Post Match v St Blunda...all comments here thanks

[perthmagpie]

Well it was great to see the old intensity back. Quite a few players seemed to be hell bent on making an impression on the selection committee. All in all a very exciting, scrappy win that tended to show the hunger may be back. I thought Thomas got better and better as the game went on. Our kicking skills were poor as per usual. Lets hope the skills improve as the next few weeks go by.

So now we are off to probably play Freo at Subi next sunday night at 7.10pm EST. A win and we would be back to face perhaps Geelong at TD.

[Proud Pies]

i've logged the pies chat from this afternoon's game. if anyone wants it posted on here and wants to read it, let me know, otherwise, i might just send it to you. It's not edited.

offer withdrawn

[bazdaddy]

Man I got excited at that. Looked much better than last year, still improvement to do, the clokes try and fail, our skills need working on and forward line needs some working out, besides we were much tougher harder and our tackling was superb. GO PIES.

[Johnson#26]

What a win. NAB Cup or no NAB Cup - I'm bloody happy, and a win is a win. As Fraser said on 3AW post match - it is a platform on which to build our season.

Well played all up - a much needed victory.

Match review, and more 'indepth' comments up shortly.

[raymond35]

Don't know why anyones questioning Thomas, pretty good first up game.

In fact the whole team played well, even Jason only stuffed up about 4 times .

[Adz]

That sucks we have to travel to WA next week.

[spoljar]

Its great to get a win under our belts. And its great to do it without the likes of Buckley, Burns, Wakelin and Clement.
However I am glad that we were able to do it without those four. At the end of the day, if we have to rely so heavily on three veterans who are possibly only a couple years away from retirement to win a game, we are in serious trouble as a club. But to do it with some exciting young talent coming through the ranks, goes down well for this season and beyond!

It was great to see the pressure and tackling back. At the end of the day, we are by no means the most skillful side in the comp and we will win more games by winningh ugly (similar to the swans) That is what got us to two Grand Finals. Watching the 02 & 03 seasons, our skills were ordinary even then however the tackling and endeavour were second to none during that period and there were always players willing to mop up and back up their team mates! I think we are heading back in that direction!

[Dale61]

Yep, WA next week to play the Dockers.

[Proud Pies]

i've logged the pies chat from this afternoon's game. if anyone wants it posted on here and wants to read it, let me know, otherwise, i might just send it to you. It's not edited.

Just a warning.. I was doing the commentary.

you did good Tess

[vinnie_vegas69]

Dale Thomas..... well, the less said the better, but should be better for the experience.

Say what?!?

Did you see his tackling and sheparding? It was beautiful for a player getting his first sniff of any sort of AFL action.

And lets not go saying that we weren't impressed by some of his efforts. His work that first time he touched the ball was nothing short of spectacular, in terms of showing off his quickness of both mind and foot.

I noticed the little things about his game too, as I was watching him closely - Late in the game when Tarrant ran down Goddard, he was chasing him, and then backed off when he saw Tarrant charging.

If he had have pressured harder, Goddard may have gotten rid of the ball quicker, and we never would have caused the turnover.

He assessed the most sensible option in a split second and he took it.

As for another first round draft pick, I thought some of Egan's work was ELECTRIC, but that he really needs to improve his kicking for goal.

However, his field kicking was nothing short of fantastic, some of his body on body work was a 1000% improvement from last year, and his evasiveness looked all class.

And one thing I've noticed about him, that I don't think I've ever really noticed in a young player before, is that his handpassing is really tremendous. He fires off quick, accurate rocket handpasses, which can be a really handy skill.

Obviously, I could say a lot more about other players, but most of my thoughts have been covered, and these are some of my more obscure observations.

One last thing though - Travis Cloke's work late in the 4th and in overtime was nothing short of breathtaking. Took strong grabs and crashed packs like a superstar.

[Lone Ranger]

Lets look at the game optimistically ... a lot of poor decisions and skill areas which can be expected this early in the season. Without the errors we would have comfortably won. Also had a lot of experience out which would have helped us win by even more.

If you look pessimistically ... a lot of poor decisions and skills errors. Those sorts of errors would result in us getting flogged in a real game.

Only NAB Cup but I'll stick with the optimistic opinion at this stage. A few more games under the belt to blow the cobwebs out and the decision/skills errors will go. Looks like a promising season.

[punkologist]

Great win, and very exciting at the end.

Jason Cloke was best on ground IMO. Other good players were O'bree, Licca, Holland, Travis Cloke. Thomas had a great first up appearance in the black and white, should be better the more experience he has.

We won because we were hard at the ball and tackled relentlessly. I also noticed we were running forward in packs at some stages and getting plenty of drive from the backline, very encouraging.

Lonie spent most of the game in the foreward line too and I thought he had one of his better games for the last few years (nice 9 pointer in the first quarter too)

[GreekLunatic]

i thought thomas for a first game did well also egan did some great things but too me it seems he isnt that hard also one thing i noticed obree hasnt improved his kicking also rocca will be good for the run

[maggies2003]

Hmmmm.. Dale Thomas.. Interesting first up game.. not going to say too much now, as i wont criticise from his first game, especially in pre season, he seems likely to be a handy player for us in the future, showed good signs, although i think its fair to say that unfortunately he isnt a "freak".. which would have been nice to have..

[Dr Alf Andrews]

Well it's nice to win ... but just because we go all right in the One Day games doesn't mean we'll be any good in the Tests.

Seriously, what ARE they doing to our game. It was really confusing to watch that match with all the "experimental" rules. The most stupid rule of all is the one where it's "play on" if you hit the post. I agree with the no-mark when you pass the ball backwards, and the 30-second time limit on set shots is long overdue. But all this experiementation is bullshit. Either introduce the rule or sod it. Don't have a completely different set of rules for pre-season matches. It's like we were watching a different game today, barely recognisable as Australian Rules football.

As for the game ... well, I was in the process of walking out in disgust as the Gug lined up for that bullshit free-kick after the siren. I couldn't believe the armchair ride those skunks got ... all friggen day.

I fully expected our blokes to drop their bundle after that ... especially when the Blunda got the first goal of extra time ... but they showed some spirit, as they had done for most of the game.

Davis and Didak both had great games, I reckon, but alas, how many times in the past have these guys been February and March champions, only to become April Fools.

Great to see Ooh-Ahh Josh Frasaaaaar get into the action. Most encouraging ... but did he REALLY have to kick that winning goal over his head like that? I thought he marked the ball ... Couldn't he have just gone back and kicked it like a normal human being? He could have run another 30 seconds off the clock in the process.

A couple of those newcomers looked all right to my somewhat untrained eye ... Number 13, Thomas, went all right and I liked the number 19, Davies.

But hey ... what would I know? I'm a South Australian.

I see the "excitement machine" Egan still can't kick. Honestly ... I can see why you people reckon he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. He DOES do some pretty clever things ... but the freaking game is called "FOOTball" and the guy just can't kick

I'll go easy on the Clokes this week ... even the much maligned Cameron did some nice things today.

Tarrant was his usual lackadaisical self ... don't read too much into that comment. I just wanted to say "lackadaisical"

In case all this is starting to sound a bit too positive coming from the likes of me, I'd better say something about Anthony Friggen Rocca. What an absolute SHOCCA ... Fair dinkum. That was a woeful performance even by HIS standards. But then, he has missed a lot of football. So maybe even HE can be forgiven ...

... but only because we won and I'm in a good mood