnificent defensive things. He had 1 tackle, but he did so much more defensively.
Jagga Smith was also much better this week. He had 25 possessions and the longer the game went on, the better those possessions were.
Ollie Hollands gut running was excellent. He made things happen by not giving up and running hard.
Billy Wilson was ordinary early. He turned the ball over and didn't seem to have the confidence or the commitment. But, like a number of others, he really lifted.
We've definitely found one in jack Ison. He had 15 possessions and kicked 1 goal 2, but it was more the way he went about things that impressed.
Harry Dean made one shocking error early, but was very good after that. I was really surprised to see he had only 12 possessions.
still trading cripps???
No surprise that the team's best two halves of the season were built on Crippa's clearance work - especially out of the centre.