For all the handwringing about English Versus Sweet. It would be impossible for Sweet to get away with playing like that if he played for us.
Had Jordan and Tim switched guernseys, Tim would have been gifted a pile of free kicks for holding and blocking. Sweet now has the privilege of playing home games in Adelaide and being given the severe rub of the green that comes with it, especially in non-free to air games against lowish supporter base clubs like ours. Good luck to him, he is a solid citizen tap Ruckman and should have gotten more games with us, but he is not in Tim's, Sam's or even Rory Lobb's league up forward and around the ground.
Our team currently has a substantial number of players that are struggling at senior AFL level. Most of them seem to be able to hold their own in small numbers in peripheral roles, just as long as there isn't too much asked of them. The pre-game injuries combined with the in-game injuries, meant that our weak underbelly was exposed and Port capitalised on the situation.
Considering the horrendously biased umpiring (there were effectively different sets of rules\interpretations for each team), injuries, etc. we would have needed to play at our absolute best to get the win. On the bright side, if we are smart (big if I know) this could be a big teaching moment for a lot of our fringe players.
For example:
Gallagher - Stop running past for the handball, until you learn how to do so properly.
Sanders - Plenty to work on here with preseason hype well off the mark. It could be suggested to him that fringe players like him need to exhibit some actual desperation to do well in order to earn selection.
BTW we need to develop a tagger. If they are going to persist with Gallagher, then perhaps teach him how to play a defensive run with role properly.
Umpiring? Conspiracy theories?
The lengths that posters will go to in order to excuse English (or other players) is mind-boggling.
Hes a bad ruck. He gets stats around the ground and sometimes that’s good. It convinces ex-players who don’t have a ****ing clue about the game that he’s worthy of an AA jumper. But anyone who watches footy knows he’s not good enough in big games because he can’t actually ruck. And while the whole team was down today, his first quarter was ****ing pathetic and set the tone. He reportedly wants big money and he’s nowhere near worthy of it.
I completely agree we need a tagger. But more importantly we need a coach that will deploy that tagger. We don’t have one now, which is one of the many reasons that he needs to go.