Devington
Brownlow Medallist
- Jun 4, 2013
- 18,531
- 49,125
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
I'm slightly mixed on The Stewart Question. When Plan A was going great to start with, he was relatively a non factor. When things changed and Plan A was no longer being executed well he was a very big factor. Put it another way, his good performance was more a symptom of Plan A not working, rather than a cause.
Should we have tried to stem the bleeding and blanket him, mixed more things up and tried alternate plans (that don't really exist yet), or kept plugging away with changes solely focused on trying to get Plan A working again?
At this stage of our development, considering changing what Plan A was after the bye is what led to our drastic improvement, trying to find ways to get it working again is probably the right call. But **** me, in all too many games (for years and years and years) we consistently let an opposition player have an utter blinder and don't often make serious attempts to curb them directly, so I understand (and also experience!) the visceral reactions to it.
What went wrong on our end and why we couldn't adjust enough to regain our flair is more worrying. Well. Kind of. Less worrying and more just frustrating I guess? We've got a weak underbelly where the players deflate as much as fans do at a single horrific moment (and our on field leaders and veterans aren't able to rally the troops quickly), the mid/forward connection is dogshit, and just generally we have too many players that are (at best) inconstant with their disposal.
At this stage I'm now judging us more for how we play against teams near us, rather than an ageless Geelong that got over their start-of-season funk. On that note, Clarko has a bloody big week ahead of him!
Should we have tried to stem the bleeding and blanket him, mixed more things up and tried alternate plans (that don't really exist yet), or kept plugging away with changes solely focused on trying to get Plan A working again?
At this stage of our development, considering changing what Plan A was after the bye is what led to our drastic improvement, trying to find ways to get it working again is probably the right call. But **** me, in all too many games (for years and years and years) we consistently let an opposition player have an utter blinder and don't often make serious attempts to curb them directly, so I understand (and also experience!) the visceral reactions to it.
What went wrong on our end and why we couldn't adjust enough to regain our flair is more worrying. Well. Kind of. Less worrying and more just frustrating I guess? We've got a weak underbelly where the players deflate as much as fans do at a single horrific moment (and our on field leaders and veterans aren't able to rally the troops quickly), the mid/forward connection is dogshit, and just generally we have too many players that are (at best) inconstant with their disposal.
At this stage I'm now judging us more for how we play against teams near us, rather than an ageless Geelong that got over their start-of-season funk. On that note, Clarko has a bloody big week ahead of him!
