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Opinion
Here we are Pies fans, back at it again after the bye round. It was quite the Saturday afternoon couch roller coaster.
The opening ten minutes was filled with manic pressure from the Pies. It seemed like the beginning of a classic ‘new coach new attitude’ match.
We have had plenty of decent patches of play this year but none I would say where we seemed to have too much desire to tackle and chase. It was encouraging, we seemed to even move the ball slightly better, for a moment it felt like the anvil that is watching the Pies this year had been lifted off my chest.
But as my beer-infused couch coaster came to the crescendo of its first peak there came the inevitable valley. All of the sudden we were getting opened up by Freo coming out of defense.
Credit where credit is due they absorbed our pressure and exited with hand ball magnificently, they moved quickly onto the next player daring to be bold with their attack.
The anvil was back, for the best part of the next two quarters we stagnated with the ball in hand, Freo took full advantage of our missing intercept defenders in Darcy Moore and Jeremy Howe leaving Brayden Maynard to play on one of the three key forwards Freo deployed.
Mercifully Matthew Taberner went down with an injury and they did not get the chance to fully expose our lack of tall defenders.
Side note, I tell you what: It is going to be bloody hard winning without either of those two for the rest of the year but if we lose Jordan Roughead it will seriously get ugly, I have spoken about it this year. Roughy is an unheralded Jet.
Jordan Roughead of the Magpies is congratulated by his teammates (AAP Image/Scott Barbour)
Midway through the third the couch coaster began another upswing, we managed to swing a couple goals through Callum Brown and Josh Thomas to peg back Freo’s biggest lead of the game. Brayden Maynard and Jack Crisp dug in deep in the third, winning contested ball and winning territory.
Here is where the couch coaster really got going, Q4.
Three goals in the first five minutes of the quarter to bring us level, you better believe the coach coaster was flying baby.
Not only did we kick quick goals but the stagnated ball movement was no were to be seen. We moved the ball with freedom, the first goal of the quarter came as a direct result of Roughead moving the ball quickly to Nathan Murphy who in turn honored a leading Josh Thomas by kicking the ball straight into the guts out of D50. It was not a safe kick but it was the right kick.
As Jonathon Brown said at that moment “you would rather go down by five goals giving yourself a chance to win then two goals playing slowly”. And that’s how we should play the entire year.
I would rather go down playing like that and giving the players a chance to prove/gain confidence in their ability to execute difficult skills and generate excitement in the group than playing a style where we stifle our players skills and confidence.
During that three-goal burst the was still some dips in the coaster. Taylor Adams and Isaac Quaynor absolutely made a meal of simple hand balls in the middle that we were lucky not to be punished for.Tay Adams absolutely kills me sometimes with his disposal.
Less than a minute after the last of those three goals, Tay Adams gave away a sloppy free kick 15 meters out from out goal, that free kick resulted in Freo going quickly down the field to the now much talked about Maynard-Henry contest.
Maynard did not give away a free, he played the situation perfectly and the wrong call was made. But, you can not turn a bad situation into a worse one and by god did he run my couch coaster into the turf when he gave away that 50. The umpire even gave him a second chance for god sake.
Got to be better Brayden, I think he will learn a valuable lesson from that, better to learn it now then in a final.
Nevertheless, the ride was not over. Rory Lobb kicks one out on the full and Darcy Cameron bites off another beautiful daring kick through the middle resulting in a fast break to Josh Thomas who converts.
Brayden Maynard Pole axes Travis Colyer and again we bite off a daring kick into the middle resulting in a fast break with Brody Grundy kicking a goal giving us the lead. One last Peak.
From there, Freo Kicked three goals sending the couch coaster into its last Valley.
For the greater part of the year my reviews have been player focused because how many times can you say we play like garbage. But this week in that last quarter we played a style worth writing about. I think it is important as fans we do have a look at that last quarter and come to peace with losing positively.
We are not elite at moving the ball freely and we may not be for the rest of the year but there is only one way to get better, practice.
Let the boys play with freedom. It may be a rollercoaster but I would rather have ups and downs yelling at my T.V (I was getting some serious looks of disapproval from the dog.) than monotonous un-inspired football and losing anyway.
I won’t do any player analysis this week except for one thing. Mason Cox still sucks. He is a liability.
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