Post Game Pondering: AFL 2020 Rd 9: Carlton vs Hawthorn

[LP]

One area that really sticks out is the uncontested game. When you see such a large discrepancy between the two teams, the first two things I think of are structure and work rate. if they're taking too many uncontested marks and the ball is moving forward, it's too easy to gain territory, and if we lose the ground ball uncontested, it's too many easy chains of possession to break away from congestion. That's where they really smashed us IMO. The contested game was a lot more even, although they were still slightly ahead. After 1/4 time, they were simply hungrier and prepared to work harder in my view.

Personally, I fell it's been that way all season, I said as much in the pre-game thread. I think it was just a matter of time before a better ball using team exposed it, when we loose the football we look out of the contests. It's just that when we can maintain enough football it is a hidden defect, last night they dominated possession and once they got it outside we couldn't get it back.