So the dust has settled a bit and the disappointment is gradually dissipating, just had a nice lunch up in York for Outers birthday so the mood has lifted a smidge.
Firstly congratulations to ROB, Ugle, Bell, Bootsma and (sorry I cant recall the 5th Peel player that got a gig), for a great effort in winning their 1st GF, all these boys tried their guts out and must be eternally grateful that "only" 17 listed players turned out for the game.
Two teams took the field and one team played better than the other, Subi came a brave second. Very proud of the Subi boys effort they never gave in for a second against a very stacked deck. As I feared our slow start cost us the game, the ball was locked in their forward 50 for half of the first qtr with our backs battling away manfully but they broke it open in the last 10 mins and if they'd kicked straight it would have been a 40+ point margin not 24 at qtr time. We fought back really well and dominated much of the 2nd qtr possession to get it back to a manageable 15 point margin at half time but the Freo flood and some great tackling and smothering by Freo cost us a chance to put on more scoreboard pressure. We were making some simple skill errors and not just when under pressure which indicates we were a fair bit off the boil. The third was a great qtr of footy with the intensity dialed up several notches, we played our best footy in the first half of this qtr and drew within 10 points, then a costly miss by Robbo I think it was from a snap which would have put us within a goal signaled a surge by Peel which got them back to a 16 point lead at 3/4 time and it was still up for grabs, so I thought, but we started to wilt under the onslaught of Peels super fit aligned players and we had some boys cramping up towards the end which is a sign that even the fittest WAFL club in the comp cant run with an almost full tilt AFL side. Hopefully this will convince the WAFC to do some serious reconsideration of the qualification rules for next year and beyond. In the end the margin was just 1 point less than the game winning margin they established at 1/4 time so a brave last 3 mqtrs by the boys to not get totally blown away.
Congrats to Blakely who is an absolute ball magnet but he must have only just shaded Horse for the Simpson, Horse was magnificent all day with 39 disposals and two goals he set the standard that the rest of the team needed to follow. Dec Jackson had one of his best games under immense pressure, Dela never took a backward step against the Freo giants, same for Clang and Twomey was terrific after a quiet 1st qtr.
There was massive frustration not just in the stands but on the field with the chronically inconsistent umpiring which at times just looked suspicious. No issue at all with the kicks that Peel got but in the same instances the other way it was play on or a bounce. 6 frees in 120mins of footy just doesn't make as much sense as 19 frees dose but in the end the games done and dusted and Peel are in the books as 2016 premiers so good luck to their long suffering supporters and the 5 Peel boys who represented them so well yesterday.
So the club will have a break and see who we will be losing off the list and how we go about filling the gaps for next year. Strong rumors that Phez will pull the pin which is a massive loss to the midfield being last years F&B and hot favorite to do it again in '16, Twomey & Robbo are yet to decide and Liam Ryan has been named in the media as being of strong interest to Freo, WCE and in particular Collingwood, so little chance we will have him next season, he would be a great 2nd or 3rd round pickup in the draft.
