BC wrote: good hit out for the boys today. I thought our mids were really dominant when you consider Fez and Robbo didn't play. we must have had it in our front half 70% of the time. Backs were their usual miserly selves and reckon Declan Jackson is a pretty good replacement for Rumba. It looks like Horse will play more on a wing this year probably to free him up from a tag. Our forwards struggled early on with plenty of opportunities from a dominant midfield with Delahunty the only real hit up forward. I reckon we'll miss the likes of Yaz and Boland plus no Rhys Waters, Deluca or Woody today. I saw Clanger walking around and doesn't look too far away and should play in the forward line when fit. Broughton serviceable and Cockie was terrific in the midfield. Also think big Mudhut did a great job in the ruck and provided a bit around the ground as well. Sokol looks like a good pick up but wasn't impressed with Shaq McKenzie...a bit soft for mine. I saw the Cockie incident and thought it was pretty crude. I'd expect him to miss the first couple of weeks of the season proper and agree screemar...you don't want to see blokes getting hurt like that. Cockie is very hard at it but think he needs to make sure he plays within the rules but in saying that..I was a long way from the contest so it could have been all above board but from where I was it didn't look great. All in all a good first up effort. My take away from today is our strengths this year will be our midfield especially and also our backs but could struggle to kick a winning score against the likes of WART, FART and maybe EF.
Good wrap BC, but we need to remember WP were only playing around 6 of their first choice players where as we had around 12 so the result was what it should be, that being said there were some really good signs from a good spread of players.
First qtr was very scrappy as you would expect from a scratchie, first seven scoring shots were points as we had the vast majority of the play, Joondy were forced into a defensive flood for much of the first half which meant they were spent before 3/4 time which showed when we piled on about 5 goals late in the 3rd.
For me the big positive was Souths reject Sokol who work hard off the HF line and was rewarded with 5 goals, nice mix of set shots and snaps. Good size player who seems to have a good work ethic. Backline was in pretty good form, Broughts wasn't called on to do a lot but did it all with polish and some vigour, Horse was clearly the best quality player on the ground his attack on the ball hard running and sublime disposal was a treat playing mostly off the wing. Little Kennedy was very good, Twomey was his usual cool controlled self sweeping across HB, Kichen was useful and Halligan was also damaging up forward with an occasional run on the ball. Dela was strong all day and worked hard in the conditions. Madut worked really hard and made a strong contest all around the ground, his handball was good and he's starting to hold some marks so that's promising from the lad who is a work in progress.
Cockie was superb in the clearances his body strength was too much for the Joondy boys who were tackling pretty strongly but he continually shrugged them off. I had a reasonably clear view of the incident involving Joondy #2 Antonio, not a first year player Tiger, he was in the squad for last years GF and a 20 + game player. From the ruck tap the ball went to ground Antonio and Cockie were heading for it at pace, Antonio got there a split second before Cockie hit him with a hip N shoulder, Cockie didn't leave the ground when contact was made but it looked like Antonio may have bent over for the ball at the last instant which may have resulted in some contact to the head as well as the shoulder, or his concussion may have been caused when he hit the ground, either way it was a solid hit. Unfortunately the WP lad broke his collar bone and was concussed. The umpires were right there and would have had a clear view and just paid a free. I understand there were cameras there so if there is a review that may decide if Cockie has a case to answer.
So a solid display against an undermanned WP, next week will be a bigger test against what I would expect will be a full strength Bombo Valley team on their own paddock. Would expect we will be close to full strength with the addition of quality players like Phez, Clanger, Waters, Robbo, Lefanu, Blech, Moore and Woody.
