Re: 2025 Practice Match vs GWS in Canberra
Reply #87 –
It was only a practice match and GWS was missing Green, Briggs and Riccardi (who would have stretched our defence) but that was a promising performance.
Sammy Hamill said that we went in to the game with nine players yet to play 50 games and most of those nine were among our best players. I was expecting that Lucas Camporeale would take a while to be able to match it at AFL level but his was an outstanding performance and he's got to be in contention for Round 1. Cooper Lord didn't do his chances any harm either. Motlop wasn't anywhere near as good as he was last week but he still worked hard, laid some tackles and got a couple of clearances when he had a run in the midfield. Kempy showed that he can be a handful for conventional KPDs and I'd like to see him cement a spot in our forward set up. Ollie was good again and Lij did OK from limited game time. Cowan was very good and Carroll did his job. Frank the Tank was quiet but worked hard defensively and I think that's what his role was.
It was if the natural order of things had been restored watching Jack Silvagni in the backline. Sammy mentioned SOS's advice to his fellow defenders back in the day; "Don't worry about the ball, just hit their arms!" Things won't be quite as simple for Jack but I think he showed a lot as a key defender and already works well with Weiters.
Hopefully, Blake Acres has used up his quota of OOFs for 2025. The shots he missed on the run were probably excusable but the set shot from 30 metres out