Away for a couple of days and look what I missed!
Like death and taxes you can always guarantee that some posters will come out after a loss and state that our admin/coaches don't know what they're doing, the young players aren't developing as quickly as they should or Team X's recruits are, our more experienced players are weak and lazy and our recognised 'star' players are frauds. Does this about sum it up?!
I was disappointed with the result the same as everyone here, in fact I was gutted. The think the problem started with our previous two very competitive efforts against two capable opponents. Those results lifted my expectations so I believed another similar result, at worst, was probable.
I know we would struggle as soon as I saw our backline and the weather forecast. To win wet weather footy you need bigger bodies and forwards who are good at ground level. Our backmen, particularly Grimes, was good in the air but looked all at sea when the ball hit the grass. In his second game he did well but obviously to compete against the best he will need to add this aspect to his game. Dimma is correct when he says this experience will be good for our young defenders education - will it mean they will develop into star backmen...well that's another story.
Our team was stacked with young, quick and skilled players. There's was stacked with bigger, stronger, more experienced and tall players who were good below there knees. Recipe for disaster but unavoidable given our list. I honestly believe that the contest would have been much closer if we had had our more experienced backmen in and the weather conditions were drier.
Lids copes a raw deal imho from some around here. Last week is was heralded as a star, this week a lazy/weak waste. ??? Equally statements stating we shouldn't build our forward future on Jack is emotive dribble. Yes he needs to pull his head in. Yes it's not safe to rely on any one player ever (Richo anyone
) but to say he doesn't have a future at our club after winning the Coleman medal last year is far too premature.
Similarly Dimma may have made a mistake by leaving Lids in the Hawks goalsquare but how are we too know what the game plan was. It seems to me that whenever people don't understand the reasons behind something they automatically believe the worse around here. They think they see one mistake and make an assumption that everything that person has done and will do will be a mistake.
One game out of a very long season....
