Essendon & St. Kilda NAB Cup *spoiler alert*

[Haggis McHaggis]

no system..worrying

Could well come down to the lack of experience playing together. Also got the impression some of the lads definitely were trying to play for a spot in rd1, rather than the team tonight, and it ultimately breaks down any attempt at structure/system.

 

[Bucking Beads]

WTF happened??? I know it is only NAB cup but I was hoping for a better showing.

 

[Grimreepah]

This poster is a gun

Thanks mate. Bob goes alright too.

 

[Cousin Jed]

Ouch. Looks like being in Sydney means I didn't miss much

 

[MacMum]

The jumper looks fantastic...love it!

(nothing else to write about really)

 

[PTizzle]

WTF happened??? I know it is only NAB cup but I was hoping for a better showing.

Look at the team we sent out there. Then look at Essendon (missing maybe 4 of their best 22, probably 3) and St Kilda (about the same) and it all makes sense. We had 7 guys who had never played AFL out there tonight.

I'm not too worried really, when has the pre-season ever mattered? Got to see the young kids in action and give them a taste of the crowd and pressure. I reckon Polec will be up close to Round 1 with his showing tonight, Beams would have to be in contention too (not amazing but hard working and racked it up a bit). Lets just wait til the season actually starts.

The conundrum is what to do with Clark this year and a lot of that hinges on Fevola. He was kinda all over the ground tonight, but it was good seeing him captain the first game. But that shows how much experience we had out there.

Hawksley is really a bit useless though .

 

[Bucking Beads]

Not worried just getting smashed isn't cool ever. Hope the kids learnt a thing or two.

 

[CarloLion]

Some very classy moments amidst the carnage tonight folks.

Some Pro's:

An amazing bit of brilliance from Ryan Lester in the middle, evading a couple of players and dishing it off nicely, he looks to be a promising one

Banfield!! Easily our best! That is all.

Rockliff showed his smarts again, was one of our best.

Some Con's:

Hawksley showed some great courage going back with the flight of the ball but butchered a lot of the ball...

A lot of critical errors in defence by Acorn, he has a lot of work to do...

 

[PTizzle]

^Acorn isn't really a defender, from memory.

Also think Retzlaff, Polec and Green deserve a mention. Retzlaff was good as a high forward in the first game, Polec was great in the first and solid in the second and Green showed some crazy dash in the second.

Hawksley is a bit of a Troy Selwood scenario I think, sadly. Courageous, strong, goes hard at it, but just isn't up to scratch to have a career.

 

[Grimreepah]

I think we are all wanting the younger players to overtake some of the incumbents in our best 22, but I tonight showed that this will not be an immediate process and that some patience will be required.

 

[NoelMugavin]

I cant agree about Hawksly's courage ...more so a stoopid footballer...no point showing courage if youre going to blunder...and lets face it he blunders more times than not...and costs us goals!!!

Ive had it with him!!! I cant beleive the faith shown in him by the Lions

 

[CarloLion]

Yep, your right about Green, not a bad kick of the footy either

 

[whatboutbob]

I think we are all wanting the younger players to overtake some of the incumbents in our best 22, but I tonight showed that this will not be an immediate process and that some patience will be required.

It is also a hell of a lot easier for a young kid to step into an established team.

Getting thrown in with a dozen other young kids otoh...

 

[maroon and blue]

Was at the game. They are all very thin, made it hard to recognise some of the players.Our back line was also very poor.

Good to see Pikey pull on the boots again for the half time game; he has been in a good paddock. Plus Johnno, and Mal. Royboys Richard Osborne and Doc Wheildon also played.

 

[Axel.]

Wasn't expecting that tonight considering Essendon and St.Kilda had an almost full strength squads. But on the bright side there were some great individual performances from the young players, we just need to do that consistently but that will come with time.

 

[whatboutbob]

For the masochists among us, the replay is just kicking off in QLD.

 

[Nuggo]

Forget the score line it is more about individual efforts.

Disappointments
- not enough of putting the head over the ball and getting possession.
- not enough run and carry when we did get the ball.
- kicking skills

Worth a mention
- Polec - would appear to be the right selection
- Banfield - should play more midfield swooping on the loose ball.
- Beams - seems to possess that looping handball ala Black style.
- Harwood - had a presence
- Sauce - looked comfortable down back again (plus the way he pointed after winning the coin toss gave me laugh)

 

[Hollow Knight]

Footage of Polec's goal in this video.

 

[Dylan12]

Cmon you people!...did you really expect to win??...We had our Lion cubs out there.

I just got back from the game, and the one thing quite a few of the Lions fans at the game commented was that no, we did not expect to win, but at least be bloody competitive. The one thing the Lions are consistent with is the typical form they bring to Melbourne. I appreciate tonight was a bastardised version of the real thing, but give Melbourne fans something on the park so they want to become members. To the uninformed, you would think they have utter contempt for Melbourne fans.

Maybe competitive would have been nice for the players and supporters. I'm all for positive thinking, but come round one and through to round 22 positive thinking won't cut it. As Lets Roar said, same shit over again. I hope I am proved wrong, but NAB cup or for real, not a good start whatever spin you put on.

Exactly

I cant agree about Hawksly's courage ...more so a stoopid footballer...no point showing courage if youre going to blunder...and lets face it he blunders more times than not...and costs us goals!!!

Ive had it with him!!! I cant beleive the faith shown in him by the Lions

and to think we re-signed him for a couple of years.

The positives tonight was the fom of Polec...get excited, for mine he was our best over four quarters and is just a very natural footballer and delighted we have him. I agree with sentiments shared about Rich, also very good...and I thought McCauley held his own as well.

The negatives...no surprise really, Sheldon, Buchanan, Hawksley and to a lesser extent Raines...they just don't cut it, practic match or not, absoltely hopeless.

 

[Grimreepah]

Sauce - looked comfortable down back again (plus the way he pointed after winning the coin toss gave me laugh)

Yeah, the feign one way then swing the army over the head and point in the other direction method is not oft used by modern day captains.

 

[whatboutbob]

Yeah, the feign one way then swing the army over the head and point in the other direction method is not oft used by modern day captains.

The early psyche-out clearly put the bombers off their game.

 

[Dylan12]

Good to see Pikey pull on the boots again for the half time game; he has been in a good paddock. Plus Johnno, and Mal. Royboys Richard Osborne and Doc Wheildon also played.

It was good to see. We won the first game with the old boys after a horible start similar to the real game, but pretty poor of the club that the old boys didn't even have numbers on their backs compared to other teams.

Tiff Cheery also kicked a pretty decent goal from a set shot for the Bombers.

 

[Last of the Roys]

My initial impression is....gee it is going to be a long season. I wasn't expecting miracles, but I was hoping for better than what we got.

Yep our experience was way down compared to our opponents, but there were quite a few very worrying signs.
- the intensity wasn't really there, especially in the first game. You would think with all the players getting a chance they would be busting to play hard.
- Centre clearances and clearances in general were just horrible beyond belief. If we have been working on it over the Summer, we need to throw out the book and start again;
- We continue to have no idea when it comes to playing a pressing zone defence. We tried it basically all night and just looked like amateurs.
- Clark really looked poor all night to the point where I was thinking "well at least he is playing like Fevola";

It wasn't all bad though:
- Banfield was excellent. Rich was very good. Rockliff seemed to do well.
- Polec looked clearly like the best prospect and I think he is likely to play most of the year;
- Some of the other young ones showed small glimpses that they are going to be good. Bewick seems pretty reasonable.
- our rookie ruckmen McCauley did pretty good - god he would be cursing the substitution rule though, if it wasn't for that he would surely be on the senior list;
- no injuries.

Best part of the night - we smashed them in the Legends matches; well particularly the second match. Johnson, Pike and Mal Michael were having a ball - it was like they had never left. Our team could probably had done with them on the ground in the real matches.

 

[whizkizz]

Wow. Just got home from the game. Regrettably left the ground at half time between the Saints and Bombers. Oh well.

My take on the first game is that we fielded a QAFL side, where as Essendon came out all guns blazing. As we already know, we were missing Black, Brown, Power, Drummond, Adcock, Fev, Polks and Redden from our starting lineup, add to that, we went without Patfull, Merrett and McGrath for the first game. That's probably enough said. But I'll continue.

Basically against the Bombers, the only senior players out there were Clark, Staker, Leuenberger, Maguire and Rich (none of which I really consider to be too 'senior'). Our kids were smaller, slower, and really humbled. Add to that, tried senior players Austin, Sheldon and Collier (and probably others) were virtually witches hats out there tonight.

The game against St Kilda was definitely an improvement, and had we not gifted a 50m penalty goal to St Kilda, or actually stood the mark and prevented Peake from '9 pointering', we may have actually been in the hunt.

Oh well, Polec looks the goods, Lester got a few kicks too, and Banfield is definitely our most exciting player.

And to finish, why on earth was Cornelius playing in defense against the Bombers?! He has a lot to learn.


EDIT: Harwood also didn't play the first game...

 

[whizkizz]

- Clark really looked poor all night to the point where I was thinking "well at least he is playing like Fevola";

Forgot to mention Clark in my post. In his defense, he was camped out at full forward for the majority and the ball never came near him. But on the flip-side, he hardly demanded the ball when the opportunities arose.

He definitely played more like the 2010 Clark, and not the 2009 version that awed us.