Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Final Melbourne Demons 1.3 2.4 3.6 3.10 28 Collingwood Magpies 1.2 3.7 5.10 8.13 61
Collingwood underachieved; Melbourne defended well.
How well you think we did might depend on how you see these games. If all you are looking for is a win, then you got what you wanted. If you see games against lesser teams as an opportunity to run our players into form and practice team systems, then this was a miserable flop.
It was a dreary game. It should come as no surprise to my reader that the highlight of the afternoon was feeding fruit to the tiny person to the left of me.
Personally, I don't think there is much to be gleaned from the game outside of the above. However, for the masochists, I will provide more.
Impressions from the game
Q1 Witts: first ruck.
2 minutes in. Langdon misses target. Beans misses target.
4m. Grundy: great mark; misses gettable goal. Keeffe does some good things.
5m. Hard to say: I think Cloke did not give a good lead to Young; marked by his opponent.
6m. Frost good on Dawes. Young's kick short of Pendles.
7m. Dees: composure in defence.
9m. Ds: precise kicks - except into F50. Elliott: lazy kick from full back.
Nathan Jones dominating.
11m. Young: well-weighted kick out of defence. Seedsman's kick is short.
12m. Langdon: nice back step; then kicks to 3 Ds around Blair.
13m. Pendles: excellent pass to Fas. Travis gives away a stupid free, stopping the Pies inside F50.
14m. Ds: hesitant or patient? Finding space and hitting targets. Langdon hits target by hand - twice.
16m. Unfair free against Ds for deliberate OOB.
17m. Swan and Toovey team well, back of the wing resulting in an I50. Swan receives from P's ruck work (3rd man) and passes; Cloke caught behind.
18m. Pies stream out of defence towards vacant F50. P's shot from 75 is ill-advised; he had an outboard pass.
Pies never came to grips with the Ds' game plan of 2 or 3 behind the ball.
Q2 1m. Young's 20m handball falls 3m short.
2m. Keeffe: accurate pass to Young whose kick could not be better placed for Howe's specky over Fas.
5m. Keeffe: another accurate pass to Young whose kick falls short of Thomas.
10m. Blair from pocket kicks to Macaffer 40 out; mark and goal - despite the guy behind me screaming a stream of abuse at Blair from the moment the ball hit his foot.
12m. Young into F50. Great mark by Grundy; misses gettable goal (GG).
13m. Grundy again, 50m out; shot falls short, punched through.
14m. Grundy again, handpass, another; Dwyer misses GG.
Collingwood dominating time in forward half, but not on the scoreboard.
17m. "Elliot - a little bullet to Blair," BT.
18m. JT roves, runs, passes to Fasolo who delivers a beautifully weighted kick over his opponent to Cloke's advantage 35m out; mark and goal.
3.7 to Pies at half time is below par for Collingwood and a tick to the Ds.
Q3 2m. JT sprays a pass OOF.
4m. Cloke bombs to FF where Goldsack is outnumbered; Dunn marks unopposed.
5m. A beautiful passage: Dwyer kicks from the back pocket, ball spills, Young pounces, handpass to Blair to the running H who breaks Nathan Jones's tackle, runs, bounces, kicks from the mid-line; mark to Goldsack; goal.
6m. Witts takes a good grab on the wing, but his kick into the centre is ill-advised.
9m. As happened most of the day, the Ds bomb from outside 50, Keeffe marks unopposed, kicks to H to Marley (?) who finds Seedsman metres in the clear on the outer wing. Two bounces,short kick to Caf, gets it back, runs inside 50, shoots - no fairy-tale finish; behind.
9m. Elliott intercepts, runs to wing and bombs to Swan surrounded by 3 Ds.
13m. Frost: outstanding 1-on-1 mark against Dawes.
13m. Grundy: nice pick-up, spin, little give to JT whose kick to Dwyer is just wide. Dwyer picks up and rushes his pass to the leading Swan. The ball falls short and the moment is lost; the Ds run the ball out of defence.
14m. Dom Tyson tries to do too much (in violation of the D game plan). Cloke's free kick into F50 does Goldsack no favours because Dunn (loose) reads the kick better.
15m. A D turnover sees H kick to Goldsack on his own 35m out. A D rushes to defend, but Goldsack drops what he should have taken despite getting two hands to the ball and no contact from the opponent. Good d by the Ds.
15m. After regaining possession, the Pies pass it around. Fas pulls the trigger from 48m - too soon; the ball is marked by Dunn 2m out. More poise and patience required.
19m. After relatively good play, Elliott misses a set shot from 40. He gets two more opportunities from the kick back, which he marks. Instead of taking the shot, he passes 5m to P. He gets it back, shoots and misses - OOF.
20m. But Beams pounces on a spilt mark - and goals.
3QT. 24-40.
Q4. Ds had several chances to score but managed a goalless last quarter.
Beams, as well as two goals, delivers a perfect pass onto the chest of Cloke 30m out.
18m. Young delivers a deft pass to Goldsack 25m out. G misses a regulation goal.
19m. Beams gets another half chance but his left-foot snap from the pocket 30m out misses.
Special mention
Keeffe took most of the kick-ins and performed well, both in that role and as a defender. We can consider his bad game a few weeks ago a temporary set-back. He and Frost combined well.
Witts had a bigger role in the ruck and did ok without really starring.
Goldsack is not an accumulator, but he seems to present often.
Despite being mainly used as a tagger, Macaffer manages to be influential both as a negator and as a creator.
The wrap
A minor percentage-booster best forgotten.
Sources:
Chanel 7
http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/tg-collingwood-magpies
Dear Mr TFB
ReplyDeleteYes, this week I am in full agreement with you. The word that comes to my mind is ‘desultory’ but ‘dreary’ works just as well.
What we see is
• We gave away only 5 free kicks. The coaching staff will be very happy with that. Remember that Grundy can beat that number by himself on a good day.
• Were our defenders that good? Possibly. Seedsman is unrecognizable from last year – short hair, bulked up, running hard – yet still not exact in disposal. Frosty beating Dawes (who I think is a better forward now than Cloke is). Keeffe playing tall and small (whatever that means) and Young being untroubled by any rough play in his vicinity.
• The Dees are obviously having a ‘makeover’. That short passing to the next player in a chain who is leading directly towards the player kicking is very reminiscent of Hawthorn. They just need the pacy flankers and another dominant forward and they will mix it with the big boys. They should go all out for Fyffe and Cameron for next year.
• What happened to our star smalls?
• I hate it when we get the ball in the back half, stream forward through the centre and then find – nothing! No-one has dropped back into the goal square, no-one has the foresight to think what would happen should my centre man get clear with ball. If you have 18 of your players following the ball, what difference is there in having 17 on the ball and one permanently stationed 20 meters from the goal line and ready to swoop?
• If the ball is on the outer flank in the back half, interchange a player so that the player coming on can run directly to the goal square. But do something.
• I detest the MCG and its intrusive scoreboard and audio. I didn’t pay my membership to be assaulted both visually and auditory. I have invested several hundred dollars in noise cancelling headphones and they are helping.
• Add the cost of footy for a family to the intrusiveness of the ground and the dreary play and the strange start times of the games and it is no wonder that crowd attendances are falling.
Floreat Pica
M
Michael,
ReplyDeleteYou are a hoot! Your comment about Grundy is spot on!
It's like you were with us at the game. I must have said exactly the same thing about leaving at least one player inside F50. If they have 3 players behind the ball, we still outnumber them further up the field. But streaming forward, we must play smart. The lead needs to be quick. Goldsack did it at least once.
The long run into F50 used to be a Woewodin specialty. If memory serves, in his younger days. Swanny used to do it also. Sadly, Swanny has not been his usual self this year.
I'd like to help you with the other stuff but I can't hear you above the racket. Anyway, you left out the wisdom of the ferals.