Match Report.coll v Wet toast.subtitled....TFFT.

[ed healey]

For the second week in a row we kicked 18 goals and almost lost again .
some good signs and some bad ones ie turnoveritis is still rife.
Cloke was good all day in his debut and should hold down a spot in the side on that effort.
Clement made many saves in the last qtr anyone of which had gone the other way,so would have the game.

The first qtr was the brodie holland show,snapping 4 goals in good old fasioned goalsneak style.
Lockyer goaled from a buckley pass,and Rocca goaled after a strong mark to give us 6 goals for the qtr.
unlike last week it tok 20 minutes for the umpys to pay a free and as usual it was to the other mob in front of goal.
but things looked in good sghape at qtr time.

second qtr started with a great effort from cloke chopping off an attack and next thing we knew bucks hit rupe on the tit and we goaled again.
Josh passes to Rocca and he goals and 6 goals up we go.
everything appeared fine but all of a sudden the players started taking a little longer to kick and the extra hand ball etc caused a lot of turnovers and added to that that the eagles had put in a better effort and gardiner got a free in front of goals and things changed.
I could hear Tommy Hafey somewhere yelling
TOO MUCH FINESSEN!!!!
Cummings went off with a hammy,the only thing hed done all day was keep mcintosh out of the play,but in the last few minutes he ran upfield and created the west coasts 2 goals before half time and we are 4 points up.
I didnt see it on tv but tim lane said MM ran onto the ground and the players ran away from him expecting a blast and he likened it to a sheep dog rounding up the sheep as they ran down the race.
3rd qtr
Wipperunda and Williams goal early and we are 7 points down.
I started having nightmares of years gone by where losing after a 6 goal lead seemed almost natural to us.
Taz gets a free and goals,unusual for us but we will take it but the wipperunda goals again.
Johnno after being caught a few times himself caught cousins and the turnover saw josh boot a long goal.
Leon is adding a bit of spark to the side and Bucks sinks a long bomb to put us back in front.
Wilson goals and then Taz goals its an arm wrestle.
second week in a row its a MM shootout.
1 minute of magic from Brodie saw him kick 3 goals and put us 23pts up at 3qtr time.
the final battle
A real shootout with turnovers aplenty from both sides.
Bucks and Brodie goal for us but wilson and williams keep wet toast within a point and then wilson knocked wakes onto lockyer and for a change it wasnt wakes on the stretcher,but only just.
7 points up the umps couldnt resist and paid gardiner a free and they goal.
with the ballon the wetoast forward pocket the most beautiful sound ive heard so far this year.

SIREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
weve won by a solitary point,ive got 26 more grey hairs.
we play exciting footy but the turnovers persist and it is like playing russian roulette.
bring on carlscum,and make it 2 in a row.
that would be beutiful.
votes.
3 brodie
2 rocca
1 Clement
1 bucks
1 wakes
1 Richo

[SIB4897]

Great report Ed, and a great result, although a little too close for comfort. Carlton got turned over bigstyle today, what's the bet things won't be so easy for the Mighty Pies next week...

Stephen Ives, Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester, England
(ex Frankston & Moe, Vic.)
Pie 'til I die
2002 Magpies Nest Member
Collingwood Football Club

[junkboy75]

good report ed. the one thing I did notice at the game yesterday was the pies propensity to go wide all the time, instead of straight up the middle or in the corridor. this sometimes resulted in situations where the pies became outnumbered when the pass didn't hit its mark, it also resulted in a lot of throw-ins and ball ups. we were all screaming, "for gods sake, kick it up the GUTS!!!" but for a while there the first option was to go wide and we really became predictable.

I disagree about 1 vote for richo tho...he really did not put in yesterday and in my mind was very disappointing. when in the action he did OK to spoil his opponents but it's when he didn't have the ball that was the prob. he looked slow and all at sea at times, and just didn't man up or chase his opponent with any intensity

what do people think of players who can't kick on the other side of the body? this was the case with johnson and licuria; johnson cost us a goal because he went to kick on his left when the first option would have been his right, and got pinned for holding the ball. I think as professionals, AFL players really need to be able to kick on both sides, and certainly you cannot win a premiership without this ability.

also, I don't reckon it was a surprise about the close result because I don't think west coast are actually that bad a team; they're certainly not the same team as last year. maybe we think they're crap because we just don't hear, see or read enough about teams from WA, but they're going to be tough to beat at home. ironically tho, it was ex-melb boy Judd who set 'em alight in his first game!! mate, who was on him??

"..we flew at them as a hawk to his prey, passed through them in the disordered state in which they were, separated them into two distinct parts and then tacked upon their largest division.." -- Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, 1797

[2 PIES IN CAIRNS]

Junkboy, in Ed's defence (and as you are no doubt aware) some of us can only comment on what we see on TV. Your comments re Richo off the ball are no doubt correct, it's just that we don't get to see much of the off the ball stuff on telly...and it's frustrating wondering who's doing what, who's leading in which direction , etc.
You guys (and girls) who have the privilege of seeing our heroes "live"...keep telling us in your match summaries and comments about the off the ball happenings..it's the only way we can get to find this stuff out!
Ed, don't change a thing about your match summaries, they are great reading!
PS. can someone assure me that that was young Cloke's first game...sure looked like he'd been in the side for about three years the way he went about his business yesterday. I think we've unearthed another one.

Bring on Carlscum!!!

[MargOZ]

If it wasn't for our disposal and messing around with the ball too much (and subsequently turning it over), we would have won by at least 5 goals. But we did battle our guts out and as they say, a win is a win (even if I went grey in the process!).

Brodie's 8 goals were definitely a highlight but he did come in and out of the game, kicking his bag of goals in short spurts.

I thought Rocca was easily our best and most consistent player. He ran all day, marked, tackled, put his body over the ball, rucked well, was physical and kicked goals. I actually think he's looking pretty fit as there's no way he could play the game he did yesterday if he wasn't. And we know he's a big guy so he's always going to be puffing after a run. Great effort Pebbles.

Other players I think deserve a mention are Jason Cloke (shows heaps of promise), Tarks (played well but still not at his best), Clement (made some good saves on the b/line), Tarrant (always runs hard and has to work twice has hard because he's always scragged), Leon (always does something when he's on the ground), Bucks (not his best game but still gets plenty of the ball), Burns (got the ball but wasn't as damaging as usual), Freeborn (I think he did some good stuff in the middle but wasn't consistent enough), and Licuria (works hard but not at the same level he was last year).

Players I thought tried hard but didn't play their best and weren't anywhere near as damaging as they could be were Rupert, Josh, Richo, Rintoul and Wakelin.

And the guys I thought really didn't have a great game were Johno, Cummings (before he went off injured), Lonie (needs a couple more games under his belt), Scotland and N.Davis (really looking out-of-sorts at the moment, which is a shame because I think he is a fantastic footballer).

All in all, our skill level was pretty low but at times we showed glimpses of great football that I'm hoping we'll see more and more of as we get further into the season. I was a bit concerned about our running, or lack of it, at times. Players had the ball at HB and literally had no-one to kick it to. Team-mates weren't running and making opportunities and some even had their back to the play on occasions. We also didn't back each other up as well as we should. There was one occasion where Tarrant ran hard to the wing and was almost caught by 2 (or 3?) weagles and there wasn't a team-mate within hand-ball distance. Not good enough.

I HATE comparing us to other sides, especially ones I hate as much as Essenscum - but one thing I've noticed is that they NEVER stop running! I think it's something we definitely need to work on. But we showed HEAPS of guts and heart yesterday and as long as we have that then skills and fitness can be worked on. We're still in for a big year!

Votes:
3 - Rocca
2 - Holland
1 - Cloke

GO PIES!
Marg



[This message has been edited by MargOZ (edited 07 April 2002).]

[junkboy75]

fair call 2 pies in cairns actually there are times that I wish I had the TV in front of me so I can see the "up close" action, so I guess there are pros and cons of being at the game. however, ed's reports are great, so keep it up ed

yep, clokey's first game and what an impression he made! he will definitely be a player don't you worry his kicking is not the greatest, reminds me a bit of his old man actually, but his ferocious attacks on the ball, mobility and reading of the play reminds me of someone like glen archer. probably not a key posi player, and I believe there are no plans at the club to play him as such, but his style amd toughness gives me the impression that he may be able to play on much bigger opponents a la archer. be interesting to see who they put him on against the blues. maybe whitnall?

"..we flew at them as a hawk to his prey, passed through them in the disordered state in which they were, separated them into two distinct parts and then tacked upon their largest division.." -- Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, 1797

[Fradam]

Here is my in depth match report as viewed from the outer.

we won, they lost. nothing else matters.

Fradam Wrote This

[Kristin5]

My thoughts:

Firstly, Congratulations Brodie on the 8 goals! Strangely enough, I said to my friend (a mad Essendon supporter) on Friday night that Brodie would kick 7 goals the following day (don't know what made me say that, at the time I was just having a laugh!) and then when he kicked his 4th goal at the end of the 1st quarter, I said told my mum and my sister about my 'premonition' - they said that he probably wouldn't get another kick, and that certainly looked true in the 2nd quarter. Then when he kicked his 7th goal at the end of the 3rd quarter I was going absolutely mental and told my mum that I must be psychic (she replied with "psycho, more like it!") I rang my friend and she couldn't believe that it had come true (and that Brodie now headed Matthew Lloyd on the Goalkicking table!). But then Brodie kicked his 8th goal, so in the end I was wrong (I underestimated him!), but thank bloody christ for that goal BECAUSE OTHERWISE WE WOULD HAVE LOST (what a tragedy that would've been!)

Anyway, thoughts on other players:

Nath was brilliant (as usual)
Tarrant worked hard up the field and probably a lot of his hard work went unnoticed, but not by me
Rocca was fantastic - worked really hard all day (his fitness seems to have improved)
Cloke looks the goods - still had some problems with decision making (leading to some average disposals) but overall the signs from him are positive
Nick Davis looks like his head and heart are already in Sydney - totally different player than what we have become used to. Where's the Nicky of old gone? I hope I'm wrong and that he is actually carrying an injury we haven't been made aware of, but I'm not so sure...
Clement was solid in defence and played well - our best defender on Saturday, I think
Rintoul, Johnson, Freeborn and Scotland all made some shocking errors - their disposals, on average, were terrible. I can make allowance once or twice, but not when it is done on a fairly consistent basis. We just can't afford all these turnovers!

Now onto Carlton - I hope we don't take them too lightly (like we seemed to against West Coast). Coming off such a huge loss, Carlton will surely be fired up! So c'mon Pies - BURY THEM!!!

"I'm sure people see me as a screaming redhead with a big pair of boobs, but I like to think I've got things to say." Geri Halliwell, former member of the Spice Girls

[Kristin5]

Oh, and I didn't mention: The players still don't seem to support each other enough. Where's the talking and the shepherding??? Too often our players get run down and/or tackled all because a teammate hasn't let them know that an opposition player is right on their tail or because they haven't provided a shepherd. It seems pretty obvious to me - so get out there and support each other, Pies!!!

"I'm sure people see me as a screaming redhead with a big pair of boobs, but I like to think I've got things to say." Geri Halliwell, former member of the Spice Girls

[This message has been edited by kristin5 (edited 08 April 2002).]