Wow, nice win.
What was impressive was the 4 quarter effort.
It looked different, even different to when we played Melbourne. Yes, we applied pressure but the way the game is played at the moment there was so much attempting to run off other players and link up, by both teams, that pressure looks different. Looks more like they are trying to harass the opposition players than the pressure of 5 years ago. We did the harassing quite well tonight, you could see a few handball chains by Geelong where each player who got the ball had less time than the previous one. Maybe we are learning how pressure works with the stand rule and the fact it is harder now to prevent the opposition finding space.
Played more like a team tonight too, more options when a player was being tackled, more outlets, more running through packs to get the ball. It was still noticeable we kick to a static player too often and I still want to see more movement in the forward line as we enter 50, but an improvement.
In contrast the Geelong players are constantly on the move and kicking to players on the move. Their short passes were more accurate too, we still miss too many of these. It is damned difficult to hold their forward line. Hawkins and Cameron are always worth a bag of goals, but Balta improved and Broad was simply fabulous all night, did a brilliant job on Cameron. I was thinking at maybe half or three quarter time that Cameron will inevitably pop up and get a goal eventually, it happened but he was nullified all night.
We got it done, beat Geelong, and geez does it feel good or what.
DS
