NAB Challenge - Carlton v Hawthorn @ Aurora Stadium

[Raydan]

Very small ground / windy day type of game.

Ground is actually the same size as the MCG, it's bigger but they bring the boundary in further.

1st quarter the boys looked sharp, the defensive set up behind the ball looked like a basketball zone, triangles every where and we were sending 2 players to the contest and tackling hard, Kerridge and Lamb doing a lot of grunt work both on and off the ball. Rowe basically played the Jason Cloe mop up game and got some easy ball thanks to the body work of others further up the field, there was a real team defensive structure, something that I've not see with Carlton before. I looked at at the coaches box, we were just in front and saw that their monitors had ABC2 on them playing Spicks & Specks.

Then the umpires basically started to ruin the game, a 50m that was barely there the free that White gave away for holding 30m out from goal he was held first and the small frees that they paid in Hawthorns favour was embarrassing. The large Carlton crowd I was in were going off their heads.  2nd & 3rd quarter the umpiring was disgraceful. Hawthorn players particularly Gibson were holding the arms of Carlton player going for the mark, if you noticed Kruezer, Jamison and Casboult all failing to get to the contest that was the reason.

Boekhursts run bounce and evade, then deliver was simply beatuiful to watch, he looked really confident out there and did some gut running both ways with no reward.

Graham does nice things but he stays off the play too much, if he's going to be a Mitchell type player then he needs to get around the ball more rather than try and make space.

Kerrdige is a hard man, sure his disposal is not silver service but he busts his ass our there to the point of exhaustion.

Lamb was another who surprised with his forward pressure, I think he was kept off in the second half to give others a longer run.

Whiley did some nice things but gets caught too often but got first use a lot early.

Tutt still scared

Jones runs quick and straight but that's it laid a lovely tackle in the last that bought the crowd to life, but was very poor apart from that.

Phillips meh. A plodder nothing more.

Gorringe played CHF early and took his man away from space which allowed moves made by Casboult and Everitt to have a use, he still went to a dangerous spot on the field but it was far enough away from the others not to allow a third man up. When he went off teh spacing up forward was all wrong and we didn't look like kicking a score.

Daisy looked slow, although did some smart things when he had the ball.

C.Curnow had Gibson who put him into the ground when ever he could, he actually kneed his head into the ground straight in front of goal but of course the umps didn't see it (surprise) and Charlie came up bent over holding his head for the next couple of minutes.

Considering who we had out and the crap umpiring, I'm not discouraged, the effort was there there was a major change to the play and a lesser team may have been beaten by the set the players were trying to perform. Hawthorn with their team boast a starting midfield were simply a class above, but the gap didn't seem as huge as last time we played them, and yes I know it's pre season.