Analysis Post match Discussion

[Buena]

Varcoe didn't play a blinder, but he hit targets inside 50 2-3 times. Not many of our players last season could do that in a game

 

[Hagla]

If Langdon was a first round draft pick, he'd be getting a whole lot more attention from the media. If Scharenberg has a year like Langdon in his first year, the media will pump his tyres up so far it won't be funny.

 

[Bay Pie]

Carded I think. A win against the Box Hill reserves is unlikely to effect his pessimism and nor should it.

Which Hawhorn player on Thursday night is a Box Hill reserve regular ? How many players do Hawthorn have on their list to be able to choose from so many players.

Wasn't there 9/10 premiership players? Mitchell, Shiels and Langdon were all centre square regulars in 2014.

By all means Hawthorn was under strength, as were we, but let's not get silly here to try and make a point.

It was a good hit out, as can be seen by the annoyance of Clarkson with his teams performance.

 

[Scodog10]

Which Hawhorn player on Thursday night is a Box Hill reserve regular ? How many players do Hawthorn have on their list to be able to choose from so many players.

Wasn't there 9/10 premiership players? Mitchell, Shiels and Langdon were all centre square regulars in 2014.

By all means Hawthorn was under strength, as were we, but let's not get silly here to try and make a point.

It was a good hit out, as can be seen by the annoyance of Clarkson with his teams performance.

Tongue in cheek, but the likes of Brand, Pittonet, Miller-Lewis, Howe, Hardisty, Willsmore and Miles (a quarter of their line up) are likely to spend time in Box Hill's reserves this year if they're as strong as 2013-14. The last 45 minutes of that match was designed specifically by Clarkson to have players get extra run in their legs and catch up to teams like us.

It was a massive gamble because if a couple of players pinged hammy's they look silly, but it worked because there's no conditioning like match conditioning. Take Dwyer as an example he might as well have sat that out considering he only got a quarter and we share that extra quarter amongst the guys that started.

The result itself was useless and it's individual performances that we need to focus from that match, IMO, as opposed to the teams. There was a lot to like on an individual front so I'm happy and I'm sure TG would be enthused by what he saw on that front, but again the team performance meant very little outside of the competitiveness of the first 2 and a bit quarters.

 

[mike123]

Please god no, I hope we stick with Brown FB and Reid HB for the entire season. Williams could easily lose his spot to Sinclair or Ramsay if he doesn't clean up his skills. I'm more excited about our medium and small forwards this year.

Keeffe was fine when we had Brown back there. I reckon with Brown and Reid down there Keeffe will improve massively.

 

[BEEG]

Keeffe was fine when we had Brown back there. I reckon with Brown and Reid down there Keeffe will improve massively.

Much prefer Reid Brown and Frost

 

[mike123]

Much prefer Reid Brown and Frost

I'd much prefer Keeffe, Reid and Brown. Brown isn't the best kick going but he's a much safer user than Frost. Reid and Keeffe are great kicks and the more our backline gets the better. Frost is a complete liability ball in hand and opposition teams continue to expose that by leaving him open in the defence. I shudder at the thought of both Frost and Brown open in the backline picking up cheap possessions.

I would only pick one of Frost or Brown and for mine Brown is a much better option.

 

[PTpie]

Much prefer Reid Brown and Frost

Keeffe, Reid and Brown is pretty dependable backline unit. Brown for the monsters, Reid to run as loose/3rd man and Keeffe to cover the athletic 3rd tall or resting ruck. Both Reid and Keeffe have long penetrating kicks and are decent at ground level for big guys.

A backline with those 3 and Sinclair, Langdon and Toovey/Williams actually sounds pretty decent to me. 4 good users and 2 average users. Plenty of speed, two great intercept marks and some big units as well.

 

[BEEG]

Do we forget how good Frost was last year?

 

[mike123]

Do we forget how good Frost was last year?

Frost was good last year, but I don't think he was as good as Brown was in 2013. Also are forgetting that Frost can't shut down monters offers no rebound can't kick the footy is a poor overhead mark and stands 5m behind his opponent.

 

[BEEG]

Frost was good last year, but I don't think he was as good as Brown was in 2013. Also are forgetting that Frost can't shut down monters offers no rebound can't kick the footy is a poor overhead mark and stands 5m behind his opponent.

I actually think Frost would be perfect for your medium small forward great close of speed

Brown - Monster FF
Reid - Taller mobile CHF
Frost - 3rd forward or small forward

That's how I would work it

 

[mike123]

I actually think Frost would be perfect for your medium small forward great close of speed

Brown - Monster FF
Reid - Taller mobile CHF
Frost - 3rd forward or small forward

That's how I would work it

And I think Keeffe would be perfect for that role because of his agility, with added bonus of the ability to play on resting rucks because of his height, provide some rebound and hit targets. I think both Frost and Keeffe will improve with Brown and Reid around just Keeffe has more upside IMO.

 

[sr36]

I actually think Frost would be perfect for your medium small forward great close of speed

Brown - Monster FF
Reid - Taller mobile CHF
Frost - 3rd forward or small forward

That's how I would work it

I prefer Toovey as a 3rd tall defender.

 

[PonsfordMagpie]

It was nice to win against the Hawks albeit being a pre-season match and the fact that half of their premiership side was out of the team but we were missing Pendlebury, Swan, Cloke and Reid so we did well in the circumstances and there was a lot to like from Thursday night.

The forward line set up on Thursday was the most pleasing aspect of the match and I think they will be the key reason as to why we can play finals or not. If the likes of White, Karnezis and Fasolo all step it up this year all of a sudden our forward line looks quite potent and dangerous with Cloke and Elliott remaining constant threats in front of goal. Our predictability and reliance on Cloke and Elliott killed our season last year and it resulted in our inability to crack 100 points in many of our matches.

Great to see solid contributions from Greenwood, Crisp, De Goey, Grundy, Thomas and Kennedy who I hope will have a major contribution to how successful our side is this season. We've got a young team but there's a lot to like heading into the future.

Looking forward to seeing our second hit out against Carlton now in two weeks time in Bendigo.

 

[Mungo Mulligan Stew]

Let's go to the numbers:
Luke Ball's Disposal Efficiency - 2009: 68%, 2010: 66%, 2011: 70%, 2012: 52%, 2013: 65% = ave of 64%
Taylor Adam's - 2012: 65%, 2013: 62%, 2014: 66% = ave of 64%
Obviously Bally's 64% efficiency was much more adequate than Adam's 64% hey?
64=64 .......... understand?

Interesting factoid - reposted to The Collingwood Blog

 

[ThisIsJake]

May be reading too much into it, but loved Freeman's enthuisiasm.

When Gault took the big mark Freeman fist pumped, in that moment he wasn't thinking 'hope it gets dropped and I crumb a goal, that will help ME get a first round call up.'

He just wanted the team to win, always getting around to Hi-5 teammates. Seems like someone you want at your club.

 

[Laurie Holden]

I watched that exact moment just before reading this and thought the same thing! It was great to see.

 

[loki04]

Don't think anyone has said or even suggested they don't want him at the club or that he wont go on to be a very good player for us in time...

People just think he may need to get some games behind him in the VFL first, not sure why a few are jumping in to defend him over those comments.

 

[jackcass]

thats what he will always do

And it's what we need as a team while some of the kids develop.

 

[jjsmitty8]

Varcoe didn't play a blinder, but he hit targets inside 50 2-3 times. Not many of our players last season could do that in a game

I think that's the ambition this year, well that's the vibe I get. We're looking for a more rounded team effort. If Varcoe gets 15 touches, kicks a goal and sets a couple up then that's a good day out in my book.

 

[jackcass]

9 Ramsay - Similar to Gault in that he showed something late last year but still clearly outside best 22. Well he showed something again, love it when he ran away form Hill the delivered spot on into forward 50. Took a step backwards tonight.

4 Broomhead - quiet and didn't offer much. His spot in round 1 is dependent on showing good form in the preseason. Tonight at least a few went past him and he is currently VFL round one so needs some good performances in the next 2

Agree with all of that except these 2...

Ramsay, hoping you meant to type "Took a step forwards tonight"

Broomhead, was perhaps a little quieter than we'd like, ball use was down (DE% < 50) but still had 15 possies in about 70% game time playing predominantly as a small forward. Fasolo by comparison had 16 in 80% game time but his DE was up around 80%.

 

[jackcass]

Just on brown, I think people are basing his game on a poor 10 minutes. I thought he settled right down after that and looked good. He won more than he lost and got better as the game went on. I reckon he is in good nick.

And it's his first competitive hit out since round 3 or 4 last year as he missed the intraclub the week before. Happy to give him time.

 

[suspect footskills]

I've picked up on a number of really good signs from the game the other night. Both in terms of individual player output and overall team performance we look well ahead of where we were last year.

Firstly, at stoppages we aren't crowding the ball as much and therefore have more outside options when we win the ball and more tackling options if we don't. Our run and spread from stoppages was good as was our ability to shut the Hawks run down.
Our corralling of the opposition ball carrier was also very good, denying them space/time and therefore options for disposal. We didn't let the Hawks get their kicking game on which played a big part in the win.

Overall the stucture of our play looks much better. Our ball use out of the backline looked very solid by hand and we usually had a good number of options available to take the ball out of the backline.
Our outside run on the wings looked very good and disposal looked much sharper in general. There was a hunger there that really impressed me.

In terms of individual performances I was very impressed with Fasolo and Elliot's games. Elliott was solid as usual but sharper around the ground and ran hard to present as well as disposing well. Fasolo played like a leader for mine and given his talent that extra maturity could see him become a VERY dangerous player.
Sidebottom was solid as expected. Greenwood did some good things in the second half and Crisp impressed the sh%t out of me. Greenwood and Adams at the coalface will allow us to release some really good ball users and the knock on effect should be really telling if we get things right.
One player I haven't heard a lot of talk about who's game I really liked was Gault. He looked like he was playing a "Leigh Brown" role, being involved all over the ground and giving us a tall utility allowing us to create mismatches. Very solid performance. I also liked Langdons game despite a poor kick off the side of the boot late in the piece. He did some really impressive things for mine and if Scharenberg gets it together we'll have very, very strong back half for years it seems.

Last but definitely not least is De Goey. The kid just doesn't seem to do anything by halves. Throws his entire effort into his tackles and chases and his overall game was very impressive. The kid will be a beast once he's packed on some muscle and it seems once again that Hine has delivered in spades.

 

[jackcass]

Is it just me or considering how cloke focused we have been for years now would it benift the team greatly if we keep him out of the side for the remainder of the NAB challenge?

Gives our other forwards a chance to shine PK, Elliot, Faz etc.
and might drill into our mids that bombing into cloke 1on2 and 1on3s isn't ideal.

Just basing this of lastnights game against the Hawks when he had a beautiful spread of goal kickers

BleedBlackLabel

Sadly, we had it last season as well (De Goey excepted), they just spent more time in the medical room, rehabing from injury in the VFL, or patching holes in defense to impact the scoreboard matchdays.

 

[jackcass]

Surprised no-one has mentioned Sidey's average disposal by foot til now. Was a bit average at times, as it was last year.

It's always been hot n cold so I think most just accept that's what we get from him. Just continue to marvel at the sublime and face-palm the ordinary.