All things considered i was happy with the overall performance from what is basically a reserves side, with many players who have very few or no senior games experience.
At no stage did we allow a near full strength opposition to totally overrun us.
You don't have to see much of conca to know he will be a very good footballer if he makes the grade. His vision, decision making and skills are spot on.
Batchelor looks like he has nice skills too.
Astbury was standout. did make some mistakes but at times his decision making and skills off half back neared sublime. He is a natural footballer.
Derrickx just got better the longer he went on. some strong marks toward the end of the game were encouraging and his efforts after the ball went to ground from a ruck contest put our other ruckmen to shame. Is it too big a call to have him in front of Browne after one game?
Of vickery, still is not ready i don't believe. Still needs another year or twoand is a good argument as why we need our resreves team so he can be be developed at a lower level exactly how the coaching staff decree.
Nahas white and edwards specifically seemed to be under instructions to take the play on. Last night they were up against better defences than they would have been practicing against so id imagine they were finding it a little more difficult to break the lines, as was shown by the number of times they were caught or pressured into turnovers. It will be interesting to see how this tactic pans out over time and with a more experienced team.
Of these three i still find nahas the biggest concern. He looks to have found that extra yard of pace that he seemed to have lost year, but he is still a dumb footballer. He has a lot of trouble absorbing the pressure rather than "deferring" it. Not as bad as as last year but really panics the closer he is to being tackled.
White didnt do much to impress but showed glimpses. First game of the season i'm prepared to cut him some slack, as i think he has something to offer. He just has to show that something more often. Make or break for him this year.
Edwards got a lot of the pill but particularly early on his disposal was ordinary. Again i'm prepared to cut him slack for the first game of the year.
With all three of these players and the role they were asked to play we need to remember that the step up they had to make last night from from training was enormous. Being asked to break the lines by playing on all the time against well drilled opposition, without our prime onballers to help by blocking and create space would be a bit more difficult than they found at practice.
Contin showed glimpses and looks like he knows where to position himself to get the pill.
Mcdonald's run down and tackle was a nice. Didn't someone say he was lazy, slow and overweight?
Overall the structures held up well, (again, all things considered). You could see the "press" at all lines early on. It broke down a bit as the night wore on, but that was to be expected.
Obviously i want to see improvement in our best 22, but for our futures sake the thing i want to see most is coburg winning games on the backs of the performance of the last few years' draftees and from last night i think we may start to see that.
If we look back to our NAB game last year and early rounds season proper, from our best 22 (thought to be at the time, anyway), then last nights performance from a second string side shows just how far we have come as a club in that time.
Yeah it would have been nice to have got through to the next round, as now i wont see them again until round 1, but I never expected that to happen anyway.
All things considered, pretty content about things.
