by Rik E Boy » Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:30 am
Not quite so pissed today so I can now comment rationally (well, at least as close as I can anyway LOL) about the game but you know the old story..a picture is worth a thousand words.
Toughness Lite
Port tried to play tough yesterday and the results were laughable. In the old days Port didn't try to play tough, they WERE tough and that is a big difference. The Magpies mantra was 'Power at the body, Power at the ball'. Yesterday was toughness lite a la Fremantle. When Fremantle try to play tough they give away free kicks and 50 metre penalties and this is exactly what Port did yesterday. Locking Ablett's head between your knees is not tough, having a huge ruckman run through Joel Selwood twice is not tough, smashing players who have just kicked the ball is not tough..and neither is a lightweight forward smacking Harry Taylor in the face when he was on the ground tough either. Pathetic. Even that blouse Danielle Pearce tried a limp wristed shove against a Cat opponent. I nearly fell of my couch laughing.
And the award goes to...
Charlie Chaplin, you should be awarded the Gold Logie for that amazing acting after that massive Steve Johnson 'headbut'. While that was weak, it certainly won't be any weeks. Could you imagine Greg Phillips doing that? For Shame. Another award (**** of the week) should go to umpire number ten who saw fit to award a free kick to Brendon Lade because that idiot Brogan pushed Ottens into him and many other pearlers across Geelong's half back line. We finally got a free from this cheat only when Darren Milburn walked within centimetres of this Stevie Wonder with blood pissing out of his head. You had to get close to the clown before he'd give us jack. On the whole the umpriing was good but good old number ten let the side down.
Poor Warren!
The Port forwards had no chance yesterday. On a day when Geelong went in without our first choice Full Back and Centre Half Back the delievery to the forwards was shocking. Port dicked around with the ball instead of kicking it to contests. Choco clearly didn't watch the video of the North v Geelong game because this is why North troubled us. Warren Tredrea hardly put a foot wrong yesterday so why not kick the bloody thing to him? Of the other forwards the Power badly misses Brett Ebert for mine (or, at least in form Brett Ebert), Daniel Motlop is a selfish girl and Westhoff is having real difficulties making his mark this season and clearly needs a few games in the 'Magoos' just like the Cats did to Hawkins. There is no point leaving the kid up front and getting killed every week.
Chappy loves you!
If Port ever got to the tin rattling stage you could recruit Paul Chapman to head up the Victorian arm of the fundraising initiative. Chappy is one happy Cat whenever he plays Port and he was displaying his ownership of the Power once again to the delight of the locals. He even did an atttempted reprise of his towering Grand Final grab but even though he failed to hold the pill he was soon forgiven when he hit the deck and slammed through another Cat goal. Another Geelong player who seems to save his best against Port is Tom Harley. He took his best mark of the season yesterday and he really stood up in the absence of Scarlo.
Junior vs. Kornes
While Junior might not be a blooming god, he is blooming good. But hang on, isn't Kane Cornes also blooming good? Surely Kane should be winning his own ball instead of sacrificing his game to tag a player fast becoming untaggable? There was a period early and late in the game when Kane was going quite well on Ablett but for most of the game Kane was just as ineffectual as a lesser player and most of Kornes' possies werent' all that damaging. A severly reactive move IMO.
Yes he's back, yes he's back, yes he's back..
Brad Ottens showed just how valuable he is to the Cat cause by kick starting the Cat machine yesterday. He racked up a lot of early stats and got us off to a running start even though we only got the one early goal before Port kicked a couple of their own. Yesterday was the first time this season that had a 2007 feel about it. That third quarter was the quarter when the genie was released from the bottle. Hopefully we'll see a bit more of the beast before this season is out. We can't win the flag without him.
4 times in 17 matches et all
I reckon the Power would be pretty happy not to have to play us for the rest of the year as 4 meetings in 17 matches is a quirky turn of the fixture. In that time Geelong has not played Hawthorn once. In a match where Port could have resurrected their season, they went the other way. Too many Portonians went missing and they truly looked like a side that had only visited Victoria twice this season.
regards,
REB