I think the game is beyond the simplicities of having good players on the park.
You need some direction to send these players in. They obviously had good direction from the start of the game. Any decent coach will be able to send a group of decent players in the same direction from the start of a game. Its when things are challenging is when the leadership of the group the mentality of the group and the guile of the coaching staff all stand up.
After half time, blind Freddy could have seen that North were going to come out hard at us. They sent Thompson to Martin, they subbed out Daw and brought on more run. They spread there players, tried to go away from man on man and backed their fitness against ours and rolled the dice with uncontested ball. Have a look at the tape they have numbers everywhere and they cut us to pieces with hand balls and minimised stoppages. Didn't help with umpires pinging every 2nd tackle as holding the ball.
They had a trip to WA last week and were the fitter team at the final bell. Speaks volumes.
Not fit enough, not enough leadership on field and not enough direction from the coaching box with absolutely no plan b or momemntum contigency plan. Which is a disgrace especially after our failure to deal with momentum swings in the Elim final last year. Any coaching staff worth their weight would have highlighted that as a key area to never ever ever let happen again. Bomber Thompson loses to Hawthorn in the 07 GF, tells the players to never lose to that mob again. Not difficult, bit of mentality.
Patheic
