Re: 2025 Practice Match vs St. Kilda
Reply #80 –
While it's never good to watch our team lose, I kept telling myself that the objective of the game was to get set minutes of game time into players and to work through scenarios. Of course that doesn't make it any easier to deal with the season ending injury to Jagga Smith in what was really a meaningless game.
The conditions weren't ideal for footy and it's no wonder that some players seemed to be going at half rat power. With those qualifications, I thought that there were some promising signs.
First of all, Adam Cerra was moving like he has full confidence in his hammies and I think we'll see him back to his best this season. The passage of play that ended up with him kicking a goal was notable for his work in chains of possessions and going forward to create the inside 50 target. Our ball use during that passage of play was superb and every player involved made good decisions and executed well.
Jesse Motlop's game was excellent in the circumstances. He made the most of his opportunities, created opportunities for others, was active all over the ground, including a run in the midfield, and, best of all, completely shut his opponent out of the game.
Ollie Hollands seems to have taken to his new role like a duck to water and Matt Carroll showed why he was given a second chance. Nick Haynes looks to have slotted in well and I thought Lewis Young was pretty good. Mitch McGovern defended well but some of his decision making and ball use left a lot to be desired. Hopefully, that was just some cobwebs being blown out.
The last quarter cameos from Lij Hollands and Lucas Camporeale were promising, Skull looked like he was relishing his ruck contests but Harry Lemmey didn't get much of a go. He should have had a shot from just outside the goal square but the umpires were having none of it.
Has anyone mentioned that St Kilda got 28 free kicks to our 12. I wonder if that was one of the scenarios we were practising 
Although we had three genuine ruckmen in the squad, and not all were on the ground at the same time, we still used the two Harrys as second rucks. Clearly', that is going to be a scenario throughout the season. Pitto really struggled against Boyd but I guess Kreuzer hasn't had much of a chance to analyse his ruckwork. I thought that De Koning probably allowed too many ruck contests to become tests of strength when he should have been jumping into him ... bit that's easy for me to say.
Apart from Jagga of course, and Corey Durdin's injury, one of the disappointing aspects of the game was how Jaxon Binns faded after a relatively bright start. He needs to improve if he's going to be a genuine contender for a gig on the wing.
Topic: 2025 Practice Match vs St. Kilda (Read 8385 times)
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