Gruelling, very very gruelling. But I walk away pretty proud in this one. Much like after Sydney. Our form has dipped a little but we showed tonight that we can grind it out. Personally I love these games where you go into that last quarter thinking a goal will seal it but we just burn heaps of clock locking it in our forward line. To me the alternative of letting the other team score quickly and getting back in it straight away is worse. We really choked them out and if not for a 6-6-6 penalty I reckon would have had a takeaway at that centre bounce and locked it down again. It was hard, it was frustrating, we played poorly at times yes I know but we were toughest the longest in the end and that is what brought home the biscuits.
First MCG game in over 3 years I’ve missed and it’s not a great feeling but you do catch some pretty interesting things on tv. Free kick count skewed our way but both Trac and Gawn were nudged in the back late in the last. These things don’t get recorded on the stats sheet but there’s an old saying especially in English Soccer that things tend to level up in the end. I thought we were so poor in that second quarter that when we got that gift for Jordan I found myself saying “l’ll take it, don’t care. No-ones going to talk about this bad decision in 5 years so who gives a stuff.”
Very nearly kicked ourselves out of it. And in that last I actually thought we could be up against it because as things in football levelling out, you might miss a bunch of chances while they take them. The ones thing that seems to be consistent in this game is that firing a bunch if blanks early isn’t reward for efforts .
But that stuff can be fixed and when you got a backline as strong as this one, you just feel safe. Like you’re being cradled in the arms of a Greek god. Or something like that.
May and Lever were outstanding. Lever absolutely pivotal in that last 10 mins. Rivers and Salem the Mr cool brothers. Really liked Hunty’s game tonight and Langdon. Most of us said he couldn’t kick or back into a pack, he does both of those better than most would think.
Hibbo did a reasonable job on Stringer, he got off the chain a couple of times but I wouldn’t trust anyone else to guard him, good work son. Gus was excellent first half, kept his eye on the ball. I thought we looked at one point early on like we’d forgotten the basics of the game and our synergy was in the toilet but we just have to have faith in those moments. For the most part we see it through. We just needed to bank this one and we did, I’m not gonna criticise it one bit. We came up against a team on the rise that can really put you to the sword if you’re not careful.
Viney underdone, hope the hitout helps though. We need that man firing again. Thought the lack of another key tall was a bit surprising. It seemed like the only looks we could get were snaps form close range or 40 metre shots (Granted, ones we should be kicking)
Anyway as mentioned before I got a headache the size of 2 metre Peter. Bed. Have a great night DLers, back on the winners kist.