Aerie wrote:Norwood won because they were smarter. Both teams tried hard in terrible conditions.
First thing I didn't understand was bringing in a ruckman for a small. Obviously Redden plays, but either Rae or Culley should have been out given the conditions.
The most frustrating thing was the set up at clearances in the first half. For the first ten minutes the Eagles were able to get first use from Redden and Grieger, but then Norwood clicked on and it took until half time for the Eagles to rectify. I don't know whether it was the coach or players around the ball, but it was blindingly obvious the Eagles ruckman would tap down to the side or 45 degree angle backwards to one Eagles player, who would then be swamped by a rush of 3,4 or 5 Norwood onballers all running in the direction of their goals. In wet weather the Eagles should have set up as they did in the 3rd quarter with Redden banging the ball forward, which gave the Eagles a huge advantage. Despite the Eagles winning the taps easily, we were effectively playing in to Norwood's hands by giving them the momentum of the ball in the first half. 6 goals down at half time and game over. I could not believe it took until half time for the Eagles to work this out. It cost them the game.
Was not good to see a couple of those injuries. Kane's hit in particular was not good.
I was wondering too why we went for an extra tall in the conditions. ALso, wondering about the gameplan in the last quarter, needing to score at the least 4 times when both teams were averaging less than this over the previous three quarters, and we kept trying to play this close-in footy. We needed to open it up, get less players around the ball, and if this meant loosing by an extra 3 goals, then so be it.