Well, the new clash jumper certainly didn't prevent our players from kicking it to Coburg's defenders instead of our forwards. Poor forward 50 entries were definitely a problem again, as was poor forward craft, with our forwards getting caught behind the Coburg defenders too often. In general players were out of position all around the ground, with Coburg taking far too many uncontested marks. Not sure about contested vs uncontested numbers, but Coburg took 99 marks to our 65 and dominated the disposal count as well. Their mids were able to win the ball and get into space, and then they were able to drive the ball forward without much pressure from us. I'd say this one was lost in the midfield, though there were problems all round the ground.
Hobbs continues to be brilliant, Van Es continues to be solid in defence, Alessio played his best game yet, and Farrant and Sparkman were good as well. Hobbs is likely leading the best and fairest by now despite the two games missed, and Van Es has been our best key defender this season. It may be only a matter of time before Hobbs gets another chance at AFL level, but unless/until that happens, it's crucial that we keep him.
After the first quarter we were not able to stand up to Coburg's pressure, although our players were also putting unnecessary pressure on themselves by fumbling what should have been basic handball receives. There was a tendency to handball to players who were under immediate pressure, but there were fumbles without much pressure as well. I'd say overall it was less a question of overusing handball than of using it poorly, though there was some overuse as well.
We were also beaten in the midfield. Hobbs was great and Green's performance was respectable enough; otherwise we didn't get much from the mids. Of Hobbs' 13 clearances, 8 came in the first quarter. [ETA: I see he's now credited with 14 clearances; not sure which quarter the additional one came in, but it doesn't change my basic point.] He did play well all game and deserves coaches' votes, but after the first quarter Coburg were putting more work into him at stoppages, and unlike last week, none of the other mids stood up. Hird and Tovey having their worst games of the season in the same week was definitely a problem (the worst overall team performance was against Box Hill, but against Box Hill Tovey was good and Hird had a respectable second half). Hird had 5 touches in the second half (1 in the third quarter), and also in the second half his defensive impact was significantly down as well.
We've lost the clearances against Box Hill, Brisbane, North Melbourne, Southport, Williamstown, and Coburg. The biggest clearance deficits were against Southport (-8) and Coburg (-10), which fits with my recollection that, Box Hill debacle aside, the Southport and Coburg games were the ones in which we were the least able to stop the opposition mids. The team will want to look closely at what went wrong in those games - fixing those problems will be especially important if we make finals. I am still optimistic about our chance to make finals but am not sure how far this midfield group can take us in finals this year, as we have had difficulty against teams with multiple first-rate midfielders. We were a bit lucky to get Williamstown after they'd lost 2 of their top mids to the midseason draft. I'm treating the Box Hill game as an outlier and focusing more on Southport and Coburg, but I'm not actually sure how much better we'd do in the midfield if we faced Box Hill again - having Hobbs (who missed that game with suspension) would help as long as he wasn't left with too much to do alone. Then again our midfield performance against Werribee suggests that we do have what we need and it's a question of everything coming together at the same time. The rematch against Werribee in round 17 will be telling.
All that said, I don't expect Hird or Tovey to have two down games in a row, and as long as we can keep all our key players I expect to see continued improvement in the midfield next year. When Polkinghorne becomes more consistent that will help (I know he wasn't playing midfield today - might have been a good idea to give him more time there in the second half to see what he could do - but the move back to half forward came after some quiet midfield games).
We definitely did miss George today and of course didn't have him against Southport either. Today we missed Rankin as well; he'd have given us more run and carry out of defensive 50 and could potentially have been moved into the midfield as well.
Clarke good in the first half, quiet in the second. Should be better for the run.
Poor goalkicking was also a problem, though this week I think number of scoring shots is a bit of a misleading stat; once Coburg took the lead we were playing catch-up, and not well. In theory we had our chances in the fourth quarter, but we were rushing things and taking shots from wide angles, in part because of pressure from Coburg.
Umpire interference didn't help but there was enough wrong with our performance that it doesn't matter to the result.
Against teams currently above us on the ladder, we're 3-4. That could certainly be worse. Today's performance shows some clear weaknesses that we'll need to improve on to be real contenders, but we're certainly still in the finals race and on paper don't have a terribly difficult fixture for the rest of the season. It is important not to overrate performances against weaker teams, but the team can play better than they did today.
Haven't had time to watch the women's game yet, but very happy to see that they won. Will watch their game in the next day or two.
Always enjoy reading your analysis on the week's game Spiny.
I was at the game, but running around after my two kids so can't say I got to watch the game particularly closely.
The opposition midfield dominance is a real concern. It we continue to give up first use of the ball, we are going to lose more and we win as the season plays out.
Referred pressure saw us continue to deliver the ball poorly, both in close and kicking into the forward line. Coburg's work rate was very solid and improved as the game went on they were consistently able to find loose players out wide and I think our accountability was lacking after quarter time. I actually thought that first quarter had some very promising signs, given the notwble players missing.
Yes Hird and Tovey were down on the day but will hopefully bounce back, as will Grant after his first game return.
The Lions have become a bit of a bogey side for us, winning their lady two at home against us, as well as a resounding win in the season prior under lights at Port.
I'm expecting a good return to winning for this week, as a loss will see us drop out of top 10 contention.
Thanks, NorthPort. I enjoy writing about the games and am glad to get your input as well. I agree with all your points. With Gold Coast so low on the ladder anything other than a win this week would be very disappointing and indeed surprising as well.
Not entirely sure what to make of the midfield situation as on their day our midfielders look very good indeed. To some extent it may be a question of depth. More consistency may also come as they keep playing together. Hobbs of course is great, though that does mean he gets more attention from the opposition, and we can't leave too much to him. Hird is a very good player and seems well-suited to the captaincy as far as can be judged from outside; his specific weakness is acceleration from the contest, which is why I think he isn't usually a big clearance player. Strength isn't the issue since he's usually very good defensively - the only exceptions that come to mind being the second half against Coburg and when he was up against Jacob Dawson at Southport - and is able to win the contested ball. I think he reads the play very well and because of that is a better player than one would necessarily expect looking at his athleticism (definitely a good endurance runner though). If he can regularly get more clearances like he did against Williamstown, that would be great. This is his third season of playing in the midfield - really a bit less than that since last season he played there for exactly half the season - so he may well improve further. He is very visibly competitive and I fully expect he'll be back in form next week. Tovey is remarkably versatile and said in an interview earlier this season that when he came to Port Melbourne, it was the first time he'd really been taught midfield craft. Given that, his performances overall this season are even more impressive. He's only going to improve from here and is another one we absolutely must re-sign. Green is solid and has been consistent, though he's a level below Hird and Tovey. After Hobbs, Hird, Tovey, and Green, our midfielders are less consistent. George is obviously skilled and makes our midfield better but has had an interrupted season. Polkinghorne at his best is very good but is still inconsistent; I do think he'll become more consistent with experience. Jackson-Leahy is very new to VFL level and it's hard to say how he might develop.
I think making finals is realistic for us this season and that if the midfield in particular can learn from what went wrong against Southport and Coburg that we're a chance to win a wildcard and an elimination final, but I'm not sure I see us going any farther than that this season. If we recruit well, keep all the players who are regulars in the side this season, and keep our coaching staff, I think we could be serious contenders in 2-4 years. But if those things don't happen I'm not sure what to expect. If James Hird gets the Essendon job I certainly wish him success there, but from a Port Melbourne point of view it would have been better for Essendon to hang onto Scott for another 6 years or so, since from the sounds of things James Hird would be very difficult to replace. Our forward lines are looking much, much better this season, and there was already some improvement by the end of last season as I believe you both pointed out, NorthPort and Mega. Whatever happens with James Hird and Essendon I certainly hope McCartney stays at the Borough. We seem to be going in the right direction under his coaching. Not much use speculating at this point, I suppose.
I did watch the recording of the women's game - great to see them get the win. Carlton led the possession count, but in the women's game in particular teams can end up with high possession counts that aren't particularly meaningful because they're not able to get the ball into scoring range - that was one of those cases. Our marking was much better the Carlton's and made a big difference in the game. Ashley-Cooper and Caffry are probably leading the best and fairest and have been doing very well in the midfield.
I thought Maggie McKellar was generally good in defence despite the deliberate rushed behind free kick.
Emily Harley's goal from 50 out was great. Keely Fullarton's goal on the run was another highlight.
I was pleased to hear the commentators praising Seisia White's pressure inside forward 50; I've thought she generally looks dangerous and positions herself well.
Well that was a close one against Gold Coast. I only managed to watch about 5-10 minutes of the game uninterrupted (kids). I will need to watch the replay, but I felt we were underperforming against a side with only a handful of AFL listed players on the day. More astute observers like former coach Neil Ross thought it was a decent win considering the way the Suns had numbers back behind the ball. I hope to re watch it this week to look at areas in which we struggled.
I was hoping for a big percentage boosting win, but am relieved that we at least snuck away with the 4 points.
Yeah, I was also hoping for a percentage booster. It’s our second-lowest score of the season (lowest was against Sydney) and second-lowest total number of scoring shots (lowest was against Box Hill). Gold Coast really dragged us down to their frankly atrocious skill level. But we ground it out and won, and we’re back to 10th on the ladder, and I think it is fair to say it's a decent result in the end. After we got three goals in quick succession early, Gold Coast seem to have realized that their only chance was to play a very defensive game - I think the point about them putting numbers behind the ball is a good one. That cut off a lot of our options up forward and strangled our handball game. And Gold Coast’s Caleb Graham may well have been best on ground at least up until 3/4 time, when our players seem to have realized that even if there weren’t good options up forward, kicking toward the general vicinity of Caleb Graham was the worst possible option.
As always I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the rewatch. This game was pretty much the definition of winning ugly. But in thinking about how concerned to be about our performance in this game, my conclusion was that there’s no new cause for concern yet, unless you count the timeline on the Grant injury - 8-10 weeks according to the commentators. It does seem bad that Gold Coast were able to mostly drag us down to their level, but the specifics of this game aren’t likely to repeat against better teams because better teams won’t be willing to weaken their own attack by playing such a heavily defensive game. Whatever mistakes we make against better teams will look more like the mistakes we made against Southport and Coburg, not the ones we made this week. Gold Coast’s only chance was to turn the game into a low-skilled scrap, and they did that, but we hung on anyway and did enough to get the win. I recall from last season that a regular theme in McCartney’s 1/4 and 3/4 time addresses was not to be afraid of making mistakes in taking the game on; even players who are among our best for the season made plenty of mistakes this week, but the whole team kept at it, and winning ugly sure beats losing ugly. So we take the four points, move on, and hopefully don’t have much cause to think about the details again after the weekly postmortem analysis.
Flynn Penry played very well, with new personal bests for hitouts, disposals, and clearances. He and Hobbs in particular saw to it that we won the clearances this week. Even so, the news of Grant’s injury is very concerning - the commentators said Grant will be out for 8-10 weeks with a hip flexor injury. So Grant’s injury may well be season-ending - he could conceivably return for an elimination final, a semi, or a prelim should we somehow make it that far. As promising as Penry looks, our lack of ruck depth is a real problem because if Penry gets injured as well, we’ll be in a real mess.
Bedendo had a huge second half and led all Port players for tackles, with 10. He spent some time higher up the ground than he usually does and was great.
Hobbs good as usual and will surely get coaches’ votes again; I’d say Bedendo, Hobbs, and Penry were a clear three best for us. After I said last week (commenting on the midfield in general, not his performance that week) that Green wasn’t at the level of Hird and Tovey, he’s been our second-best mid two weeks in a row. Good disposal efficiency this week as well, better than he often has. Green’s been in good form in recent weeks - hopefully that will continue and Hird and Tovey will return to their earlier form. They do both keep up with tackling even on otherwise off days; Hird’s equal 3rd of all VFL players for total tackles and Tovey is 13th. I have absolutely no idea what Hird was thinking when he gave away the double 50, the second one in particular; he may not know either. I generally don’t comment on brain fades that I don’t think players will repeat, but that one was just bewildering - wouldn’t have expected it of any of our players, but he’s just about the last one I’d have thought would give away that second 50 for not leaving the required amount of space as the first one was being paid. If the incident that resulted in the second 50 was an attempt at aggression, it’s more evidence that players who aren’t naturally aggressive shouldn’t try to be, unless they have to stand up for teammates, because they don’t know how to go about it without giving away free kicks or 50-metre penalties.
A good game from Highmore. The disposal efficiency stat may be a bit flattering to Ryan Eyre’s kicking this week, but he did take some key marks.
We definitely miss Lachie Rankin at halfback. Does anyone know how long he’s expected to be out? We haven’t been able to replace his run and carry. Sparkman is usually good but we do need the two of them back there. We missed Gahan as well; hopefully he’ll be available next week.
Some good moments from Stubbings and Downie.
In the VFLW game, the women did well to fight back after the Bulldogs dominated the second quarter and much of the third, but really after 1/4 time we were playing catch-up. We were +2 in clearances, with Caffry and Jones leading us for clearances and Ashley-Cooper and Hart playing well also. Lily Hart also had the great defensive effort to get back and touch the ball over the line to prevent a goal. This was just her second game of the season - not sure why she wasn’t playing earlier, but it’s good to have her back. Davidson another of our best.
We did have some problems with defensive structure. The commentators noted the number of times we didn’t have anyone in the goalsquare, which is definitely bad, but the number of times the ball made it that far into our defensive 50 is a problem in itself. We did lead for tackles, so it’s not a question of effort but of organisation around the ground.
The Bulldogs led the possession count, and in this case that was because they were doing a better job than we were of controlling the ball.
Last week I commented a bit about when the VFL side might be a serious contender; it’s even harder to project into the future with the VFLW side because of how uneven the comp is. The work rate is there, and it’s realistic to think we could make finals, but the gap between the top teams and the rest is vast.
Was a tough watch yesterday and we were almost embarrassed but anyway bank those wins and with each win.breaking the longest non finals drought is over half a century becomes.more a reality. I'm.confident if we win this week we will.play finals but I learnt the hard way last season (after i said to northport at half time we will play finals when.5 goals up.v Coburg ) that theirs no.certainties in sport and form.can.change quickly.
I believe Rankin is expected to return this work.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Well as per usual, I haven't managed to watch the replay. It's been mentioned that Sundays win against the Suns was the first win for 16 years.. Only coming about due to the re-admission of Gold Coast with the disbanding of the NEAFL.
This week we come up against another side with a solid record at home - Casey. It's a bit hard to get a read on them, but I think Port will be up in for another tightly contested game. The loss of Grant for such a long stretch will be extremely difficult to cover.
Yeah, Grant being out so long is a huge loss - no knock on Penry who works hard and was great this week, but Grant is arguably the player we could least afford to lose.
That is good news on Rankin, Mega. Last season I was sure we'd make finals after the win over North Melbourne. This past weekend when Gold Coast got out into space late I thought it would end in a draw, but Hird stuck the tackle and at about the same time the siren went, and against Williamstown late I thought we were going to lose and then Highmore marked just before the siren. We do seem to be getting better at holding on and winning the close ones, even though the next step in development would be for some of those games to be less close in the first place.
The club posted some pictures of the new clash jumper in this facebook post:
https://www.facebook.com/pmfcborough/posts/pfbid0sZy9x5AVhU2un8pnA7VmEWnuaq94Eq4SXNwoTLwBpt48iu6ZinvVNSsxpm7WEjrFl
Not impressed
Well, the new clash jumper certainly didn't prevent our players from kicking it to Coburg's defenders instead of our forwards. Poor forward 50 entries were definitely a problem again, as was poor forward craft, with our forwards getting caught behind the Coburg defenders too often. In general players were out of position all around the ground, with Coburg taking far too many uncontested marks. Not sure about contested vs uncontested numbers, but Coburg took 99 marks to our 65 and dominated the disposal count as well. Their mids were able to win the ball and get into space, and then they were able to drive the ball forward without much pressure from us. I'd say this one was lost in the midfield, though there were problems all round the ground.
Hobbs continues to be brilliant, Van Es continues to be solid in defence, Alessio played his best game yet, and Farrant and Sparkman were good as well. Hobbs is likely leading the best and fairest by now despite the two games missed, and Van Es has been our best key defender this season. It may be only a matter of time before Hobbs gets another chance at AFL level, but unless/until that happens, it's crucial that we keep him.
After the first quarter we were not able to stand up to Coburg's pressure, although our players were also putting unnecessary pressure on themselves by fumbling what should have been basic handball receives. There was a tendency to handball to players who were under immediate pressure, but there were fumbles without much pressure as well. I'd say overall it was less a question of overusing handball than of using it poorly, though there was some overuse as well.
We were also beaten in the midfield. Hobbs was great and Green's performance was respectable enough; otherwise we didn't get much from the mids. Of Hobbs' 13 clearances, 8 came in the first quarter. [ETA: I see he's now credited with 14 clearances; not sure which quarter the additional one came in, but it doesn't change my basic point.] He did play well all game and deserves coaches' votes, but after the first quarter Coburg were putting more work into him at stoppages, and unlike last week, none of the other mids stood up. Hird and Tovey having their worst games of the season in the same week was definitely a problem (the worst overall team performance was against Box Hill, but against Box Hill Tovey was good and Hird had a respectable second half). Hird had 5 touches in the second half (1 in the third quarter), and also in the second half his defensive impact was significantly down as well.
We've lost the clearances against Box Hill, Brisbane, North Melbourne, Southport, Williamstown, and Coburg. The biggest clearance deficits were against Southport (-8) and Coburg (-10), which fits with my recollection that, Box Hill debacle aside, the Southport and Coburg games were the ones in which we were the least able to stop the opposition mids. The team will want to look closely at what went wrong in those games - fixing those problems will be especially important if we make finals. I am still optimistic about our chance to make finals but am not sure how far this midfield group can take us in finals this year, as we have had difficulty against teams with multiple first-rate midfielders. We were a bit lucky to get Williamstown after they'd lost 2 of their top mids to the midseason draft. I'm treating the Box Hill game as an outlier and focusing more on Southport and Coburg, but I'm not actually sure how much better we'd do in the midfield if we faced Box Hill again - having Hobbs (who missed that game with suspension) would help as long as he wasn't left with too much to do alone. Then again our midfield performance against Werribee suggests that we do have what we need and it's a question of everything coming together at the same time. The rematch against Werribee in round 17 will be telling.
All that said, I don't expect Hird or Tovey to have two down games in a row, and as long as we can keep all our key players I expect to see continued improvement in the midfield next year. When Polkinghorne becomes more consistent that will help (I know he wasn't playing midfield today - might have been a good idea to give him more time there in the second half to see what he could do - but the move back to half forward came after some quiet midfield games).
We definitely did miss George today and of course didn't have him against Southport either. Today we missed Rankin as well; he'd have given us more run and carry out of defensive 50 and could potentially have been moved into the midfield as well.
Clarke good in the first half, quiet in the second. Should be better for the run.
Poor goalkicking was also a problem, though this week I think number of scoring shots is a bit of a misleading stat; once Coburg took the lead we were playing catch-up, and not well. In theory we had our chances in the fourth quarter, but we were rushing things and taking shots from wide angles, in part because of pressure from Coburg.
Umpire interference didn't help but there was enough wrong with our performance that it doesn't matter to the result.
Against teams currently above us on the ladder, we're 3-4. That could certainly be worse. Today's performance shows some clear weaknesses that we'll need to improve on to be real contenders, but we're certainly still in the finals race and on paper don't have a terribly difficult fixture for the rest of the season. It is important not to overrate performances against weaker teams, but the team can play better than they did today.
Haven't had time to watch the women's game yet, but very happy to see that they won. Will watch their game in the next day or two.
Always enjoy reading your analysis on the week's game Spiny.
I was at the game, but running around after my two kids so can't say I got to watch the game particularly closely.
The opposition midfield dominance is a real concern. It we continue to give up first use of the ball, we are going to lose more and we win as the season plays out.
Referred pressure saw us continue to deliver the ball poorly, both in close and kicking into the forward line. Coburg's work rate was very solid and improved as the game went on they were consistently able to find loose players out wide and I think our accountability was lacking after quarter time. I actually thought that first quarter had some very promising signs, given the notwble players missing.
Yes Hird and Tovey were down on the day but will hopefully bounce back, as will Grant after his first game return.
The Lions have become a bit of a bogey side for us, winning their lady two at home against us, as well as a resounding win in the season prior under lights at Port.
I'm expecting a good return to winning for this week, as a loss will see us drop out of top 10 contention.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Thanks, NorthPort. I enjoy writing about the games and am glad to get your input as well. I agree with all your points. With Gold Coast so low on the ladder anything other than a win this week would be very disappointing and indeed surprising as well.
Not entirely sure what to make of the midfield situation as on their day our midfielders look very good indeed. To some extent it may be a question of depth. More consistency may also come as they keep playing together. Hobbs of course is great, though that does mean he gets more attention from the opposition, and we can't leave too much to him. Hird is a very good player and seems well-suited to the captaincy as far as can be judged from outside; his specific weakness is acceleration from the contest, which is why I think he isn't usually a big clearance player. Strength isn't the issue since he's usually very good defensively - the only exceptions that come to mind being the second half against Coburg and when he was up against Jacob Dawson at Southport - and is able to win the contested ball. I think he reads the play very well and because of that is a better player than one would necessarily expect looking at his athleticism (definitely a good endurance runner though). If he can regularly get more clearances like he did against Williamstown, that would be great. This is his third season of playing in the midfield - really a bit less than that since last season he played there for exactly half the season - so he may well improve further. He is very visibly competitive and I fully expect he'll be back in form next week. Tovey is remarkably versatile and said in an interview earlier this season that when he came to Port Melbourne, it was the first time he'd really been taught midfield craft. Given that, his performances overall this season are even more impressive. He's only going to improve from here and is another one we absolutely must re-sign. Green is solid and has been consistent, though he's a level below Hird and Tovey. After Hobbs, Hird, Tovey, and Green, our midfielders are less consistent. George is obviously skilled and makes our midfield better but has had an interrupted season. Polkinghorne at his best is very good but is still inconsistent; I do think he'll become more consistent with experience. Jackson-Leahy is very new to VFL level and it's hard to say how he might develop.
I think making finals is realistic for us this season and that if the midfield in particular can learn from what went wrong against Southport and Coburg that we're a chance to win a wildcard and an elimination final, but I'm not sure I see us going any farther than that this season. If we recruit well, keep all the players who are regulars in the side this season, and keep our coaching staff, I think we could be serious contenders in 2-4 years. But if those things don't happen I'm not sure what to expect. If James Hird gets the Essendon job I certainly wish him success there, but from a Port Melbourne point of view it would have been better for Essendon to hang onto Scott for another 6 years or so, since from the sounds of things James Hird would be very difficult to replace. Our forward lines are looking much, much better this season, and there was already some improvement by the end of last season as I believe you both pointed out, NorthPort and Mega. Whatever happens with James Hird and Essendon I certainly hope McCartney stays at the Borough. We seem to be going in the right direction under his coaching. Not much use speculating at this point, I suppose.
I did watch the recording of the women's game - great to see them get the win. Carlton led the possession count, but in the women's game in particular teams can end up with high possession counts that aren't particularly meaningful because they're not able to get the ball into scoring range - that was one of those cases. Our marking was much better the Carlton's and made a big difference in the game. Ashley-Cooper and Caffry are probably leading the best and fairest and have been doing very well in the midfield.
I thought Maggie McKellar was generally good in defence despite the deliberate rushed behind free kick.
Emily Harley's goal from 50 out was great. Keely Fullarton's goal on the run was another highlight.
I was pleased to hear the commentators praising Seisia White's pressure inside forward 50; I've thought she generally looks dangerous and positions herself well.
Well that was a close one against Gold Coast. I only managed to watch about 5-10 minutes of the game uninterrupted (kids). I will need to watch the replay, but I felt we were underperforming against a side with only a handful of AFL listed players on the day. More astute observers like former coach Neil Ross thought it was a decent win considering the way the Suns had numbers back behind the ball. I hope to re watch it this week to look at areas in which we struggled.
I was hoping for a big percentage boosting win, but am relieved that we at least snuck away with the 4 points.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Yeah, I was also hoping for a percentage booster. It’s our second-lowest score of the season (lowest was against Sydney) and second-lowest total number of scoring shots (lowest was against Box Hill). Gold Coast really dragged us down to their frankly atrocious skill level. But we ground it out and won, and we’re back to 10th on the ladder, and I think it is fair to say it's a decent result in the end. After we got three goals in quick succession early, Gold Coast seem to have realized that their only chance was to play a very defensive game - I think the point about them putting numbers behind the ball is a good one. That cut off a lot of our options up forward and strangled our handball game. And Gold Coast’s Caleb Graham may well have been best on ground at least up until 3/4 time, when our players seem to have realized that even if there weren’t good options up forward, kicking toward the general vicinity of Caleb Graham was the worst possible option.
As always I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the rewatch. This game was pretty much the definition of winning ugly. But in thinking about how concerned to be about our performance in this game, my conclusion was that there’s no new cause for concern yet, unless you count the timeline on the Grant injury - 8-10 weeks according to the commentators. It does seem bad that Gold Coast were able to mostly drag us down to their level, but the specifics of this game aren’t likely to repeat against better teams because better teams won’t be willing to weaken their own attack by playing such a heavily defensive game. Whatever mistakes we make against better teams will look more like the mistakes we made against Southport and Coburg, not the ones we made this week. Gold Coast’s only chance was to turn the game into a low-skilled scrap, and they did that, but we hung on anyway and did enough to get the win. I recall from last season that a regular theme in McCartney’s 1/4 and 3/4 time addresses was not to be afraid of making mistakes in taking the game on; even players who are among our best for the season made plenty of mistakes this week, but the whole team kept at it, and winning ugly sure beats losing ugly. So we take the four points, move on, and hopefully don’t have much cause to think about the details again after the weekly postmortem analysis.
Flynn Penry played very well, with new personal bests for hitouts, disposals, and clearances. He and Hobbs in particular saw to it that we won the clearances this week. Even so, the news of Grant’s injury is very concerning - the commentators said Grant will be out for 8-10 weeks with a hip flexor injury. So Grant’s injury may well be season-ending - he could conceivably return for an elimination final, a semi, or a prelim should we somehow make it that far. As promising as Penry looks, our lack of ruck depth is a real problem because if Penry gets injured as well, we’ll be in a real mess.
Bedendo had a huge second half and led all Port players for tackles, with 10. He spent some time higher up the ground than he usually does and was great.
Hobbs good as usual and will surely get coaches’ votes again; I’d say Bedendo, Hobbs, and Penry were a clear three best for us. After I said last week (commenting on the midfield in general, not his performance that week) that Green wasn’t at the level of Hird and Tovey, he’s been our second-best mid two weeks in a row. Good disposal efficiency this week as well, better than he often has. Green’s been in good form in recent weeks - hopefully that will continue and Hird and Tovey will return to their earlier form. They do both keep up with tackling even on otherwise off days; Hird’s equal 3rd of all VFL players for total tackles and Tovey is 13th. I have absolutely no idea what Hird was thinking when he gave away the double 50, the second one in particular; he may not know either. I generally don’t comment on brain fades that I don’t think players will repeat, but that one was just bewildering - wouldn’t have expected it of any of our players, but he’s just about the last one I’d have thought would give away that second 50 for not leaving the required amount of space as the first one was being paid. If the incident that resulted in the second 50 was an attempt at aggression, it’s more evidence that players who aren’t naturally aggressive shouldn’t try to be, unless they have to stand up for teammates, because they don’t know how to go about it without giving away free kicks or 50-metre penalties.
A good game from Highmore. The disposal efficiency stat may be a bit flattering to Ryan Eyre’s kicking this week, but he did take some key marks.
We definitely miss Lachie Rankin at halfback. Does anyone know how long he’s expected to be out? We haven’t been able to replace his run and carry. Sparkman is usually good but we do need the two of them back there. We missed Gahan as well; hopefully he’ll be available next week.
Some good moments from Stubbings and Downie.
In the VFLW game, the women did well to fight back after the Bulldogs dominated the second quarter and much of the third, but really after 1/4 time we were playing catch-up. We were +2 in clearances, with Caffry and Jones leading us for clearances and Ashley-Cooper and Hart playing well also. Lily Hart also had the great defensive effort to get back and touch the ball over the line to prevent a goal. This was just her second game of the season - not sure why she wasn’t playing earlier, but it’s good to have her back. Davidson another of our best.
We did have some problems with defensive structure. The commentators noted the number of times we didn’t have anyone in the goalsquare, which is definitely bad, but the number of times the ball made it that far into our defensive 50 is a problem in itself. We did lead for tackles, so it’s not a question of effort but of organisation around the ground.
The Bulldogs led the possession count, and in this case that was because they were doing a better job than we were of controlling the ball.
Last week I commented a bit about when the VFL side might be a serious contender; it’s even harder to project into the future with the VFLW side because of how uneven the comp is. The work rate is there, and it’s realistic to think we could make finals, but the gap between the top teams and the rest is vast.
Was a tough watch yesterday and we were almost embarrassed but anyway bank those wins and with each win.breaking the longest non finals drought is over half a century becomes.more a reality. I'm.confident if we win this week we will.play finals but I learnt the hard way last season (after i said to northport at half time we will play finals when.5 goals up.v Coburg ) that theirs no.certainties in sport and form.can.change quickly.
I believe Rankin is expected to return this work.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Well as per usual, I haven't managed to watch the replay. It's been mentioned that Sundays win against the Suns was the first win for 16 years.. Only coming about due to the re-admission of Gold Coast with the disbanding of the NEAFL.
This week we come up against another side with a solid record at home - Casey. It's a bit hard to get a read on them, but I think Port will be up in for another tightly contested game. The loss of Grant for such a long stretch will be extremely difficult to cover.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Yeah, Grant being out so long is a huge loss - no knock on Penry who works hard and was great this week, but Grant is arguably the player we could least afford to lose.
That is good news on Rankin, Mega. Last season I was sure we'd make finals after the win over North Melbourne. This past weekend when Gold Coast got out into space late I thought it would end in a draw, but Hird stuck the tackle and at about the same time the siren went, and against Williamstown late I thought we were going to lose and then Highmore marked just before the siren. We do seem to be getting better at holding on and winning the close ones, even though the next step in development would be for some of those games to be less close in the first place.
Pages