Thoughts:
As most have said, we were Rusty as hell. However I am more concerned about our inability to land a successful tackle. It seemed we were a little too small/light down back, as Carlton just ran through many of our tackles in the first half.
Our forwardline needs some work. Several times I saw two of our players trying to mark the same ball - including Marlion and Castagna trying to outmark Lynch and Reiwoldt. They need to up the situational awareness - if those two boys are flying for a mark, stay down. I even saw Lynch and Reiwoldt contest the same ball a couple of times - All stuff we can work on and improve. For 75 inside 50s, we didn't hurt the opposition enough.
Several of the guys who seemed to (from Caesar's reports) be in the rehab group looked off the pace of the game. This will improve.
"Stand" rule. Just ....get.......the........*smile*........out of the game. So stupid a defender must stay like a well trained dog, whilst someone can basically run past them.
Inconsistency in umpiring - remember they'll be rusty too. About what I expected for the most part, but agree the HTB rule was no where near officiated well enough. Multiple times players were tackled and did 360+ spins and were not penalised. Either we've changed the interpretation (again) or these guys got it wrong.
Carlton - They have a lot to like. I think their endurance will catch them out, they simply couldn't run out quarters and couldn't do much in the fourth at all. When they got tired, they turned it over or had basic skill errors......lots. However they have some players who I'd pinch in a heartbeat (also WTF is Mark Murphy still playing for. I wondered who they'd recruited called Murphy - just go already mate. No premiership for you).
Gamestyle - It seemed really fast. Lots of "coast to coast" running with very little intervention from either side at times. I predict this will change in 2-3 weeks time. Players will start to get tired, the game will slow down and coaches who realise their cattle can't play 4 quarters like this will resort to flooding to get around the "stand" rule.
Never felt like we were going to lose last night if we did enough. Each time we seemed to back off, they'd surge and we'd respond. Our chaos ball looked a bit restricted with the new rule (fancy that) but I never thought we were going to lose.
As most have said, we were Rusty as hell. However I am more concerned about our inability to land a successful tackle. It seemed we were a little too small/light down back, as Carlton just ran through many of our tackles in the first half.
Our forwardline needs some work. Several times I saw two of our players trying to mark the same ball - including Marlion and Castagna trying to outmark Lynch and Reiwoldt. They need to up the situational awareness - if those two boys are flying for a mark, stay down. I even saw Lynch and Reiwoldt contest the same ball a couple of times - All stuff we can work on and improve. For 75 inside 50s, we didn't hurt the opposition enough.
Several of the guys who seemed to (from Caesar's reports) be in the rehab group looked off the pace of the game. This will improve.
"Stand" rule. Just ....get.......the........*smile*........out of the game. So stupid a defender must stay like a well trained dog, whilst someone can basically run past them.
Inconsistency in umpiring - remember they'll be rusty too. About what I expected for the most part, but agree the HTB rule was no where near officiated well enough. Multiple times players were tackled and did 360+ spins and were not penalised. Either we've changed the interpretation (again) or these guys got it wrong.
Carlton - They have a lot to like. I think their endurance will catch them out, they simply couldn't run out quarters and couldn't do much in the fourth at all. When they got tired, they turned it over or had basic skill errors......lots. However they have some players who I'd pinch in a heartbeat (also WTF is Mark Murphy still playing for. I wondered who they'd recruited called Murphy - just go already mate. No premiership for you).
Gamestyle - It seemed really fast. Lots of "coast to coast" running with very little intervention from either side at times. I predict this will change in 2-3 weeks time. Players will start to get tired, the game will slow down and coaches who realise their cattle can't play 4 quarters like this will resort to flooding to get around the "stand" rule.
Never felt like we were going to lose last night if we did enough. Each time we seemed to back off, they'd surge and we'd respond. Our chaos ball looked a bit restricted with the new rule (fancy that) but I never thought we were going to lose.
