10-01-2023, 09:43 AM
Bit late to the party, but been on an extended road trip/holiday since last Thursday evening to see this match.
Haven't read through all of this, so apologies if this has been said by others or if others feel the opposite.
1. I thought we lost it at the selection table.
a) Marchbank over Kemp was the wrong call. Play them both if you have too, but Marchbank can not emulate Kemps marking ability...and i think we missed a lot of that down back.
Kemps ability to make a ball, be it an intercept, a contested mark or even just a switch across the ground, is reliable and its ability to kill a contest cannot be underestimated. Marchbank, who i am a fan of, didn't play terribly, but he wasn't able to kill a contest in the same way. Sure a good spoil or two, but that doesn't kill the contest, it just prolongs the contest to a ground ball. A definitive mark kills the contest.
b) Too many talls. 2 rucks and 2 key forwards meant we didn't have the same amount of run that got us up and going and started the streak. All 4 of those guys had their moments, but largely they were all middle of the road players on the day who we needed more from.
2. Following on from the above, when the ball hit the deck, they were just better. They were able to get to the ball, make the extra handball, get to the outside and clear the ball away or snap at goal. We were usually a step behind. Having more smalls with pace (Owies, Cuningham) is what made the difference mid year, and what hurt us when we didn't have them in the prelim.
Team balance.
3. You don't win too many games by scoring just 1 goal in almost 90 minutes of football. From late in the 1st to almost halfway through the last, we managed just 1 goal. The fact we got as close as we did was largely down to the start of the game, which was brilliant, but was never going to be enough.
All that aside....
Very proud of the year from our boys.....and our club as a whole. Certainly not perfect, plenty to improve upon, but we got more right this year, than any other year this century.
Also very proud of our supporter base. The 2 finals in Melbourne and even the final in Brisbane, we were loud and the equal of the opposition (at worst) despite being the away side in 2 of them. The Gabba MC kept pumping up the crowd with Brisbanes '19th man' (a ripoff from overseas, most notably the NFLs Seattle Seahawks 12th man) and while it got the crowd going, we equalled the noise which is something that actually shocked the locals - i doubt they'd ever heard that before.
All in all a good experience for myself, the club and the playing group.
Haven't read through all of this, so apologies if this has been said by others or if others feel the opposite.
1. I thought we lost it at the selection table.
a) Marchbank over Kemp was the wrong call. Play them both if you have too, but Marchbank can not emulate Kemps marking ability...and i think we missed a lot of that down back.
Kemps ability to make a ball, be it an intercept, a contested mark or even just a switch across the ground, is reliable and its ability to kill a contest cannot be underestimated. Marchbank, who i am a fan of, didn't play terribly, but he wasn't able to kill a contest in the same way. Sure a good spoil or two, but that doesn't kill the contest, it just prolongs the contest to a ground ball. A definitive mark kills the contest.
b) Too many talls. 2 rucks and 2 key forwards meant we didn't have the same amount of run that got us up and going and started the streak. All 4 of those guys had their moments, but largely they were all middle of the road players on the day who we needed more from.
2. Following on from the above, when the ball hit the deck, they were just better. They were able to get to the ball, make the extra handball, get to the outside and clear the ball away or snap at goal. We were usually a step behind. Having more smalls with pace (Owies, Cuningham) is what made the difference mid year, and what hurt us when we didn't have them in the prelim.
Team balance.
3. You don't win too many games by scoring just 1 goal in almost 90 minutes of football. From late in the 1st to almost halfway through the last, we managed just 1 goal. The fact we got as close as we did was largely down to the start of the game, which was brilliant, but was never going to be enough.
All that aside....
Very proud of the year from our boys.....and our club as a whole. Certainly not perfect, plenty to improve upon, but we got more right this year, than any other year this century.
Also very proud of our supporter base. The 2 finals in Melbourne and even the final in Brisbane, we were loud and the equal of the opposition (at worst) despite being the away side in 2 of them. The Gabba MC kept pumping up the crowd with Brisbanes '19th man' (a ripoff from overseas, most notably the NFLs Seattle Seahawks 12th man) and while it got the crowd going, we equalled the noise which is something that actually shocked the locals - i doubt they'd ever heard that before.
All in all a good experience for myself, the club and the playing group.