Are you in the greatest tipping comp in Australia or what? I'm in 23 (21 online) lots of tips and only one is the leader over 70! (71) at my local, the Waterloo.
Are you in the greatest tipping comp in Australia or what? I'm in 23 (21 online) lots of tips and only one is the leader over 70! (71) at my local, the Waterloo.
Now I'm not as angry/disappointed as I was on Sunday morning ( spent most of the beautiful day out on Gulf St Vincent fishing with mixed success ) I'll have a crack at a review.
Obviously the most disappointing part of the match was the opening stanza. It looked, for all intents and purposes, that the old "Didn't come to play" was on show. Port were shell shocked by the Bombers start and we were not only second to the ball but appeared to do little to swing the momentum.
I know it's not Alberton Oval, I know it's the heavily sanitized AFL and I know it's not 1985, but a bit of a dust up at the 15 minute mark might not have been out of order. Something to change the flow of play. Cough up the $1500 each for some wrestling to at least try and halt some momentum.
In the end it was a dirty night for several players who Port Adelaide have grown accustomed to relying on. Hombsch had his worst AFL outing, Ebert struggled to get into the contest and Boak looked all a wash as he was played as a high half forward and didn't have any impact on the game when we were screaming for a leader to stand up. 3 kicks for Boak on the night.
Wines made his presence felt as always, Trengove looked to be capable of providing a link from back to front half and Jonas was doing his best with heavy boots on in a quick sand pit down in defence.
Ryder was winning the ball in the air, the inside mids were not matching that efficiency at ground level though. This made for quick getaways for Essendon from the contest and our back half lost any shape once the fleet of small Bombers went into their running patterns.
Most telling was the midfields inability to run both ways. We managed to halt the Bombers for a spell late in the first and early in the second, we almost had momentum, but when we got the ball forward through the maligned Westhoff and Trengove we simply didn't lock it in anywhere near as well as we have been this year. It came out faster than it went in and by then our press was still on the move from deep in defence. The half backs, Pittard, DBJ, Hartlett and Broadbent were rarely sighted near or forward of centre clogging space to slow the Bombers down.
Polec's "chase" on Zaharakis would, for mine, be reason to send him back to the SANFL, perhaps some reprieve as he's been one of our more creative players this year, Hartlett's night, his non-effort on the A M-T on the boundary is enough to go back to the SANFL for mine and SPP looks like a first year player ready for a week off. Just one. Toumpas. Jimmy Toumpas. Mrs Boon decides what she wants to wear out quicker than Toumpas decides where to handball. It's a pity, he actually has polished skills, he just takes U16 time to execute them when he's at AFL level.
In - Houston, Atley, Young. Out - Toumpas, Hartlett, SPP ( One week "managed" )
No time to panic and start all over again, every side has been ambushed this year and had a stinker, including Adelaide and GWS. Time to come home and beat up on Brisbane, start building towards a decent scalp after that.
Reckon that's all pretty spot on Booney. Watched the game with mates at the Port club, and there was some interesting commentary to say the least. Im sure he's not on his Pat Malone, but Hartlett most definitely must be dropped after several displays of little to no effort.
Hopefully Ken is also getting stuck into Gray and Wingard for their theatrics - The one where Gray was too busy complaining to chase the ball or opponent near his own goal was plain BS. They are star players, but are costing themselves legitimate freekicks with the antics they regularly put on display, not to mention letting their teammates down.
Lightning McQueen wrote:Did Port not have a banner?
they didnt have it up and ready when the players were in the race. eventually got it up though
Im sure plenty of Crows fans have this same problem...
According to social media it's a problem for games v Essendon as they are a bit slow leaving the ground from their on field warm up and security won't let the cheer squads enter the playing field until both teams are inside their changerooms again.