Well what a game that was. First time in a while I had maybe a few too many bevies to process what happened, I don't usually watch replays in full but I put it on around 11 , fell asleep and woke up with 2 mins to go in the game so that was a useless exercise.
This morning I tried my best to do it. There does seem to be a lot of mixed opinions on this one, I thought we probably played our best footy in that first quarter and laxed off a tad but let's not take away from this opposition. Their midfield bossed ours and they have a lot of skill running through there, when they had possession it was pretty darn hard to get it back. I thought they were cleaner around the stoppages where we were quite fumbly.
After Richmond took it to us with the 'blueprint' I personally thought North missed a trick with this quite often skying balls forward and allowing us to cut off as we pleased, not the case with GC. They were running in waves and making options forward of the ball everywhere. The surge mentality and ping ponging it around and getting it to ground worked in their favour. Especially late in the game when it looked like those last 3 goals they kicked were pure luck with the ball bouncing the right way for them, but you make your own luck when you play the way they did. Best game I've seen Noah Anderson play, he was everywhere, I can really see Anderson and Rowell being their Trac and Oliver in future. Rosas played a great small forward's game, Witts battled admirably against Grundy and Gawn. He really doesn't get the credit he deserves in this game as a ruckman. The main worry is when teams move it fast and they manage to get it out the backside of centre. I felt the Essendon game was that all day long and something we need to be looking at closely.
To our performers: Thought Max was the one that won it for us in the end. Seeing a lot of people say Viney and while he was immense in the last quarter I thought he was a little down on his ripping last few weeks and hacked it a bit when he had it. Gus was impressive all game I thought and Sparrow cracked in. Trac and Clarry contributed but I thought Dew coached this game really well and nullified a lot of our strengths.
Backline wasn't brilliant and did have marks taken on them, Petty would be handy back there but can understand why he's not. Forward pressure was probably the one thing I thought we really lacked, the ball just came out far too easily at times when we really needed some repeat stoppages in there. It was the rebound that allowed GC's gameplan to get rolling.
So while I wouldn't say it was terrible performance, I did think we lacked a little in pressure and execution. It is frustrating that Fritta couldn't bin that straightforward shot in the last to seal the deal. But we also played a better side than most think and without Touk Millier it was a good performance. We got the points, take it to the bank. Who cares how you win at this point of the season just win baby. Did we get out of jail, well we did on Mcpherson's set shot that's for sure! Everyone gets one..