Bombers Intra-Club Hitout

By Bargey
Stanton was BOG by a mile, he was absolutely everywhere. Forward, Middle Back. Kicked a few goals. Used the ball better by foot than we are used to, though there were a couple of stuff ups.

McPhee, well he was very good and got a lot of it, but his kicking is still sheisse and seriously lets him down. Butchered some very good opportunities in front of goal.

The most notable performances for mine were:

Leroy Jetta, he’s trimmed right down, and he wasn’t showing flashes of brilliance, everything he did was brilliant and instinctive. He got stacks of it across the middle and forward of the center, did some top stuff in close that reeked of class. Kicked some goals and set others up for quite a few.

Courtenay on the Dempsay was great across half back, read the ball beautifully, carried it forward a lot, did a lot of running of the lines, and was very direct. Very composed, but there wasn’t a lot of pressure. Impressed with his overhead marking in contests on occassion. Whether he’s big enough to play that role against the big boys will be the question.

Ricky Dyson was also everywhere. Has also trimmed down, but seems to have improved his strength over the ball, though could still get better. Used the ball very well in tight situations around the stopages, combined well with Stanton on many occassions. Disposal by hand and foot was exceptional with only a couple of exceptions. His only blemish was a bit of a half squib job going for an overhead mark with about 3 mins to go.

All those guys would have easily had 20+ touches. They all just kept getting it.

Rama was the other good showing, seemed to be right back to his best, brilliant and instinctive and ultra composed. Never looked rushed, some of his disposal was nothing short of brilliant.

McVeigh was the same McVeigh from last year, very polished and determined. Gus got a fair bit of it, and he was predominantly playing down back, and deep down back. Froggy, Fletch, Lucas, Woosha, JJ, NLM, Slats & Thighs were their usual productive selves. Nash, Hocking and Lonergan were very solid and played pretty error free games, whilst getting a reasonable amount of the footy.

I wasn’t impressed by our Rucks, both Hille and Laycock didn’t do enough around the ground. There was some nice centre bounce work from both of them though. Bellchambers was terrible. These guys definately need to improve if the club is going to go anywhere.

For the red team, Bachar was the standout. I was also impressed by Danny Chatres who was under the pump at CHB but generally did quite well. Myers and Pears were both pretty good, I was impressed with their composure under pressure. Pev was the only regular senior player in the red team, and didn’t do much, he was tagging though which I thought was a good sign.

As for the new coach, well he’s obviously put a very exciting and attacking style of gameplan on the table. The senior guys played on almost 100% of the time, used the ball directly, with a lot less stop start stuff and less sideways movement. The most notable changes I saw from Knighter were much better rotation of the midfield guys through the bench, Stanton, McVeigh, Dyson, Jetta, Monfries etc were all getting 2 sizable breaks a quarter at regular intervals. Today seemed to be a lot about sticking to the gameplan and trying a few set plays out. Our work around the stoppages in particular was much better than it has been in the recent past. The talking from the guys was significant, the senior guys in particular were directing traffic a lot, and there was obviously a lot of concentration on running to create space and opportunities for team mates.

Still it’s pretty hard to gauge anything from a game like today, which was basically a training drill for the senior boys. They do look fitter than last year, but until you see them perform under AFL standard pressure you can’t get an idea of how good or bad we’ll be.

I think we’ll challenge for the eight, and generally be quite a bit better than most are predicting. I also think we will be a very exciting team to watch. On today’s performances I can see us having a lot of aboriginal boys in the 22… Jetta, Davey, Lovett-Murray, Lovett, Dempsay & Ryder will all be regular senior players this year I’d expect, it’s going to be blacktastic.

The main guys who didn’t play from the senior list were Lloyd, Lovett, Ryder, Gumbleton, Watson & Winderlich.

The final score was 22.24 (156) to 4.4 (28). The final margin would have been a lot more if the senior guys had of kicked a bit straighter with the wind in the 3rd, where they scored 3.11 to nothing, and also had 4 or 5 shots go out of bounds.

Reimers and Scotty’s punch on was pretty serious, there were a couple of big punches thrown, but nothing connected. Kyle must have cheap shotted Scotty cause the big man got real angry real quick. Was great to see Spike come to the defense of his teammate and rough Reimers up.

As for the Umpires, it was McLaren, Goldspink and I think Harden the fark up Stefan Grun, and they were ugly, insipid and pathetic. Except for the 3rd quarter, where they paid next to nothing, which is what all umps should strive for as much as possible. McLaren went A over T at one point, that was a highlight.

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Posted 9 February 08 in Match Review News