R1: The Good, Bad and Ugly vs. St Kilda

[WeeBlake]

Under-rated good
Max - can’t believe he only had 14 touches (altho 9 contested), seemed like he was in everything.

 

[Cromulant]

He isn't ready, if he was, he wouldn't be walking back into the rooms with 3 kicks and a tackle after a 10 goal win.

Ok

 

[whattagun07]

Good:
Win reminded me a bit of R1 2015 win vs north under Walsh. Some absolute party time moments, a great team bonding win. The celebrations and joy in the team was great to see.

How good that our new recruits all got their moment to hit the scoreboard and celebrate with their new teammates.

Crowd cheering everytime Sid got the ball

 

[FR0GGY]

Good:
Win reminded me a bit of R1 2015 win vs north under Walsh. Some absolute party time moments, a great team bonding win. The celebrations and joy in the team was great to see.

How good that our new recruits all got their moment to hit the scoreboard and celebrate with their new teammates.

Crowd cheering everytime Sid got the ball

That was when Tex looked like the GOAT wasn’t it?

 

[Cromulant]

That was when Tex looked like the GOAT wasn’t it?

One of the times yes.

That was a hell of a day, the optimism was huge.

 

[AFC979810]

That was when Tex looked like the GOAT wasn’t it?

His first game as Captain. He took on the whole North defense in a scuffle. Shirt was ripped off and Bruce went troppo.

 

[Shifty Crow]

Initial thoughts are this was a full strength middle team beating up on a bottom 8 team with lots of of players injured. I'm not taking anything from this win until we play a good side.

We didn't play that well except for a few patches. Outside of those patches we managed to kick goals just through better quality players beating up on average replacements.

Thought the first half was full of fumbles (even from the likes of Crouch and Rankine) and poor kicks/decision making. Looked very rusty. Also some poor set ups at ruck contests around the ground.

Second half was better, but as the game went on, Saints pressure dropped.

There were some good signs from key players though:

TT. Dropped some marks, but his ground work stuff is fantastic. Well rounded player.

Rachele. Excellent start to the year! Got plenty of it, used it well, used his body well, kicked goals.

Hinge. Didn't get much of a mention, but he worked his way into form. Tough and provided dash. Used the ball well. He's really important to us this year I think. If he can be AA quality then we'll go a long way to make the 8.

Worrell very good and dependable.

I liked ANB. He'll be really good for us over the next few years.

Dawson and Soligo were excellent, but expected.

Average:

Rankine was sloppy imo. Stats look good but could really tear a game apart and continues to tease a bit. Hopefully just rusty.

Crouch was good and bad. Thought he was also sloppy at times especially in the first half.

Murray and Keane good in the air, some poor foot skills though.

Cumming and Peatling were good and bad. Didn't look as good as in the pre season, but showed some good signs.

Milera wasn't bad, but still no way he should have come in before Nank.

My God

After our last 7 years - just enjoy the win and not just the win but the performance of our new recruits and emergence of our 50+ games players like Soligo, RT, Worrell and Rachelle

I get your point - loses will come but also enjoy the wins when they come as well


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[ThePrideOf]

It feels nice to start the year with a win.

I was stoked that all of our new recruits managed to kick a goal and that all the players were embracing in the celebrations

I think this is an important point to bring up.

I don’t know how many people noticed but when we kicked a goal even the back men in the last line of defence gave eachother high 5s and celebrated together.

There seems to be an “all in” mentality.

I also liked the walk out to the intense rock music gave me goose bumps which was also good!

It represented to me a more “hard nosed” gritty and tough group more reflective of NFL style intimidation as they basically broke through the banner and then our song kicked in!

 

[1970crow]

Mate, seriously just give it up with this Milera shit. No need to try and find negatives or whine today. Milera was fine on first watch and watching the replay I haven’t seen one mistake or seen his opponent getting much of the ball, or kicking goals. Isn’t the first job of a defender to defend and stop goals?

Even if you truly believe Milera is a bottom 4-5 player are you proposing dropping 4-5 players this week? It’s just not going to happen

Milera was the bottom player, who did you have as worse than him? Only need to drop 1 to get to him, not 4 or 5. That’s what they call a strawman.

 

[119others]

Milera was the bottom player, who did you have as worse than him? Only need to drop 1 to get to him, not 4 or 5. That’s what they call a strawman.

Just looking at ranking points mate on AFL app

Curtin 30
Draper 37
Milera 48
Tex 49

 

[NSolis]

Milera was the bottom player, who did you have as worse than him? Only need to drop 1 to get to him, not 4 or 5. That’s what they call a strawman.

Curtin and it's not even close.

Obviously not advocating we drop Curtin, but there's no way anyone else was the 'bottom player'.

 

[Cromulant]

My God

After our last 7 years - just enjoy the win and not just the win but the performance of our new recruits and emergence of our 50+ games players like Soligo, RT, Worrell and Rachelle

I get your point - loses will come but also enjoy the wins when they come as well


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

Fair on your behalf but we absolutely HAD to win yesterday and win well.

 

[1970crow]

Thirteen disposals, a dozen pressure acts and 92% efficiency.

Not much of a game, but he's hardly being dropped from that.

No, Wayne Milera won’t be dropped from that. He should be, but he won’t.

 

[Cromulant]

No, Wayne Milera won’t be dropped from that. He should be, but he won’t.

Now they've picked him I'd leave him there for a couple weeks.

3 games against bottom 6 clubs, if he can't light it up against that opposition he never will

 

[1970crow]

Just looking at ranking points mate on AFL app

Curtin 30
Draper 37
Milera 48
Tex 49

Given Tex/Draper sub impacted, I’m prepared to concede Curtin’s output brings him into the discussion. Once that’s done, I’d give Curtin a couple more before I’d reconsider his role or structure of his area. With Milera I’d be saying ‘not good enough yet, get some confidence and run back in the 2s’. Just looked like a guy scared to puff himself out.

 

[FR0GGY]

Just looking at ranking points mate on AFL app

Curtin 30
Draper 37
Milera 48
Tex 49

Draper and Tex only played half a game

 

[119others]

Given Tex/Draper sub impacted, I’m prepared to concede Curtin’s output brings him into the discussion. Once that’s done, I’d give Curtin a couple more before I’d reconsider his role or structure of his area. With Milera I’d be saying ‘not good enough yet, get some confidence and run back in the 2s’. Just looked like a guy scared to puff himself out.

Agree re Curtin and let’s agree to disagree re Milera. I will be shocked if he is dropped this week but time will tell and I have probably made this same point enough times now.

 

[StonesThrow]

My God

After our last 7 years - just enjoy the win and not just the win but the performance of our new recruits and emergence of our 50+ games players like Soligo, RT, Worrell and Rachelle

I get your point - loses will come but also enjoy the wins when they come as well


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

Okay

 

[whattagun07]

That was when Tex looked like the GOAT wasn’t it?

yep, fresh haircut (ditched the mullet), looked like a beast, and kicked 6.5

 

[1970crow]

Agree re Curtin and let’s agree to disagree re Milera. I will be shocked if he is dropped this week but time will tell and I have probably made this same point enough times now.

He won’t be dropped, but he should be. He should never have been selected in the first place. Nank proved himself capable last year and outperformed Milera in the preseason. The benefit of having quality depth is that we no longer have to carry injured or out of form seniors. We can get better output from a guy like Nank whist s guy like Milera gets his mojo back in the 2s. It’s a win:win.

 

[Scorpus]

Don't forget Brad Hill.

Brad Hill certainly forgot Brad Hill was playing

 

[NSolis]

I feel like Milera was playing more of a defensive role than he has in the past, which is another reason his spot won't be in danger, beyond the obvious one which is that they'd give him a few games after selecting him. He was very closely marking an opponent at most times and rarely got up the ground compared to Murray/Keane/Max/Worrell.

Anyway I think we all agree he's going to play next week, but something to keep an eye on there.

 

[Jarman3]

Pretty solid performance all round. Ordinary opposition, but all you can do is win and we did that resoundingly. I'd be concerned if we'd just fallen across the line against them. Some of our kicking was a little scrappy at times, but it was bloody windy so I'll allow the benefit of the doubt on that one.

I don't think Curtin fits in the forward line when Tex, Fog and Thilthorpe are all in there, too. Playing 4th banana in that lot of talls would starve most players. He looked a lot better when he made his way further up the ground and could get his hands on the ball.

Only part I didn't like was Draper being sub. When he finally got a shot he just slotted right in, looked absolutely like he belongs at AFL level. He'd better not get the Curtin treatment this year, just play him.

One of the best games I've seen from Rachele so far. He's been talked up a lot over the preseason, but based on yesterday it seems to be warranted. Sometimes you can just see when the penny has dropped for a player, and that appears to be the case here.

Dawson ****ing epic performance.

I was in the same boat as a lot of people here thinking that Nankervis and Bond probably should have got first crack at it instead of Milera and Laird, but neither of those guys stunk it up so fair enough. I suspect Nank and Bond (and pretty much anybody else) will have to wait another week.

 

[GreyCrow]

I think our 23 are nearly locked in

Its going to take a few major injury issues to get people in

And thats without Butts and Nankervis

( not saying I like it )

 

[1990crow]

Love these comments on Rachele's massive improvement this year.

Rachele performed against the Saints just like he has performed in every single opening game.

2022 - 5 goals, 1 behind, 14 touches.
2023 - 3 goals, 1 behind, 18 touches
2024 - 3 goals, 0 behinds, 17 touches
2025 - 2 goals, 2 behinds, 21 touches

I don't think these stats tell the whole story of his impact yesterday.
What were his score involvements in the other 3 years.

2022. 8.
2023. 9.
2024. 8.

2025. 12.

Clearly better.