Notes from the game: 2015 Round 10 Melbourne

The Pies dodge a bullet as Cloke kicks a bag.

Team                    Q1      Q2      Q3      Q4      Final 
Melbourne Demons        3.1     9.1     13.4    13.7    85
Collingwood Magpies     7.1     11.3    15.4    17.8    110 

I was going to say "Cloke plays a blinder", but it wasn't a 4-quarter performance. That's not at all Cloke's fault: the way the ball didn't go into the Collingwood F50 starved him of opportunities in the second quarter as Melbourne piled on 6 goals. Nevertheless, Collingwood still managed 4 goals, none to Cloke. But 7 goals straight is a good result for almost any forward; for Cloke it's nigh on unbelievable.

Others also thought he was best on ground: he won the inaugural Neale Daniher Trophy.

Elliott played another fine game adding 3 goals to his 5 + 5 of the previous two games.

And Adam Oxley thrived as a loose man in defence, racking up a team-high 30 disposals and a game-high 14 marks (next best Langdon and Elliott (9), Cloke 8).

The first quarter was the Cloke show as he marked everything in sight (including at CHB) and kicked 4 goals. He could have gone home then with a reasonable game under his belt.

The concern

So what went wrong? Based on form, ladder positions, tipping, and odds, this ought to have been a walk in the park. It was anything but. One bookie had the line at -23.5, so the Pies just bettered that. Maybe I expect too much.

I thought that at times Melbourne were terrific. I think their finish let them down, and, late in the game, they looked tired. Collingwood players also looked like they'd been in a game, but they just maintained a touch more freshness. The Pies kicked the only 2 goals of the last quarter - fittingly to Elliott and Cloke - and the last 4 of the match.

Collingwood kicked 5 in a row in the first quarter; Melbourne repaid the compliment in the second. That's a big concern.

Had Cloke kicked according to form, say 3.4, we would probably have lost.

I know that it's not done to say anything negative about Roos, but perhaps this was an example of coaching failure. Had he ensured that someone manned up on Oxley, it might have been a different story.

Had we been playing a team further up the ladder, this might have been a very satisfactory result. So, are Melbourne much better than their ladder position? Or are we worse than ours? I fear it is the latter - another concern.

And yet it seemed to me that each team played very good footy when it was its turn.

The wrap

I wanted to re-evaluate our wins and losses so far, but it's getting late. Perhaps I'll leave that to a separate post. We have a number of games coming up which will give us a better read on where the team really stands, starting with a team which has almost an identical record to ours this year: GWS; then a bye; then it gets really tough.

Sources, Notes, Footnotes, References

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=6053