Post Match v Cats..all comments here thanks

[Zakal]

You know what guys....this was the first game we actually missed Tarrant.


Tarrant is tailor-made for Geelong-smashing. Fast on a lead, high marking, and loves taking flyers over that dipshit Scarlett.


A few people have alluded to this area of weakness today...lack of a leading forward. Usually Chris Tarrant did this for us, and in future Reid and Rusling will do it, and do it better. But today, i think thats something the match committee missed. (in hindsight of course).

Geelong may be quick, but they dont have any defenders (or players really) with the speed to go with Reid or Rusling on a lead. We could have used the fact Rocca was being mauled to our advantage IF we had a different type of tall forward...but we didnt, so we couldnt.




On another note, i think a lot of people are selling Clokes effort short in favour of Scarlett's. Cosider the following:

Travis was ranked by champion data 2nd BOG (1pt behind Tarks, but 15pts ahead of Chapman in 3rd). Scarlett 7th (behind fellow defenders Lockyer, Shaw and Wakelin)

As CHF, Trav sent it inside 50 almost the same amount of times Scarlett rebounded it (6 vs 7) (Tarks also rebounded 7 btw).

Scarlett had 21 touches, 4 marks and 2 tackles, 7 rebounds from 50
Cloke had 20 touches 10 marks, 2 tackles, 6inside 50s and 4 goals


Lockyer had 28 touches, 11 marks, 2 tackles, 1 goal and 7 rebounds and the most effective kicks on the ground.



While not wanting to fall into the trap of exalting Forwards above Defenders based on position alone, i think Cloke was far more damaging to their scoreboard than Scarlett was to ours, but i think that Tarks may actually have pipped them both. Im inclined to agree with the CD people on this one.

He rebounded just as much as scarlett did, but got much more of the ball, took way more marks, and still managed to kick a goal, and have more effective kicks, and thats not even factoring in how much Rocca's pathetic efforts helped Scarlett.


After some reconsideration (mid-post no less), my BOG goes to Tarks.

[virgomag]

Agreed. To go down by only 16 points against the top of the ladder was a great effort.

Trav busts his guts every week and his kicking today was fantastic !!

Josh was everywhere, Tarks was everywhere, Bryan looks lazy.

Young Goldsack is improving every week and I'm liking Iles more every time I see him.

Geelong man'd up well on us and their pace is amazing.

The way Burnsy and Thomas throw their bodies in with no fear is to be comended.

Good effort boy's, now let's re-group for Bumbers next week !!

[Kingswood]

i will admit, scarlett's great performance had me reminiscing about the times when he was tarrants bitch






i was against the tarrant trade when it happened but after what ive seen this year, we are better off without him.

and im tempted to say that its time for rocca to move on, but im sure he will turn it around and i will shut up haha

[nomadjack]

Thought 16 points flattered us today. While we were never far out of it, we never looked like winning it either. Do not under-estimate how good a side Geelong is. They are hard at it and move the ball exceptionally well. Still, we were far from embarassed.

Three things about todays game:

1) Think the kids were a bit overawed at times and hung back rather than making the play. This made us a bit stagnant and made it hard to get our running game going. Also helps explain why we got murdered in hard ball gets. Not suggesting by this that we were soft, but rather we were standing there thinking what the f@#k should I do rather than grabbing the bloody thing and moving it on. Given the constant pressure from the Cats, this isn't that surprising.

2) Geelong broke tackles far too easily today and it cost us. Once again, put another couple of pre-seasons into players like Harry, Illes, Thomas, Pendles etc and most of the problem is solved.

3) There's still plenty of life in Licca's legs. His gut-running was excellent today, as was Tarks.

As much as I'd like to see some of the old faces in over the next few weeks, I'd almost rather see Cox, Dick and Reid get more game time instead. Felt we really missed their flair, pace and excitement. Move Medhurst on until he's fit, get rid of Bryan and play the kids. Every minutes game time we can get into them is worth gold.

[The Prototype]

Didn't Rocca score a goal? I remember marking that down.

[Kingswood]

oh, when cloke kicked that 50meter boundary goal i thought we were gonna storm home lol

we were never out of it until about 10minutes left in the last

[Magpiefan3]

Didn't Rocca score a goal? I remember marking that down.

Yes he did in the 3rd Qtr.

[The Prototype]

Yes he did in the 3rd Qtr.

Well that would mean he did something;)

[GreekLunatic]

I really hate that Mcburney too. I reckon we should have played Reid instead of Bryan

[perthmagpie]

Geelong were just a bit too good. It was that typical match up of two teams- 1 running hot with a very settled and experienced lineup (2 to 3 years in development ahead of us) against a team playing well and hanging tough but less settled and more inexperienced. We have to get Bucks, Clemo and Rhyce back in soon so we can settle our backline down for at least a few weeks before Sept.

Cloke was outstanding along with Tarks. But too many passengers. No crumbing goals- Didak, Davis, Medhurst and Thomas needed to contribute at 3 goals between them and we got almost nothing. As for Rocca, well he lets us down every second week at least and today he not only wasted opportunities but let his opponent clear the ball so easily he was a big negative both ways. Overall we tried hard but played mediocre compared to what we could have.

Don't underestimate experience and a settled lineup. We are not settled yet and they have been all year. It makes a huge difference especially to a backline.

Too many players down today. But 2nd spot is open for anyone who can string another 5 or 6 wins together. We can do it but if we do remains to be seen. For this year we must finish high enough to get a first home final.

[AGE]

worst game all year. even being within a 6-10 points all game, we were just flat all over, and never really looked liked winning it. but as bad as we were, we didn't get flogged which is a good sign.

[surfer1]

sorry about that pressed the wrong button.

We need

1.Back up ruckman..

2.I know O'Bree has been good but compare his passes to that of Lockyer. We cannot go forward with O'BREE.

3.Same goes for Wakes, ok good today and last few weeks but comare to Scarlett.

Not to may adjustments but the ones we need are vital to go the nest step.

[TheJonesBoy]

This might be abit of the lad from Bendigo "bias" here, but while I thought Pendles did some good things and was one of our better contributers....by gee, a couple of moments in todays game I thought that Selwood reminds me of a younger version of Scotty Burns in his second and third afforts, putting his head over the pill etc. Very gutsy, and I can see why touted as future AFL captain.

That being said, both lads performances today wouldn't have made those voting on the Rising Star's decision any easier. Lot of footy left mind you...

Off on a tangent slightly, but can anyone tell me how Marty Clarke can learn to kick a footy so well in the space of 12 months, yet a bloke who has probably played the game since he was 8 years old (O'Bree) still cannot kick a bloody drop punt. And I dont mean when under pressure......I shudder whenever he gets the ball, which unfortunately of late has been quite often. Cheesy seems to have perfected the mongrel/sidespinning/fingerbreaking/inverted floater, which he seems to kick on an alarmingly common rate. He does some good things, but Id take 5 Buckley kicks over 25 from O'bree anyday!

All in all though, we were always in striking distance to the best side in the comp, and just lacked that little bit of pace (R.Shaw) and abit of finesse and class going forward/rebounding out of D50 (Bucks/Clement)

I think our best is yet to come.

Oh, and hats off to Trav Cloke, just sensational and already a star.....I hope Anthony took notes, because he did stuff all else all day. Probably played better last week.

[Tannin]

The weird thing about O'Bree's kicking, Jonesboy, is that he can nail a damn good goal from around the 50 when he puts his mind to it. There have been a few this year but the one I remember best, kicked off a step and under pressure from hard on the the left-hand boundary, was an absolute corker. Against Essendon, was it? Can't remember now.

[eddiesmith]

We lost it in the first qtr, came out firing in the first 5 minutes then suddenly Geelong had double teams in our forward line with a loose man whilst out loose man was up on the wing, getting his arse kicked and leaving Geelong a wide open forward line, it basically stayed the same difference all day

But that summed up our day, we played stupid, lazy, uncommitted football, Geelong cruised to the win, didnt have to play well at all, just ran around on their own all day and made sure there was no room for our forwards, of course helped by the fact that one of our forwards decided he couldnt be bothered putting in an effort today

But really Mick must sit them down and tell any forward that ever passes the ball when within range to a team mate who has 2 opponents on him again will be dropped, that was unforgiveable

Trav and Locks were outstanding yet again, other than that not much positives to come out of it