TOPIC:

Top 2 clash with 2 teams in stellar form on long winning runs. Souths have the advantage in the ruck taps and tall forwards while Subi have better small/mid forwards and our talls are more mobile around the ground. Both lots of mids are top shelf and hard to separate so it may come down to the defense, again both teams have real quality, Souths with x factor in Picket but Subi's defence is a real team defence rather than having stand out stars. Souths can afford to bomb into their forward line given their impressive marking power where as we will need to be more precise with our inside 50's. Leaping Liam will be a handfull for whoever gets him. Some say he was well held last week but still had 5 shots at goal but was uncharacteristically inaccurate, he should have bagged 3 and young Baker has been a revelation up forward. Kitchen, Horse and Phez are in super form with great support by Hoskins & Hancock. Noticed Guiness is not listed in the ressies so maybe he's a surprise inclusion in the league if not injured.

Perhaps home ground advantage will get us over the line by a couple of points.

Apart from a couple of lapses, particularly in the 2nd, it was another solid consistent performance. Schoey said at the 3/4 time huddle not to take the foot off their throat but that's exactly what the boys did and gave away a valuable opportunity to even up or pass Souths percentage. But that's probably being overly critical given I expected a very tight contest.

Subi almost completely bottled up the Souths mids giving them little time or space to create good inside 50's, despite that Saunders, who is a quality player still managed 4 goals. Our run and spread was a mirror image to what Souths did to us in game 1, we won the footy then created multiple choices for our mids and backs to target. For the second week in a row our tackling was relentless and eventually wore down the Doggies patience with a couple of their boys loosing the plot later in the game. Sloithes hissy fit when Kitch sucked him in beautifully was like a toddlers tantrum and then to see him respond poorly to his skippers instructions to pull his head in was very disappointing as Cook is a player and skipper who I have great respect for, really the coach should have benched Sloithe, but that's their business I guess, but not a good look.

For mine, Dela was clearly BOG, with Horse not far behind, then Adamson in his best display for us. He has been building up to this kind of game for a couple of weeks and his pace and physicality off the HBF is a real asset to the team. Little Liam was at his elusive and creative best with 4 goals and created a couple more, and big Liam while he was played closely by I think it was Maskos, still managed 4 goals from limited opportunities, that his real value. Interesting to see Souths tactics on him where they continually blocked his run at the packs so he only managed one unsuccessful bit of head surfing.

I said prior to the game that it was a battle between their quality tall forwards and our small/medium forward with our group coming out on top with the Liam's and Sokol bagging 11 between them plus 3 from Horse and 4 between Stevo and Clang, so a nice spread.

Horse in his 150th was at his precise best with his surgical disposals setting up his team mates, Cockie with 21 disposals and 7 crunching tackles made life easier for his smaller team mates creating space and dishing out from the base of the packs, Kitch was solid with 25 but Phez was quiet after getting the wind knocked out of him from a bad sling tackle, hopefully that's all that is was. The backs as a unit were very good with Locks and Heal doing some great interception work, often leaving their man to help a team mate downfield to great effect. But our real driving force was Dela with 31 disposals, 6 marks 4 tackles and 29 hitouts against much bigger opposition, then carving them up around the ground in his best performance of the season.

Gummies next week, not to be taken lightly after we have had 3 big games against quality opposition, any sign of complacence could see us in trouble.

Percentage won't come into it; Subi will finish at least 3 games, if not 5, ahead of second.

Maybe swan. Doesn't guarantee a flag though. South looked good and scored goals very easily at times, strangely at the same time Pickett was in the middle. Even more strange was how little time he spent there considering things. Make no mistake things will be a lot different next time we meet, probably in the finals

DG wrote: Maybe swan. Doesn't guarantee a flag though. South looked good and scored goals very easily at times, strangely at the same time Pickett was in the middle. Even more strange was how little time he spent there considering things. Make no mistake things will be a lot different next time we meet, probably in the finals

DG it must have only been you and me that noticed the impact that Pickett wielded when he went into the middle.
Unfortunately our brains trust coached as if they did not see it

don't worry they saw it Dwert

How's the colts boys Senior as you said a long time since 3 in a row let alone against those sides

And for once the umpiring was ok. They didn't get sucked in to Hams and schloithes appeals and it was bloody excellent to see. Well done those men in green
What a germ that schloithe is. He totally lost the plot. Good on captain cook for stepping in and trying to sort the rabble. There was a couple of ordinary charging incidents by Souths players that could have resulted in serious injuries to unprotected players. I would be surprised if Saunders doesn't get a holiday for his effort

FMD Singha I must have been watching a different game.
There was no reports out of the match?

Terrible look in the reserves Reid Polak going down with what looked like an ACL?
The young bulldogs blasted an 11 goal third quarter to put the Lions away pretty comfortably.
Our colts are struggling this year although our efforts in the past few weeks have been pleasing , with narrow losses. It looks like they have persevered with 17 year olds and will use this year as a development / rebuild.
We have 3-4 Colts age lads playing up in our reserves team ATM , and all are coming along nicely.