westcoastpanther wrote:Reckon I'll head up on Saturday and see if Tumby can pull off an upset in their 100th year, I have a gut feeling they can. The game I saw Tumby should have won but Ruley was out and he is a massive difference. Was the 2nd semi an abberation? Preview would be good MB, where's it going to be won (don't say Cummins

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WCP - Time will only tell if we are good enough to turn things around and knock Ramblers off. One would hope that we could not possibly produce another performance like the 1 at Lock a fortnight ago?? For some unknown reason Tumby have never played well at Lock, even in years of dominance over the Roos our performances have been poor there ... just 1 of those things in footy I guess.
The upside for us is the fact that a number of key players, (Atterton, Hunt, Curtis, Butler, Reid and Higgins), will be better off with another game under their belt - the 2nd semi final was the first game in more than a month for most of those blokes.
Darren Rule is a huge key for them - class player and difficult to hold for 4 quarters. I know it's the most used term in footy, but the midfiled duel is super important. We obviously need to make the supply to Ruley and Burger a little less comfortable. OUr defence was actually pretty good in the 2nd semi, give the way the ball was constantly been pumped into their forward line. Tumby were average, actually worse than average in the 2nd semi final with their midfield accountability and defensive forward line pressure. This has been a major focus, and improvement was shown against lock last week. I feel sure you will see a much harder Blues side this week, and probably positioned more conventially - possibly over thought things in the 2nd semi a little, instead of going with what has worked all year??
Ramblers are like any other side - placed under pressure they can and will make mistakes. Tumby cannot allow the likes of Simon Pedler to simply roam around in 30-40 metres of space as he did in the 2nd semi, picking up touches at will. They have a number of blokes that run forward of the ball, because they back their guns, Bruiser, Rog & George to win their fair share of the footy - they slaughtered us at clearances at Lock, which gave them the option of dropping back the likes of Spider Minhard across our half back line - this then makes any forward attacking difficult.
We beleive we match up pretty well on their key forwards - Steve Atterton, Syd Lawrie, Dylan Higgins v Darren Rule, Adam Richo, Joel Fitz for example. George Pedler, Paul Boxer & Bruiser will always get touches - class players do, but what becomes important is what sort of pressure they get those touches under. Ferret the same for us, he'll always gain touches, and along with the under-rated Josh Cave, Jay Shannon and now probably Hunty, we have the ability to win our fair share form the middle. Coady back in to the ruck should assist this onball division, he spent 3 quarters playing from a forward pocket in the 2nd semi. Sammy Reid showed some good signs last week, 2 goal 6 was not a good return for the work he put in, but again he should benefit from another hit out last week.
So in a nutshell after all that crap - Both sides have strong defences, so the midfield battle between the above guys will be absolutely critical to determining the outcome. No doubt that Ramblers have a more potent forward line, but we feel we have some good match ups there, so the key will be Tumby being able to manufacture a winning score - you would think we need to kick a minimum of 12-14 goals to win. Should be a great game - as previously mentioned you should expect to see a far more disciplined Tumby side than their previous encounter .......