by Grahaml » Mon Aug 30, 2010 9:53 pm
I'm here, just been a bit busy I'm afraid. Heck, the game was only yesterday! Normally takes me a day to get over really disappointing losses to a point I can make some balanced comments.
Sturt were pretty good for mine. Perhaps I still think they would need to improve in a finals series (if they get there of course) to challenge seriously. Needless to say I think the dogs need to improve a heck of a lot more to challenge. This week for me becomes a massive game. Losing 3 games in a row like that isn't a great preparation, but beat Glenelg and get the week off it doesn't look so bad.
Overall, the main blokes who seemed to do the damage were Giles (made buckets look about 12th rate) and Herring (who I never rated, but he exploited any rust Sibenaler had in the first half). Gum and Vassal were good, but when the ruck and CHF are doing so much damage it gets hard to stop. The dogs were too fumbly and had too many passengers to take toll of the patches they had control, while Sturt just put it on the board. In terms of game play I thought both sides controlled about half that second quarter. The fact Sturt put it on the board and the dogs didn't was where it was won and lost IMHO. The most obvious are Sturt can improve is the impact of Chambers. To win pretty well without him really doing anything (I forgot he was there until the second half) is the biggest plus IMHO.
For the dogs, I though Lawry and Hardy were very good. Hardy gave us something all around the ground while Lawry did as he pleased in the first half. Seemed obvious that Sturt were desperate to get Chambers into it in the third quarter so he got a few chances, but still Lawry was very good. Spurr and Dutchke's marking up forward is magnificent for little guys, gave us a shot while Callinan and Boyd are superb with the ball in hand. Sansbury had a shocker, hopefully from a hectic week while a few mids struggled to get into the game until the second half. To me, it's becoming more and more apparent that we just don't play well on the smaller grounds. One more win and it won't hurt us, but we need to be able to win these games we set ourselves to win on any ground or it will hurt us one day.