McCarthy cops plenty of criticsm.
Most of it isn't based in reality, just plucked from the collective hallucination that most footy fans seem to either suffer or enjoy, depending on your viewing angle.
McCarthy plays better in a roving forward role. His field kicking is usually excellent and his set shots are spot on. If you had to pick a player to take a shot on the siren to win from outside 50 on an angle it'd be him. He had a bad night the other night with a lot of his efforts being, shall we say Merc, nearly good enough. Nearly doesn't cut it, of course. Personally I'm at a loss to explain or describe how poorly Freo went against the Saints and as no-one else has commented on the outrageous umpiring during the 3rd quarter that got the Saints back in the game with exquisitely timed frees turning momentum time and again, I guess we can just go with the flow here and blame CamMac.
If we had Tabs fit and firing he'd be taking that key defender and CMac would have more freedom to roam the wide open spaces where he can answer the weird call only he can hear on the wind and in the grass. That being the case I can't answer your cleverly pointed questions about playing another tall forward to help out and have to refer you to the coaching panel who will no doubt hold another master class in press conference evasion techniques soon and clear it all up for you there...
but Cox goes alright. He can hold a mark, he can kick a goal, he can fill in in the ruck. He might not be super quick across the ground *cough* but he's pretty dependable and he's got some smarts about him. He makes footballer type choices. So we're not exactly bereft of options.
I'd like to see a coach, preferably ours but any of them, move two forwards out of following the ball and station them inside the forward half all game. Look how many games have everyone on the ball now... so drag two of yours out of there and they'll take two of theirs with them and that's 4 less players congesting play. Just do that and the game would change... win possession and hoof the thing 50m forward to an actual player instead of space. Bang, you'd have to defend up there.
Anyway.. Freo aren't playing to any sort of strength up forward and it's not just about the players.
