A really immature performance from I guess what’s still an immature team. Too many inexcusable efforts and errors from players that you would hope should know better.

PROS

1. Hadlee – doing what McLean was recruited for, in and under, dishing it out well.

2. Carrazzo – shaky early but came back to beat Harvey IMO. Is a reliable tagger now.

3. Gibbs in the middle – Much more useful than he is in defence. Why does he only get moved into the middle when it’s panic stations?

4. Eddie Betts - had to replace Fevola as the only credible forward.

5. A wake up call for these blokes to provide some real consistency before reading their own publicity. We have not been able to string more than 2-3 good weeks together and this needs to be a focus as we move forward.

CONS

1. The whole defence – A disgraceful effort. Didn’t play tight enough and conceded too many soft goals. Joseph, Armfield, Russel, Walker all played their worst games for the year and looked rattled. Our game plan relies on these blokes running off and if they’re all down its game over.

2. The forward line – too many ineffective I50’s. Houlihan, Setanta were poor. Waite kicked three but wasn’t a good target.

3. Walker – After BOG last week, gave away silly frees, didn’t want to play tight on his man and misjudged numerous marking contests. Needs to learn from it.

4. Browne – not good enough. Lost one on one contests. Bullants.

5. Lack of run through the corridor – the game plan broke down once the defence was beaten. We won the clearances and breaks but it didn’t matter because we could not break the lines.

Inability to string together consistent performances. A hallmark of our young team, but good performances have been punctuated by poor football against Coll, Haw and now North. We must try to eradicate these regular off days.

An off night.

An opportunity lost.

Not acceptable.

the two games where Gibbs has really starred in defense were v Geelong and v West Coast. In the West Coast game, he didn't really have an opponent in the second half, had roughly the same number of possessions as the first half, but the team didn't benefit nearly as much (ie we won by a lot more in the first half than we did in the second). V Geelong, Judd and Murphy both had really good games in the middle, as did McLean, so he wasn't really needed there.
Consider two games where Gibbs has started in defense, moved into the midfield, and almost instantly turned the game (v Collingwood and v Kangaroos).

Unfortunately, we have been unable to field our first choice back 6, but when we do, we will be much better off with Gibbs in the middle (and getting forward).

The coach was awful tonight. Did we start the first quarter with an extra man in defence against a weakside under the roof. I thoought that set a defensive mindset for the whole night.

There were no moves, tackling and run.