How do you view tonights game?

[HAWKERS91]

Honestly, I thought we should've been beaten by about 30 points. At times we looked slow and out of breath, whilst Geelong kept running and running. However, being able to stage a big comeback whilst being without Campbell, Osbourne, Ellis, Lewis and the rest was really good.

Still a bit of work to do untill we hit our best this year.

yeah i tend to agree. i was expecting to go down by about 5 goals and thought with the debutants and limited preparation of some key players, anything less than that would be a bonus.
the cats are only tom harley away from being at full strength so in regards to our own players on the sidelines, we have plenty of improvement left. i thought buddy looked as comfortable against scarlett as he ever has which is a big step forward for him. ossie going down hurt as he is one of the most improved players in the comp and will have a good year this year.

 

[NotDave]

Always disappointing to lose but a fine effort really. The following is clear:

• Campbell is a key player for us, perhaps even more than we realised till now
• Ellis and Lewis are needed back in the midfield ASAP
• Must try to get at least one of Gilham or Croad back at an early date

Thought Tuck was great but ran out of a bit of puff toward the end. Don't blame him.

Whitecross was hesitant and unsure in the first quarter but got much better in the last three. His kicking is still just very slightly off at times but he is important for our kick in structure at the moment and looks to me as if he will make it.

Schoenmakers was slightly overawed. Some of his decision making needs working on and last night it made him appear slower than I know he is but what he learned from last night's game should be worth months of training to him.

Suckling's kicking is excellent. He needs to get stronger but we are now starting to realise why we held on to him.

Stokes played reasonably well and at times very well but needs to work on his goal kicking.

Any comments about the mantra of 'Buddy up the field'. It will happen at times when he is surrounded by three or four opponents up forward but we look so much more lethal when he and Roughie are operating in tandem. One thing though it would be really nice to try to work Rioli, Stokes or even Osborne front and square more often when they are involved in marking duels.

Also not sure about Young off half back. Still looks better when attacking from a wing to me.

 

[HAWKERS91]

i also thought stokes pulled out a couple of times. i hate seeing this and would think clarko would too.

 

[grizzlym]

Can anyone tell me how they thought Campbell Brown went? I missed the game completely, just heard that Brown looked underdone in pre-season, and possibly carrying or healing slowly from an injury as well. So how did he look? And where did he play?

 

[shotta]

I hate seeing Buddy out of the forward line, while I understand Clarko wants us to have a better spread goalwise and not be so Buddy reliant I still think his 10,12,14 scoring shots a game suit us better. He is ultra dangerous inside 50 and we also lose some x factor when he's upfield.

 

[fishbowl]

.

Geelong a V8 Ford - Hawthorn a new model Rolls Royce test drive with some fine tuning to be done. Our workshop will have our engine purring next week.

Consider the Cats were at full strength. We debuted three top-cream talent who came through quite cooley thank you very much. Fifteen of our Grand Final team two or three underdone. Our depth showed up tonight.

We have eight players not named in the 22 that would walk into any of the other 14 teams.

The Hawthorn youngest list in the league has a decade of big things to come.

Geelong had better have a good '09 as they are at at their peak and the slippery downslope is ahead as their reserve list players do not match ours.

New Fords are great, when you drive them out of the showroom they breakdown and fall apart after a few weeks.

We need some fine tuning, we have 21 weeks to do this.

 

[Cosmo Kramer]

i also thought stokes pulled out a couple of times. i hate seeing this and would think clarko would too.

I don't remember Stokes pulling out, in fact I remember him coming off injured in the last quarter after putting his body on the line. I thought Willo may have pulled out a couple of times however.

Also a couple of people have said player X looked tired or underdone, the main guy I saw struggling was Clinton Young, by the third quarter he was stuffed. I remember Geelong going up the wing and he just couldn't run at all.

 

[Simon_Nesbit]

Stokes (x2), Willow, Dew (x3), Mitchell, Hodge (x2), Brown (x2), Murphy, Rioli (x2) all pulled up gingerly at some stage from tackles/being tackled.

There was a heck of a lot of knees and elbows falling in tackles (both ways).

The fact we had pretty much every player cramping from midway through the 3rd shows how hard we were running.

 

[H2F]

It was great !!!!!!!!!!

Cruised along and did enough to achieve what we would have hoped.

We could have won, but what for? Geelong leaves satisfied, we only go harder. Clarko is a genius!!!

 

[Miss_Hawk_Fan]

I found tonights match very hard to analyse where we are at. Proud of the way tonight the boys stuck to their task.

But really do we say we got within 8 points of Geelong without Croad/Gilham/Ladson/Lewis/Campbell/Osborne etc and that was a great effort?

Do you think that we only got back into the match when Scarlett was off and they were also missing Harley so really with those two in we wouldn't have come back?

Should Geelong have blown us away by 60+ points and the scoreboard flattered us?

What do you take away from tonights match?

Personally I learnt a few things, our ruck division just like in the GF was smashed, we need Robbie back soon. Stewie Dew is still a gun. We lack a true tagger in the team who can shut down Ablett. We are actually a very efficient team going foward and kick accurately for goal (please discount the 2 times we played Richmond last year). I am also further convinced that Travis Tuck is part of our best 22.

Others thoughts.....

Thought the team did well to pull together in the last qtr, We could of been flogged but they fought back and challenged for the game!

White Cross, suckling and shoey all settled in the last qtr and played there roles in our fighting back in the
4th qtr. Stoke and tuck who has had limited games, also stood out.

Our JNRs will slot in our team and our rolling defence zone will looked more settled as they each get more game time and experince with each other.


We also have the likes of kennedy, muston, thorp to try and cement a place in the team.

 

[Mervyn Beasley]

Can anyone tell me how they thought Campbell Brown went? I missed the game completely, just heard that Brown looked underdone in pre-season, and possibly carrying or healing slowly from an injury as well. So how did he look? And where did he play?

I cant remember Brown being so ineffective in a game.
When mentioning players that were out you need to also note that Brown very very underdone and lacking match fitness/practice.

 

[macdaddio]

The Cats took advantage of us having 3 1st gamers and missing our best 6 it was like watching the SA batsman going after Bryce Mcgain they knew he a newbie and underdone and went for him just like the Cats did againts us i think next time we play it will be a way different scoreline..