Cam Hooke’s Collingwood Life – Round 7 wrap-up.

True believers, all,

Well, that wasn’t fun either.  A couple of weeks ago we were talking about 9:1 by QB weekend.  We could be lucky to be in the Eight by then, the way we are going.

Actually after Trav’s first goal and De Goey’s I settled back thinking that this was going to be an enjoyable afternoon.  I should have twigged that things wouldn’t necessarily go that way following the last couple of kicks at goal for the Quarter.  We need to look at our “destruction” of sides – not just to win, but to win well.

Richmond kicked the ball around and played short-pass ‘keep’ens off’ leading to a pretty massive Disposals advantage – not relevant except that you need to hold the ball to be able to do anything with it; check the Disposal Efficiency. I’d love to see that by Quarter.  Simple comparisons: Tackles (63:55), Hit-Outs (43:33), and Centre clearances (18:13), all to Richmond, were key.  But can someone explain to me how we won the Inside 50’s (46:53) and Marks inside 50’s (11:18) so substantially and still lost?  Frees – the usual (look it up).

 

Best?  Swan, Cloke, Crisp, Adams & Goldsack.  The Back 6 were pretty comprehensively beaten, as were most of the Front 6; and the Midfield.  Doesn’t leave too many.

Injuries?  Tooves off early.  Did anyone else notice Pendles limping in the Last Quarter?  Not reported, that I’ve seen.  Reid didn’t play in the Two’s game and Kennedy was subbed off their game too, may impact on his availability.

Observations?  Notes to coach:

1. Goals.  Totally concur with Bucks that Trav gets absolutely nothing from the Umps.  With three beautiful goals from outside the 50 on an angle (admittedly, he nearly hit the man on the mark with the last of these), he couldn’t pot the one at 20m directly in front.  Has he thought about going back to beyond the 50 to take the closer shots?  My inexpert view is that for the close ones, he is way too close to the man on the mark.  I think he is terrific further up the ground (and people need to stop assessing his performance on his goals scored). This week and last week he was hugely influential. I am not a great White fan, more critical after both shots late in the First Quarter.  Karnezis to replace, and give him some time to be a target and to ‘produce’, not just as the Sub.  I noted Bucks shift of Varcoe forward in the Last Quarter, which did produce a goal by White, but I would have preferred Karnezis given greater scope for longer.

2. Bucks identified the need to establish and maintain better control at the Centre (see last week’s email).  Grundy was beaten in the Centre ruck duel, totally and comprehensively.  If we got the ball out of the Centre it was messy, rushed and usually a Free rather than clean Midfield cohesion.  Witts is better than Grundy as a conventional ruck.  I’d like to see Witts as the starting ruck with the responsibility for most of the game.  Grundy is fantastic around the ground and could even be an alternate CHF, maybe changing CHB?

3. Tackling.  With an odd exception or two, awful.  The objective here is to prevent the tackled person passing the ball.  Do tackles where the tackled player passes the ball count in the statistics as a Tackle?

4. Ferocity.  At first sight, this game was hard-played between two committed teams.  But it shouldn’t have been.  We showed in the First Quarter the skill divide between the teams.  Our performance was reduced to Richmond’s level rather than maintaining our skill-advantage throughout the game.  I am reminded of my father’s description of a Rugby Union game, as a good Victorian knowing very little (or maybe a lot) about the game’s intricacies: “Someone blew a whistle, the ball was kicked off, followed by a lengthy brawl divided by a Half Time break“.  Not too dissimilar to our game on the weekend.  If we had won, it would not have reflected that well on us.  We are better than our performance would indicate.

5. Kick-In’s.  Now acknowledging that the Master of this, Neon Leon, has been gone for a while, and Heater is showing us all how it should be done for GWS, our kick-ins are routinely awful.  Instead of being a foundation for our counter-attack they are routinely giving our oppositions a second-chance.  There appears to be no ‘planning’ or routine alternatives on show.  Too often we stay on the defence rather than converting the kick-in into an attack.  Watch how Heater and the GWS team go about this!  Pls have a closer look before we end up confronting them in a couple of weeks.

6. Changes? A few are required.  Your suggestions?

A pretty awful (not even ordinary) performance.  You’d have been better advised going to a concert or completing your University assignment.

Next week – Saturday, 23 May?  Gold Coast.  No comment even against them, right now.  More on this later.

 

Go Pies.

 

Cam

Leave a Comment

*