Wow what a disappointment, not the result which could be predicted but the way it happened.
Anyone who thinks Sandi is not our most important player might want to have a second thought.
Our much vaunted mids got slaughtered, especially our senior players. Connor was the only one who excelled. The big bodies looked slow and none of them kept their feet while Sloane and co swooped. Fyfe has seriously got to fix his kicking style and fast. His effort is still 110% but he has got so big it looks to have effected his speed too. Coming off his fracture of course he has a reason for some of this.
Backs were under the pump and all had shockers except again for the youngster Weller. Pace to burn and great kicking skills, cant go past these essentials.
Ibbo has been tentative and slow for about 6 weeks, time to regain confidence in the twos. Spurr too has lost a lost of confidence and doesnt have a penetrating kick and has been for some time too slow to play on the small forwards. He is rarely taking the attacking option up the middle and always just heads laterally. He needs some help down there, maybe Brady Grey.
If any further proof of where we sit in the premiership stakes was needed, today surely was the definitive litmus test even though Ross allegedly doesnt know what one is. We are top 8 pretenders, up there courtesy of some footy luck, gutsy play and an easy draw. Not to say we cant finish in the top 8 but its all just for show, we cant beat the top sides consistently with that rubbish.
Roly has to take some of the blame for this too. He keeps saying he wants us to cut down the oppositions time and space but when you go to matches you see our players playing off their man and in no position to make up the space in order to tackle. I dont have the stats but we are down the bottom for tackles Im pretty sure.
Its time now to go the full hog with the youngsters: Brennan Cox should immediately come in, hes 6 foot 4 and can play. So too should Luke Ryan. Id be playing Logue in bursts as well and also Hodor. We might initially this year lose more games than we would have had we stuck with more senior players but I dont care. We are going nowhere this year so lets get cracking on the rebuild.
Roly speaks of integrity at selection but I cant see the point now of getting more games into D Pearce, Griff, Ibbo, Suban, Sutcliffe etc when we all know they wont be there at our next Grand Final.
We could go down the integrity track of playing our best available team each week but the makeup of that team is highly debatable and the improvement in Weller and Blakely is testament to the games Roly put into them last year. Theres a certain integrity to putting games now into youngsters that you think can ultimately win you a Flag.
Its time.
