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Maher: "Quarters, unbelievable scenes down here, was that the best win you've ever been involved in?"
Cuz: "Uh...<gasp>....dunno...<asthmatic wheeze>....sitdownandassessitbut... <gasp>"
Maher: "Nine goals down you were, nine goals down with about a quarter and a half to play..."
The Good
We are a great team. An enigmatic, astonishingly amazing, mystifying, occasionally flawed but ultimately great team.
This is a difficult review to write, partly because of the bizarre but wonderful nature of the game, and partly because my hands are still shaking like a pope with Parkinsons. The question which can't really be answered is who deserves more props after win like this one- the individuals who work hard all day, or the guys who, despite struggling at various times got it together during the fightback late in the game?
Cousins had the kind of game which makes the (c) or lack thereof next to his name utterly irrelevant- unquestionably, Cuz was the on field leader against the Cats. Already having copped far more than his fair share of bumps and bruises over the last month, Cousins came into this game sore, was repeatedly hammered into the turf whenever he went near the ball but shrugged off the punishment and played a monster game in the midfield. For much of the first half, Cousins was the lone hand in the centre of the ground, and when the rest of the team lifted during the final term, he somehow found the petrol to do even more. Just in terms of his ability to take, ignore and play through physical punishment, Cousins has got to the point where he's one of the toughest, most downright hardcore players in the league. Pain don't hurt him.
I'll divide the rest of this section up into the two very different things we saw today.
The Last Quarter.
I've watched the last quarter three times now, and it stands as one of the most sensational collective efforts ever seen. Every Eagle put in some superlative efforts to get us over the line, and you can single out almost anyone for last term heroics. Kerr was phenomenal, comprehensively owned the clearances, and put in one of the most gutbusting efforts you will ever see when, after being involved in play deep in defence, he outran the football, sprinted the length of the ground, marked and calmly slotted the goal which initially gave us the lead. Cousins ran and ran and ran, long after his lungs should have been curled up whimpering under the interchange bench, and wins a prize for managing to stumble his way through a post-game interview apparently sans respiratory system. Fletcher used the ball often and precisely, and showed sensational courage to mark with Mooney coming hard the other way- you could almost hear Eskimo Joe in the background. The Lynch ran all over the ground till his legs gave way, took a critical contested mark across half forward in the dying minutes, and actually managed to find a courageous act dangerous enough to hurt 104kg of chiselled Quentin. Banfield had a topnotch cameo in the centre square, Braun took several good grabs in packs on the wing, Embley slammed home a freak goal from 55, Stenglein bobbed up repeatedly in attack, and Hunter... was HuntAAA. And so on. The nasty, cynical types might think I'm over-romanticising, but all I can say is sit down and watch the latter part of this game again- if anything, it's more amazing upon repeat viewing- all around the ground there were a series of supreme efforts to get us across the line. Set a full uninterrupted replay of the final quarter to a 30 minute remix of From The Sea, and that's our membership ads sorted for the next few years.
The Whole Game.
Fletcher backed up last week with an even better game, using the ball extremely well and actually putting in a lot of handy one percenter type efforts. 0 Clangers for Fletch today, enough said. Priddis also had an excellent debut. Re-watching the tape this morning, he stands out as one of the few midfielders to work at the coalface for four quarters alongside Cousins. To go on the road, watch your team get flogged around you and still have an impact hints at great character, and in light of that I think we'll be see a lot more from Priddsy (wanted: funny nickname) in the near future. Kerr was okay for most of the game, although he struggled to have the kind of clearance impact he managed in the final term.
Up forward, I thought there were a few players who manged to do okay despite being starved of the ball. Rowan Jones worked hard and, for the most part, took his chances when they came his way, and Lynch had a pretty impressive game and a good cameo in the ruck- I've said it a lot this year, but watching Lynch continue to put in when he's not getting the 5-10 good kicks delivered out in front of him on the lead makes me a lot more bullish about his long term future.
In defence I thought Glass managed pretty well and held the backline together around him under all sorts of pressure. Graham was solid and Banfield was pretty composed. Nicoski had his second excellent game in as many weeks, doing a decent job on Ablett Jnr and showcasing his usual damaging left foot running out of defence. Without a lot of press or publicity, Nicoski has gradually improved this year to the point where he is one of our very best players- in modern, flood ridden football, flankers like Nico who can run the lines and kick 55+ accurately are valuable and frequently match winning commodity.
As some people have suggested, there's a lot we can take out of this game. On one hand the nature of the win should do wonders for our self belief if we find ourselves in similarly bad situations again, but hopefully there is also a fair amount of in-house analysis about how we got in that situation in the first place.
The Bad
One of my favourite cliches is that in games decided by less than a goal, the bounce of the ball in the dying minutes has as much to do with the result as anything else. There's no question that even to get back to a position where we were a chance was a truly sensational effort, but what went wrong in the first place? How is it that a struggling team could liberally pants us for the best
part of three quarters?
One word: Clearances. Two more words: Chris Judd.
As far as I can tell the logic goes something like this. In football, a team which dominates the clearances almost always dominates the game. The first clean possession clear of a pack leads to more clean possessions, which leads to opportunities for forwards and pressure on opposing backlines. There are probably less than 5 forwards in the league who can have a serious influence on a game when their team is getting beaten in the clearances, and none of them play for us. The reason we've been so good over the last few years comes down to that C word, the reason Chris Judd is the best player in the competition comes down to that same word, and today, the reason we were so badly under the pump could also be put down to clearances, or lack thereof.
Without brow beating too much about it, the truth was we got flogged at the ball ups, bounce downs and throw ins for the first half. With the exception of Cousins, we were struggling to get the ball out the pack, whilst Geelong were doing it far too easily. Partly that comes down to us missing *the* clearance specialist in the AFL, but there were far too many players who initially failed to shoulder the load in the absence of his Juddness. The trouble started in the ruck, where Ottens toiled hard and limited Cox's effectiveness, and then at ground level, the likes of Stenglein (absent from the centre) Braun (flat), Kerr (not much influence till the second half), Selwood (excused thanks to the ankle) failed to help clear the ball or even prevent Cousins from being repeated roadkill on the bullbar of whichever opposition player felt like picking him off with his head over the footy. With not a lot of ball coming out, the outside midfielders were starved for football, particularly Embley, who struggled to have any impact until the final fightback. Rosa was okay when he had it, but got a comprehensive flogging from Joel Corey, who racked up stats at will.
No Judd No Eagles? Ultimately not, but a lot of our midfielders took a long time to find the heart and endeavour needed to cover for his absence.
Up forward, there were guys who struggled with the lack of delivery. After firing a few shots early, Hansen was comprehensively beaten by Egan and never really did much of anything. After a couple of huge weeks, Chick couldn't get near the ball, and Staker could have done more. Waters attacked the footy the way he usually does, but failed to have much of an impact- except on Harley's shoulder.
In defence, um, Hunter. As we all know, there are basically two players who wear #39 for West Coast- Adam Hunter, the handy running half back who is reasonably strong overhead, likes it rough and has some limitations, and HuntAAAA, the maniac who surfaces late in tight games, and is usually sighted perched on top of a pack somewhere screaming his own name or kicking crunch goals exactly when we need them. Before HuntAAAAA showed up, Hunter was having a real shocker againt Geelong. Obviously his early inspection of the player dugouts probably didn't help much, but one thing I am becoming increasingly convinced of is that Hunter needs to be kept away from leading forwards playing deep in attack- last two weeks he's been comprehensively outpointed by Robertson and Mooney (and indeed, O'Loughlin, in the game we do not speak of). When playing as a running HB, or defending against a 'true' CHF Hunts is quality, but if he gets dragged deep into defence, he's a liability, and we lose a lot of the run and attack which he provides when further up the ground. Thanks to Graham's rapid development, we should be able to prevent that matchup from occuring in future. Also a touch worrying was the Panda man's disposal out of defence- Wirra had an okay game and a good duel on the dangerous Chapman but his kicking and decision making have inexplicably gone from flawless to a tiny bit dodgy over the last few weeks.
That's a fairly long list of negatives for such an inspirational win, but whilst every Eagle fan this side of the nullarbor spent yesterday afternoon either getting paralytic or riding the mechanical bull around their loungerooms, I think its important not to lose sight of how we ended up needing such a ridiculous fightback in the first place. With Judd absent for another month, we're going to need players across the board to lift if we're going to win games the normal way.
The Ugly
Maybe it's a reflection of how tight things have been this year, but I am greatly looking forward to seeing us play a game against a team who aren't a.) gunning for a top 4 spot and see us as the ultimate test or b.) Hanging on by the skin of their nails and playing for their season. I guess them's the breaks when you're the league leaders, but if there's any chance of us striking an opposition side who are not totally switched on and desperate for a win, that would be nice.
This was a weird game, and not just for the obvous reason. For starters, I think the commentary was, um, actually pretty okay. Basically Sos and co kept it simple, called it how they saw it, and let the action speak for itself. Maybe it's just the fact that this particular tape is going to be taking pride of place in the video collection for years to come, but I reckon this was a pretty well called game. And whilst I'm on the subject, major bonus marks for being Victorian and knowing who Priddis was and being able to give a one line summary of his WAFL form this year.
If at this point you're worrying that you've fallen into some strange, GBU twilight zone where I'm all positive and stuff, the umpiring was downright awful. Random holding the ball interpretation, and some very silly deliberate out of bounds decisions (apparently the retarded rule of the week) were par for the course, but the last quarter just got very strange- throws abounded, by my reckoning at least three clear cut marks were not paid, and with about ten minutes to play both teams pretty much ignored the umpires and played on their own- this made for a surprisingly good spectacle, actually. If you're going to be charitable, it may have been something to do with the setting sun blinding them in the final quarter and turning everything the colour Cameron Ling normally is, but both teams were on the wrong end of some inexplicable non-calls.
Speaking of the last quarter, a potential sequel to siren-gate- did anyone notice in the last quarter how a number of Eagle players momentarily stop play whenever a train hooted (I assume?) in the background on the way past Skilled?
Hunter's nosedive into the dugout certainly could also have been very ugly, and may well require a swift phonecall to Worksafe Sam (Jako has his number, I believe). It was probably for the best however, as Hunter usually doesn't turn into HuntAAA until he's severely concussed and has a few metres of elastoplast wound around him. All's well that ends well I guess.
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