Round 2 – GWS Giants v Gold Coast: Not this again

Round 2: GWS Giants v Gold Coast Suns

3:35pm (Qld time) Saturday, 1 April; Spotless Stadium

 

 

Oh, God. Not this again.

 

I decided to wait a little before writing about this game, despite the fact that I had plenty of thoughts about it on Saturday night. Well, the thoughts did become a little blurred as the night wore on. I wish now that this had been played at the later time slot. Sunday would have been better, for one thing.

 

Watching this game from home was, as it turned out, a far more sensible option than traveling to Sydney, catching up with some family, finding my way to and from Olympic Park, and being the delightful company I would have been afterward. Instead, I sat on the couch and made a mess of a bottle of bourbon.

 

About 3 minutes in there was an awful feeling of déjà vu when Shiel set up Cameron for the Giants’ second goal. The slow start the Suns put up last week against Brisbane was happening again. The “good” news that Jonathon Patton was not to take his place in the home team was quickly made irrelevant.

 

There were two (!) moments in the match when the Suns were in touch. When ‘Two Metre’ Peter Wright scored the Suns’ only goal of the first quarter at the 20-minute mark, they were only 14 points down, despite being beaten all over the ground. In the next 9-minutes, the Giants kicked 4 goals to assert their dominance. Despite everything that had happened before, the Suns played some pretty good footy to finish the first half and start the second, cutting the lead back to 22 points. At that point, I was thinking that we might see the same sort of revival that had occurred the previous week. Unfortunately, it was a mirage; the Giants kicked into gear, and from a Suns’ point of view it was painful to watch from that point on.

 

One of the really annoying things about watching football on TV is that one is forced to listen to the commentators. I did like it a few years ago when Fox Footy allowed a choice of sound: commentators, crowd sounds or umpires. Anthony Hudson had a fascination bordering on weird about Gary Ablett’s number of possessions. How many minutes, how many touches… it went on and on. And as for Gerard Healy, somebody please buy him a new collection of clichés. I very nearly threw the remote at the TV when he started talking about witches hats for the tenth time. Please, Gerard, we can see. Commentators should really stay away from the bleeding obvious and add something to the viewers’ experience. Anybody watching this game, even if they had never before watched a game of Australian Football, knew that the Suns were in trouble early and that it was just getting worse as the game continued. We don’t need an overpaid ex-player (who has won only one more Brownlow Medal than me) in a suit to tell us again and again.

 

Did you notice the date of this game? Are the Gold Coast playing all of us supporters for fools? I hope not. Anyway, next week we get to play another team with no wins on the board yet, so I guess that makes us still a chance! Who is it again? Ah, yes. Hawthorn.

 

 

GWS Giants        7.4          10.8        16.12     24.16-160

Gold Coast          1.2            5.4        7.8           8.10-58

 

Best Players:

GWS Giants:  Shiel, Kelly, Davis, Greene, Cameron

Gold Coast: Martin, Miller, Swallow

 

Goals:

GWS Giants: Cameron 6, Greene 5, Johnson 3, Kelly 3, Smith 3, Lobb 2, Shiel, Reid

Gold Coast: Martin 3, Wright, Witts, Kolodjashnij, Ablett, Barlow

 

Umpires: Foot, Findlay, McInerney          Attendance: 8,022

 

Our votes:

Dylan Shiel (GWS) 3, Josh Kelly (GWS) 2, Phil Davis (GWS) 1