Bankers And Anchors - Round 14, 2017 vs North Melbourne

[bornadog]

Banker - Cordy, one tough young man

[Flamethrower]

Banker - Cordy, one tough young man

Roy Hobbs!!!!

[Bulldog Revolution]

Suckling - it was so much easier when I liked all of our players.

Don't go back to the dark places of the Eagleton fixation Mantis - i feared you'd never return from that

Suckling is human in his imperfection, but not all he does is bad - stay in the glass is half full camp otherwise your life will only suffer

[boydogs]

Bankers

Players returning to form - Hunter, Bonts, Picken
VFL regulars performing - Campbell, Honeychurch
Hanging on when we were overrun

Anchors

Stopping to a halt in the last. Wallis & Honeychurch barely touched it after 3/4 time
Failing to make a spoil when North just bombed the ball forward
Star players a shadow of their former selves - Libba, Dickson

[Happy Days]

What is the Redpath/Thompson comment about? Unless you are referring to Redpath giving a free kick away to Marley Williams?

Redpath, as always, seems to be an easy target. But he again got his two goals, we looked better going forward with him playing deep, and him marking the suckling kick out and finding Hunter on the wing, was crucial to us winning the game.

True thought it was Thompson. Didn't mind his game overall but the free kick was stupid.

[westdog54]

Banker - Cordy, one tough young man

That is an outstanding photo.

Surely this photo belongs in the 'In-Zaine' thread.

[LostDoggy]

BANKERS

Bont and Macrae, both 190 cm+ 21 year old elite midfielders doing it all, laying 10 tackles each. Probably both top 3 in our b&f. How lucky we are to have them both.
McLean, despite getting dropped for a couple of games, really liking his progression this year. His effort in the contest is becoming very bankable.
Depth, great to see fringe players Campbell, Honeychurch and Redath make meaningful contributions.

ANCHORS

Confidence, sheesh that last 5 minutes was painful and undid a lot of good work,
Finishing - when permanent forwards Stringer and HC kick a combined 1.7 it makes life hard
Libba - I love Libba but really not sure where he's at. Still not getting to enough contests or spreading like he should. He's so important for us, really need to see more from him.

[Mantis]

Don't go back to the dark places of the Eagleton fixation Mantis - i feared you'd never return from that

Suckling is human in his imperfection, but not all he does is bad - stay in the glass is half full camp otherwise your life will only suffer

I feel like Anakin being pulled to the dark-side.

I just can't have him at present.. maybe he just represents what is wrong with the team... I'll stay the course for the next few weeks, but if he continues to cost us goals with his lackadaisical style I'll flip my lid.

[Ozza]

Bankers:

The Bont - great to see him kept in the midfield for the vast majority of the night. He was brilliant.

McLean - 13 score involvements! 13! Did some great clearance work also. Very clever player, has a really good knack of things like knowing when to take possession of the ball, and when to paddle first and then grab it to help him get clear of congestion. Or just a great awareness of when he is about to get tackled. His quick hands in the play where our pressure lead to the easy Picken goal, were brilliant.

Ball movement and structure - We seemed to move players around less on Saturday night - and also kept our forward structure with Red and Picko always deep, and Stringer forward for the vast majority of the night. Thought it served us well.
21 marks inside 50 - compared to North's 12 is quite telling. It may have seemed like their tall forward set up worked - but it was only really the last quarter and part of the third when their ball movement was good enough for them to get their marks.

Banchor - Morris. Not quite as sharp as he usually is. However, still had some desperate acts which absolutely saved our skins. Has only played a handful of games this year, not quite 100% back to his best yet but he'll get there.

Anchors:

Suckling - he's a worry when it comes to short kicks, when he is running with the ball with seemingly no awareness of potential tacklers and also the panic handballs.

Dickson - mystery night for him. Can't recall him making an error. But didn't really get involved at any stage other than a couple of passages in the third quarter. I like him in the side - but he's going to need to start getting a kick.

The bleating about the umpiring. All I'm hearing is about the free kick count - but was at the game, and then have watched it again in full - and yes, we get more frees - but which ones weren't there? Ben Brown was unlucky - but sorry Ben - your team mate turned his back on the ball and pushed TC in the chest - that is a free kick every time. Higgins did his usual and took an age to kick the ball, and Stringer was onto it and played it perfectly.

[Topdog]

North were holding and pushing our players for about 95% of the match. Honestly watching at home it was blatantly obvious that Norths game plan was to try and niggle all day. Every free kick we got was obvious.

The commentators tried to make something of it at one point but Roos kind of shot it down quickly.

Ben Brown as an individual was unlucky but it's a team game and his teammate made a big error.

[bornadog]

North were holding and pushing our players for about 95% of the match. Honestly watching at home it was blatantly obvious that Norths game plan was to try and niggle all day. Every free kick we got was obvious.

The commentators tried to make something of it at one point but Roos kind of shot it down quickly.

Ben Brown as an individual was unlucky but it's a team game and his teammate made a big error.

We are one of the most disciplined teams in the AFL. Most of the time we just don't give away blatant free kicks. There were multiple free kicks North gave away from shoving players in the back after we kicked the ball, or in a pack. The pushing and shoving and Faux tough stuff is embedded in the North Culture.

There were plenty of free kicks missed in the last due to some great tackling from us and the ball being disposed incorrectly, but the umpire just said play on.

[jeemak]

I attended with a neutral, and he thought of all free kicks awarded in the first half - or not awarded - we got the raw end! Particularly some front on contact free kicks not awarded, that resulted in Norf goals (Majak Daw was unlucky in one marking contest in the first for the same type of thing) - it's like they don't pay front on contact unless it's within 50m of goal either end.

The umpires clearly checked the stats sheet at half time, they put the whistle away big time in the second half.

[Ozza]

Let's be honest - Saturday night was a perfect result for North. They played well enough to nearly win, but didn't. They keep a stranglehold on one of the high draft picks, another close loss reflects well on Brad Scott because they are playing reasonably well.

[bulldogtragic]

I just loved we won several holding the ball frees. For all the talk of umpiring in our games this year the thing that has annoyed me most is blatant holding the ball frees not being paid. When you've got outstanding tacklers laying 70-100 tackles a game and getting no HTB frees it's frustrating. But I think we got 4 or 5 which was finally some good return on effort. Mind you Higgins gifted Stringer one which was nice of him to do.

[Ozza]

It shouldn't be that hard to START your approach in 30 seconds. Regardless of whether the shot clock is on the screen or not. I get that it was unfortunate that Higgins didn't hear the first 4 calls of play on, but if he and Ben Brown both have a run up longer than Brett Lee - then they should be aware that they haven't got an extra few seconds at the top of their mark to take deep breaths and fix their clothes. They only have to START the approach within 30 seconds. Jon Ralph tweeted that Shaun took 37 seconds before play on was called.