06-21-2023, 06:51 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-21-2023, 06:53 AM by ElwoodBlues1.)
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(06-21-2023, 04:33 AM)DJC link Wrote:Gold Coast have had three wins away (one over Richmond) and three at home this season, including two wins over teams in the eight. What happened in previous seasons is irrelevant.Richmond are not the Richmond of old, and one of those wins was in the NT...kinda of like home given it was a sweltering day.
Gold Coast are ranked third for clearances (we're 10th), third for stoppage clearances (we're 8th), and 12th for centre clerarances (we're 17th). Rowell is ranked third for clearances, Anderson is 8th, Miller is 11th and Witts is 38th. Our best are Cripps (12th) and Cerra (53rd). Despite that, we won the clearances 45 to 33, and set the world record for scores from centre clearances. I don't think Miller's absence had much to do with our dominance. Double teaming Witts with Pitto and De Koning was an important factor but so was the manic desire to move the ball forward.
We now have a backline with run and defensive grunt, although I'm not sure that we can use Kemp against the power forwards (his games last season were all against much bigger opponents). Martin adds another dimension to our forward line and, at the very least, draws a decent defender as well as improving our defensive pressure inside our forward 50. Cuningham and Fogarty give us more effort and impact than the blokes who were playing earlier in the season. In other words, Vossy is now fielding a team that is more capable of executing his gameplan.
While the first quarter was a bit of an arm wrestle, it was inevitable that we'd break the shackles and get reward for effort. That in itself became more of a factor as the game went on.
Of course, that all means nothing if we can't string more wins together against top eight teams in the second half of the season.
They have an away record of 18% wins only...that's the facts, if you want more proof of how crap they are away from home we actually started favourites and that's even with our horrible form.
Martin has had 16 possessions in two weeks and kicked one goal.....going to take a bit more than that to convince me he has any value and the danger is a nitwit like Austin will give him another contract same goes for Boyd who everyone suddenly has fallen in love with on the basis of what I don't know.
I seem to remember everyone said we were premiership bound after beating the WAFL eagles and we know what happened there after. A bit of perspective and jury still out on both players, coach and game plan.
We should beat the baby Hawks without Sicily but I'm more interested in how we shape up vs Freo and Port after that and how some of these new champs in Martin, Boyd, Fogarty, Kemp, Dow etc hold up..