Disappointing effort by the boys but credit to the Doggies who were just too good.
First qtr was a disaster, couldn't take a trick under massive pressure from Souths, they closed up the space around the contests and ran harder when the won the footy, we didn't pressure them enough which allowed them to provide far better delivery to their forwards who looked scary good. We are touted as having the best backline in the league but were badly found out by Souths. A lot of that due to getting spanked in the midfield, apart from Kitch and Maxy we were well beaten in that area. Big Guinnis looks to be a find in the ruck, big body but quite mobile with 22 disposals, should have had a goal but like his team mates apart from the 3rd qtr we couldn't buy a goal.
Forwards struggled apart from Ryan who was double teamed all day but still managed 3 goals in a really hard fought effort, the rest were average but suffered from very poor delivery inside 50 due to Souths pressure. Litherland looks the goods, Baily Matera tried hard.
We struggled in the mids, desperately missed Horse and Cockie in there who normally produce around 45-50 disposals a game between them plus Halligan will provide more options up forward but we need a proper full forward really miss the physical presence of Shep who created space for the smalls. Would have thought Stevo would have played but played down back in the 2's.
Perth next week who ran a much improved Swans team to a close finish with a bunch of new kids and a shockingly unbalanced free kick count. Anyway that aspect will be corrected next week when they play us, 2 of the most mind numbingly stupid frees paid in the first qtr both resulting in goals to Souths, for running the ball over the goal line, haven't seen it paid in recent history at WAFL level and on both occasions the player was under pressure and in Heals case he tried to turn out of goals slid on the sandy goal square and ended up on his arse over the line, would like to hear if this rule is being enforced in other games. but that was my only criticism of the umps, we were second to the ball for 3 of the 4 qtrs. so cant expect to get frees. We'll improve once we get some of those key A grade players back on the paddock.