What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

[mjp]

Didn't play well, lost by a few goals, Bevo clearly distracted and feeling 'pressure'...Williams appeared to have forgotten he was playing a team sport, we saw the worst of the Shack, Libba appears gone, Bont was, well...

What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

[Mantis]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Cordy playing as a key forward... like what we were expecting would happen?

[mjp]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Cordy playing as a key forward... like what we were expecting would happen?

See - I didn't include that as I can't imagine this surprised anyone??

[mjp]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Cordy playing as a key forward... like what we were expecting would happen?

By the way - you know you responded before I even finished the poll? That's pretty good!

[Mofra]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Libba appears to be hitting the cliff, I didn't expect it. Schache had a shocker. Williams using his pace & agility to run into Pickett was poor.
Shooting Bambi's mother moment, but I though Keath was poor early too until he remembered he was Alex Keath and started playing like Alex Keath.

TBH I thought the most surprising things were Marra being selected as the sub, and the complete avoidance of any semblance of a tag on Petracca.
Letting a guy who went 39 & 2 in the GF go 38 & 2 the immediate game after was.... odd.

[Mantis]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

See - I didn't include that as I can't imagine this surprised anyone??

Given how badly he performed in that role in our practice game against the Lions I couldn't see how they would try the move again... I guess forced into it due to a lack of viable options.

By the way - you know you responded before I even finished the poll? That's pretty good!

Yep... there was no poll up when I hit 'post'

[Grantysghost]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

I went with Bont.

As the captain after a GF loss there's been a lot of talk all pre-season and I expected him to come out breathing fire and hit the first contest like a mad man.

But he really didn't inspire at all. That first quarter we could've easily been 7 or 8 down without reply.

Special mention to Bevo.

.

[Bornadog]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Didn't play well, lost by a few goals, Bevo clearly distracted and feeling 'pressure'...Williams appeared to have forgotten he was playing a team sport, we saw the worst of the Shack, Libba appears gone, Bont was, well...

What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Bont was injured and was hobbling around, must have received a knock of some sort, so you can't really say he looked disinterested. Not sure why he went back out, but I guess 60% Bont is better than 100% of some players.

My biggest disappointment was the turnovers, just giving the ball back so easily.

[The bulldog tragician]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Can I vote all of the above except the result?

A lot of players looked unfit / underdone. I’m hoping we have another level once they run into fitness but Melbourne are clearly a superior team to us at present.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

For me it was the lack of passion and physical presence, especially early.

After all the talk, I expected some heat.

[Vred]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

All of the above

[soupman]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Tbh half the above are hardly surprising for us.

Beveridge has always been terrible with how he handles any criticism from the media, this was surprising in how far he went but not unexpected at some point.

Schache is always just biding his time until he pulls out one of these games.

Forward half cohesion is not something we have half the time anyway.

Libba often does look old when he is asked to play as a link up forward.

And Bont can often go missing early in games before he turns it on and blows it apart at some point (which the ankle held him back from).

Williams though is one I am astounded by. His reputation has completely fallen in my eyes, from composed and cool to being terrible under pressure in two games. His Grand Final was arguably the most disappointing performance of anyone on the field, and he made zero progress in restoring the faith last night.

My nominations for other surprises are:

English actually held his own and was solid in the ruck. Big game against a very good performance and thought he should be very happy with how he went.

Weightman is offering nothing to the team atm, and hasn't contributed anything to the sides performance since pre-finals aside from free kicks. I get small forward is tough, and obviously he has "earnt" enough frees to have an impact at stages, but his complete inability to win the footy anywhere through any other means is concerning from a player who should be one of our most dangerous forwards.

[mjp]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Weightman is offering nothing to the team atm

Is this REALLY surprising?

He is an interesting player. I'm still not sure his skillset is best suited to being a 'small' forward...yet when he is battling (like yesterday) he seems welded to the F50 and - well, I'm not sure what he's supposed to do??

Even when he kicked 4 vs Essendon, he didn't really WIN a lot of the footy...

[GVGjr]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

For me it was the lack of passion and physical presence, especially early.

After all the talk, I expected some heat.

Remember how we capitulated in a final against GWS where they went strong at us from a physical sense.
Over the pre-season the club talked about it being a motivator for the next season.
Game one of the next season we failed to answer the challenge.

The upshot is that what we perceive as motivation doesn't always guarantee the switch will be flipped.
It must be a huge challenge for the coaching team.

[Mofra]

Re: What was the biggest surprise to you in Round 1?

Can I add one more? Our use of Hunter.

MCG - big ground, lots of space.
Melbourne - use Ed Langdon, arguably the best runner in the AFL.
Hunter - our best runner who seemed to be on the opposite wing to Langdon all night. Roarke seemed to be running with (behind) Langdon a fair chunk of the night

Surely - surely - you give the guy who's not in is best form (Hunter) a simple task that plays to his no 1 strength? Run with Langdon?