Tigers monster in ‘rare form’ as $5m Pie ‘torn apart’3. LYNCH‘S MONSTROUS HALFIt takes some sort of performance for goalkicking great Jason Dunstall to make the call that he did at half-time on Saturday afternoon.
“This big man Tom Lynch is tearing Darcy Moore to pieces,” he said.
“This is a first half from a key forward that you just don‘t see – 18 possessions, five goals and he’s missed two absolute sodas.
“It could nearly have been the best first half of football ever witnessed for a key forward, he was that good.”
Lynch started the match far from impressively in front of goal, missing some sitters, but he quickly became the clear standout on the field in a frightening performance.
His first quarter alone was mightily impressive, with Dunstall praising the 29-year-old‘s performance.
“Tom Lynch has been involved in every score the Tigers have had. It‘s interesting to have 10 disposals in the first quarter but only two of them have come from marks,” he said.
“He leads far and wide, he‘s dropped a couple he perhaps should’ve taken, but he butters up and gets a lot of the groundball. He’s causing all sorts of problems for Darcy Moore.”
Dunstall later added: “He’s in rare form, he’s going along beautifully.”
Those potential problems were flagged pre-game by Nick Riewoldt, who noted the Pies‘ intercepting defensive keys in Darcy Moore and Jeremy Howe could be up against it with a forward line boasting two talls.
“At times your greatest strength as a player like Jeremy Howe or Darcy Moore to a lesser extent can be your greatest weakness,” he said.
“They want to read the ball and mark it and at times the leg-rope becomes so big that you almost invite the forward into a position where they‘re going to mark the footy.
“It‘s OK when you’ve got the game on your terms, but when you come up against a duo like Lynch and Riewoldt in the forward half Balta when he’s down there, it can be problematic.”
Lynch finished with 6.1 from a career-high 25 disposals. Most impressively, 14 of those 25 touches ended up in Tigers scores.
“He’s got to stop throwing up midfield numbers,” Tigers teammate Trent Cotchin said on Fox Footy with a smile post-game
“It’s amazing. He’s such a big man, but if we give him an opportunity one-in-one he’s going to be hard to beat.
“Darcy Moore has been hard to beat and has been for a long period of time, so to do what he did today against quality opposition shows the talent he has.”
Lynch told Fox Footy post-game he “just wanted to keep being a big presence in the air”.
“It was good. I managed to get a bit of space and get on the end of a couple,” Lynch told Fox Footy post-game.
“But up the field, the way our backs set up, they were just marking everything and getting it going on transition.”
Source: Foxsports
