cimm1979 wrote:
Blues2005 wrote:
In the last quarter, why didn't Joseph just kick the ball long up the line instead of riskily centreing it to Jamison and costing us a goal? Jamison should have been awarded the free for having his arms chopped, but what was Joseph thinking? If he had gone long up the line, even if the kick had gone straight to one of their players, at least the ball would have been in our forward line, giving us time to set up defensively.. Even a kick out on the full would have been much better in the circumstances. These are the basics of football and it puzzles me that, even allowing for the pressure of the game, such a fundamental mistake can be made, particularly by someone who should know better.
The kick to Jammo is part of the drill and it had been working, its what got us back in the game.
Unfortunately either Jammo didn't get enough separation from his player or Josephs kick was too high.
That was a skill error, not a tactic error.
Not that it matters ultimately.
I'm not suggesting that Joseph is solely to blame for the loss. And again, Jamo probably should have got the free anyway for an arm chop. It's not always a mistake either - had we been chasing the game at the time and therefore been needing to take a few risks, you couldn't blame the player for doing just that.
But it was a poor (yet easily avoidable) mistake at a crucial time in the game. We were ahead at the time; there was no need to take the risky option of bringing the ball back inside when a kick long down the line (even if it ended up going straight to a WCE player) would have been the safer and more desirable choice. Joseph has been around long enough now to know that, unless his target is obviously free, he is not skilful enough to successfully centre a ball to a marked player some distance away in the middle of a tight last quarter. It's about knowing your limitations and executing the fundamentals well and on this occasion, he failed to do that.