Port have posted up a schedule for the week ahead, getting supporters back to the club on Thursday night for a BBQ and to watch the teams train, along with the announcement of a supporters bus up to Geelong. A great initiative!
Managed to watch most of the 1st and 4th quarters and bits and pieces of the 2nd and 3rd... after I watched 3 ABC games with no problems, the ABC website seems to have worked out that I'm using a VPN and the stream kept cutting out, except during most of the 1st and 4th quarters. WatchAFL (the site for watching the AFL abroad) showed all the home and away ABC games but none of the finals - will try emailing them about it just in case they could show the VFL finals if they knew there was demand for it. So I don't have as much commentary as usual on the game. My main takeaways were 1. Geelong were better than us at pretty much everything but 2. perceived pressure was a real problem since we did make plenty of unforced errors; it seemed to me that a number of generally reliable players made uncharacteristic mistakes. Not going to mention specific individuals or passages of play since I didn't see the whole game and from what I did see it looked like a whole-team problem with structures breaking down (though I will call out the ABC commentator who kept referring to Stubbings as Stubblings...). How did things look at the ground?
Losing the tackle count by 8 in a game we also lost by 47 is pretty bad; just from tracking the stats it look like our tackling improved in the second half and was worst in the 2nd quarter - at 1/4 time we were -9 in tackles, at halftime we were -19 in tackles, at 3/4 time we were -10 in tackles, and at full time we were -8. So we did claw back that particular deficit a bit and also got closer to Geelong for hitouts and clearances, though the -17 deficit in inside 50s at full time was slightly worse than the 3/4 time deficit of -13. I will say, having seen all but the first minute or so of the 4th quarter, the commentators were wrong to think at about the 19-minute mark that we were just waiting for the siren; it looked to me like the effort was still there and it was just execution that was lacking.
Does anyone know how bad Kaine Baldwin's injury is? Losing him (2nd quarter I think?) was quite a blow to our forward lines; really hope he'll be right for the start of preseason.
It's a disappointing end to the season, but at the same time going from 17th on the ladder last year to 6th and making a prelim this year is a big improvement, and we did that despite missing Grant, Highmore, and Clarke for substantial portions of the season, and also missing Rosman for finals. Our best two performances of the season were probably the elimination final against Sydney and the semi against Werribee. And we have seen a number of players improve considerably since last season; James Hird has said he thinks McCartney is the best development coach there is, which is a strong claim, but our player development under him so far does look very good. Grant, Penry, Gahan, Rudd, Rider, Hawkins and Alessio all stand out as having improved a great deal (Gahan of course missed a lot of footy with injuries last season and finally got a clean run at it); Van Es and Stubbings were regulars in the side last season, but I'd say they've improved noticeably as well. Hughes has also shown good development just in the 4 games he's played.
Hopefully this game will end up being a good learning experience for the players and the improvement will continue into next season. Not sure to what extent further improvement needs to come from recruiting vs what we can still expect from development. At the end of last season I was definitely underestimating how much the players already on our list could develop, so I'm aiming to avoid making that same mistake again. And our recruiting needs will depend on which players we retain.
Thinking a bit about recruiting anyway: NorthPort, you'd mentioned that it would be good to recruit a mature ruck as Grant and Penry are both young (and so is Hughes, who debuted since we last discussed that), and that still sounds like a good idea. Signing key forwards seems to have been less urgent than I thought, but our forwards didn't have too many injuries this season aside from Clarke and Lloyd, and kicking accuracy has still been a problem at times, so it seems like we should have a look at what's out there.
Adding a bigger body to the midfield could be a good idea also, though I think our current midfield group has the possibility of improvement next season as well. Hobbs is great, of course; Tovey has been a very good pickup and I expect will be more consistent over the whole season next year; Hird's usually strong defensively and had another solid season despite some quiet games (credit to him for finding ways to work himself into the game today; not his best kicking but he did keep getting his hands on the footy despite a slow start) - not entirely sure what his or Green's ceiling is (Green had an excellent run of form late), but no doubt they'll both keep working to improve as well. And we've discussed Rankin, Stubbings, and Polkinghorne as players who can get more midfield time; I expect all three of them will show further improvement next season. Downie's been very good on the wing.
As for our defenders, I think I've been underestimating them as a group; at the end of the home and away season we didn't have anyone in the top 20 for marks, but despite that defence may be our strongest area of the ground; they've gelled really well. Not sure there's much if anything to change there in terms of players.
May as well register my predictions for the top 5 in the best and fairest now. 1. Hobbs (obviously); 2. Hird; 3. Baldwin; 4. Gahan; 5. Tovey. (If we have an award for best finals player I'd say Gahan.) And for the VFLW side: 1. Caffry; 2. Ashley-Cooper; 3. Jones; 4. Georgia Foran; 5. McKellar. (O'Keefe as best finals player if that's an award we have.)
I'll post up my thoughts on the game tomorrow. Brilliant season in the end, and it's a big tick for both sides to make Prelims. I'm emotionally exhausted tonight haha..
I'll post up my thoughts on the game tomorrow. Brilliant season in the end, and it's a big tick for both sides to make Prelims. I'm emotionally exhausted tonight haha..
Thank you, NorthPort. Yeah, both sides showed great improvement to make prelims, and the games obviously meant a lot to both the VFL and VFLW sides, so I'm optimistic about next season for both the men and women as long as we retain players well. I wouldn't have posted straight after the game this time either if I didn't have my thoughts on the season pretty much set to go already. Definitely pleased with McCartney as coach, with Hird and Baldwin as captain and vice-captain, and with the work the entire playing group has obviously put in.
The loss of Baldwin early really hurt us, as he could definitely have been used to add some defensive options when needed. He looked sharp early in front of goals and I thought he was in for a big day.
I agree about the referred pressure and disposal errors. They looked very obvious and I had hoped that would be something that settled down as they game went on... Its a reflection on Geelong's pressure.
I was hopeful that our fitness, which had been a standout in recent weeks might have got the game back on our terms.
Hopefully Sam Grant is back to full fitness next year, Penry has also preformed really strongly. Another gun midfielder should be high on our hit list for 2027. Giving up first use of the ball in the centre has been a bit of a problem all year.. But it likes us yesterday.
When Port kicked the early goals I thought they may have delivered a win. Later in the game they overplayed the handball and lost critical possessions.
I had never been to Kardina Park before, I am impressed with the stadium. Big queue waiting to enter the ground; gates should have been opened earlier
I think a fixture where every team plays every other team once would be helpful when it comes to finals - not saying we'd have won if we'd played Geelong before as they were fielding a very strong team, but our players might have been more composed and had less trouble with referred pressure if they'd had the experience of playing Geelong earlier this season. I'd figured that if we made it to the grand final playing Box Hill would be a better scenario than Essendon because we'd played them before, so even though that game was rather a debacle Box Hill were still more of a known quantity.
We should have a look at Tsatas if he doesn't get signed by another AFL side and has any interest in continuing his career at VFL level. The knocks on him are poor kicking and lack of defensive running, but it sounds like he's a strong clearance player. Willingness to run both ways is essential but it may be a question of what his strengths are, rather than of what he's willing to do, and with Hird, Hobbs, and Tovey being strong defensively they could all complement each other well.
May as well list the awards from the best and fairest here. Does anyone know the top 10 for the VFL best and fairest, by the way? Not sure if the club doesn't announce that because they specifically want that information kept secret (outside of the awards night itself and the VFL website eventually listing the top 5 from all clubs) or if there's no particular reason for it not being posted.
VFL:
Jack McFarlane Medal (Best and fairest): Ben Hobbs
Runner-up: Tom Hird
Bob Bonnet & Fred Cook Trophy (Leading Goalkicker): Kaine Baldwin
Best First Year Player: Michael Rudd
Tom Lahiff Trophy (Borough Spirit award): Dom Bedendo
Ted & Rob Freyer Trophy (Coaches' award): Connor Downie
Vic Aanensen Award (Players' award): Luca Alessio
Norm Goss Trophy (Club Person of the Year): Kaine Baldwin
Player of the finals: Matt Gahan
VFLW (will make a thread on the VFLW subforum instead next season but seems a bit late to do that for 2026 now):
Port have posted up a schedule for the week ahead, getting supporters back to the club on Thursday night for a BBQ and to watch the teams train, along with the announcement of a supporters bus up to Geelong. A great initiative!
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Managed to watch most of the 1st and 4th quarters and bits and pieces of the 2nd and 3rd... after I watched 3 ABC games with no problems, the ABC website seems to have worked out that I'm using a VPN and the stream kept cutting out, except during most of the 1st and 4th quarters. WatchAFL (the site for watching the AFL abroad) showed all the home and away ABC games but none of the finals - will try emailing them about it just in case they could show the VFL finals if they knew there was demand for it. So I don't have as much commentary as usual on the game. My main takeaways were 1. Geelong were better than us at pretty much everything but 2. perceived pressure was a real problem since we did make plenty of unforced errors; it seemed to me that a number of generally reliable players made uncharacteristic mistakes. Not going to mention specific individuals or passages of play since I didn't see the whole game and from what I did see it looked like a whole-team problem with structures breaking down (though I will call out the ABC commentator who kept referring to Stubbings as Stubblings...). How did things look at the ground?
Losing the tackle count by 8 in a game we also lost by 47 is pretty bad; just from tracking the stats it look like our tackling improved in the second half and was worst in the 2nd quarter - at 1/4 time we were -9 in tackles, at halftime we were -19 in tackles, at 3/4 time we were -10 in tackles, and at full time we were -8. So we did claw back that particular deficit a bit and also got closer to Geelong for hitouts and clearances, though the -17 deficit in inside 50s at full time was slightly worse than the 3/4 time deficit of -13. I will say, having seen all but the first minute or so of the 4th quarter, the commentators were wrong to think at about the 19-minute mark that we were just waiting for the siren; it looked to me like the effort was still there and it was just execution that was lacking.
Does anyone know how bad Kaine Baldwin's injury is? Losing him (2nd quarter I think?) was quite a blow to our forward lines; really hope he'll be right for the start of preseason.
It's a disappointing end to the season, but at the same time going from 17th on the ladder last year to 6th and making a prelim this year is a big improvement, and we did that despite missing Grant, Highmore, and Clarke for substantial portions of the season, and also missing Rosman for finals. Our best two performances of the season were probably the elimination final against Sydney and the semi against Werribee. And we have seen a number of players improve considerably since last season; James Hird has said he thinks McCartney is the best development coach there is, which is a strong claim, but our player development under him so far does look very good. Grant, Penry, Gahan, Rudd, Rider, Hawkins and Alessio all stand out as having improved a great deal (Gahan of course missed a lot of footy with injuries last season and finally got a clean run at it); Van Es and Stubbings were regulars in the side last season, but I'd say they've improved noticeably as well. Hughes has also shown good development just in the 4 games he's played.
Hopefully this game will end up being a good learning experience for the players and the improvement will continue into next season. Not sure to what extent further improvement needs to come from recruiting vs what we can still expect from development. At the end of last season I was definitely underestimating how much the players already on our list could develop, so I'm aiming to avoid making that same mistake again. And our recruiting needs will depend on which players we retain.
Thinking a bit about recruiting anyway: NorthPort, you'd mentioned that it would be good to recruit a mature ruck as Grant and Penry are both young (and so is Hughes, who debuted since we last discussed that), and that still sounds like a good idea. Signing key forwards seems to have been less urgent than I thought, but our forwards didn't have too many injuries this season aside from Clarke and Lloyd, and kicking accuracy has still been a problem at times, so it seems like we should have a look at what's out there.
Adding a bigger body to the midfield could be a good idea also, though I think our current midfield group has the possibility of improvement next season as well. Hobbs is great, of course; Tovey has been a very good pickup and I expect will be more consistent over the whole season next year; Hird's usually strong defensively and had another solid season despite some quiet games (credit to him for finding ways to work himself into the game today; not his best kicking but he did keep getting his hands on the footy despite a slow start) - not entirely sure what his or Green's ceiling is (Green had an excellent run of form late), but no doubt they'll both keep working to improve as well. And we've discussed Rankin, Stubbings, and Polkinghorne as players who can get more midfield time; I expect all three of them will show further improvement next season. Downie's been very good on the wing.
As for our defenders, I think I've been underestimating them as a group; at the end of the home and away season we didn't have anyone in the top 20 for marks, but despite that defence may be our strongest area of the ground; they've gelled really well. Not sure there's much if anything to change there in terms of players.
May as well register my predictions for the top 5 in the best and fairest now. 1. Hobbs (obviously); 2. Hird; 3. Baldwin; 4. Gahan; 5. Tovey. (If we have an award for best finals player I'd say Gahan.) And for the VFLW side: 1. Caffry; 2. Ashley-Cooper; 3. Jones; 4. Georgia Foran; 5. McKellar. (O'Keefe as best finals player if that's an award we have.)
Spiny check your private messages.
I'll post up my thoughts on the game tomorrow. Brilliant season in the end, and it's a big tick for both sides to make Prelims. I'm emotionally exhausted tonight haha..
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Spiny check your private messages.
I'll post up my thoughts on the game tomorrow. Brilliant season in the end, and it's a big tick for both sides to make Prelims. I'm emotionally exhausted tonight haha..
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Thank you, NorthPort. Yeah, both sides showed great improvement to make prelims, and the games obviously meant a lot to both the VFL and VFLW sides, so I'm optimistic about next season for both the men and women as long as we retain players well. I wouldn't have posted straight after the game this time either if I didn't have my thoughts on the season pretty much set to go already. Definitely pleased with McCartney as coach, with Hird and Baldwin as captain and vice-captain, and with the work the entire playing group has obviously put in.
The loss of Baldwin early really hurt us, as he could definitely have been used to add some defensive options when needed. He looked sharp early in front of goals and I thought he was in for a big day.
I agree about the referred pressure and disposal errors. They looked very obvious and I had hoped that would be something that settled down as they game went on... Its a reflection on Geelong's pressure.
I was hopeful that our fitness, which had been a standout in recent weeks might have got the game back on our terms.
Hopefully Sam Grant is back to full fitness next year, Penry has also preformed really strongly. Another gun midfielder should be high on our hit list for 2027. Giving up first use of the ball in the centre has been a bit of a problem all year.. But it likes us yesterday.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
When Port kicked the early goals I thought they may have delivered a win. Later in the game they overplayed the handball and lost critical possessions.
I had never been to Kardina Park before, I am impressed with the stadium. Big queue waiting to enter the ground; gates should have been opened earlier
Geelong treat VFL supporters as second class citizens !
We might be from the bush. but we ain't green
I think a fixture where every team plays every other team once would be helpful when it comes to finals - not saying we'd have won if we'd played Geelong before as they were fielding a very strong team, but our players might have been more composed and had less trouble with referred pressure if they'd had the experience of playing Geelong earlier this season. I'd figured that if we made it to the grand final playing Box Hill would be a better scenario than Essendon because we'd played them before, so even though that game was rather a debacle Box Hill were still more of a known quantity.
We should have a look at Tsatas if he doesn't get signed by another AFL side and has any interest in continuing his career at VFL level. The knocks on him are poor kicking and lack of defensive running, but it sounds like he's a strong clearance player. Willingness to run both ways is essential but it may be a question of what his strengths are, rather than of what he's willing to do, and with Hird, Hobbs, and Tovey being strong defensively they could all complement each other well.
May as well list the awards from the best and fairest here. Does anyone know the top 10 for the VFL best and fairest, by the way? Not sure if the club doesn't announce that because they specifically want that information kept secret (outside of the awards night itself and the VFL website eventually listing the top 5 from all clubs) or if there's no particular reason for it not being posted.
VFL:
Jack McFarlane Medal (Best and fairest): Ben Hobbs
Runner-up: Tom Hird
Bob Bonnet & Fred Cook Trophy (Leading Goalkicker): Kaine Baldwin
Best First Year Player: Michael Rudd
Tom Lahiff Trophy (Borough Spirit award): Dom Bedendo
Ted & Rob Freyer Trophy (Coaches' award): Connor Downie
Vic Aanensen Award (Players' award): Luca Alessio
Norm Goss Trophy (Club Person of the Year): Kaine Baldwin
Player of the finals: Matt Gahan
VFLW (will make a thread on the VFLW subforum instead next season but seems a bit late to do that for 2026 now):
Best and fairest: Georgia Foran
Runner-up: Mia Caffry
Leading Goalkicker: Georgia Foran
Development Player of the Year: Nicola Davidson
Spirit of the Borough: Lisa Davie
Coaches' award: Hannah Foran
Player of the finals: Kaitlyn O'Keefe
VBFL:
Best and fairest: David Gauci and Travis Zimmer
Runner-up: Wes Jeffrey
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