VFL Rd 14: Northern Blues vs Geelong

[LP]

There is one point that is a bit left field I would like to make about the game. In a lot of ways, there is more in yesterday's game for Carlton than Geelong. While Geelong won by 11 goals, their problems relate to their lack of run out of defence. They won so easily because of their mid-field dominance and big forwards, and they were too strong in close and ran too hard for the smaller and younger Northern Blues players. Their problem is Mackie, Enright and Bartels down back, all are very good to champion players. There was nothing in Geelong seconds to deal with this problems, so they are going to have to trade the likes of Vardy, Stanley and others to get half back flankers. At least with Carlton we have the likes of Curnow, McKay, Byrne Cunningham ahe can make a difference, while Buckley, Jaksch, Jones, Korcheck, Graham and Gowers could make a difference. That is one positive to take from the game.

It's not really left field, it's accurate and obvious.

I've been saying the same thing about Hawthorn for two or three years. Again this round all their best players were over 30yrs. There are even Dawks insiders I know who have been saying the same thing for a couple of years now. When clubs like Geelong and Hawthorn get sentimental and extend the contracts of those old blokes it is every bit as damaging for their long term future as it was Carlton re-signing someone like Whitnall or Buckley Snr when time had obviously started to pass them by. Already we see that they rely on those players to deliver wins, yet they struggle to perform week after week.

Watch the Dawks manage Hodge through the remainder of the season so they can have him smash opponents in a final. Opposition clubs need to start hurting and targeting the Dawks and Geelongs supplemental players. The old blokes will break down when their workload increases if the young guys are not around to give them a chop out. I watched the Dawks Thursday night and Hodge could not keep up with play by the end of the game, but he had already done the damage early. If Port had targeted two or three of the Dawks support players they would have run over the Dawks in the end, in much the same way that Sydney made the Cats look old and slow. The mistake Port made was trying to take it up to Hodge, Mitchell and Lewis, all Port really did was benefit the team the Dawks play next week.

The youth direction we go in at the NBs is the right direction as long as the player development coaches are up to scratch, in the past our development coaches have been D Grade at best.