R2 review v. Bulldogs – Height isn’t everything

For the first time this season the Suns were well and truly beaten. Hardwick probably got his selection wrong and those who were picked failed to execute any way. That was a return of the Suns team we saw last season in many uncompetitive losses that we were never really in. A 9-goal opening quarter ‘with the breeze’ essentially killed the game and this was confirmed when the Suns failed to respond in the second and put up a capable response.

Hardwick went for a tall forward line with Walter, King, Casboult all sharing time and Lukosius for two quarters, but they were comprehensively out marked by the Dogs. They took 30 more for the game and tied their record for intercept marks. This stat was partly a result of the Suns’ talls failing to compete in the air and bring the ball to ground but equally some very poor delivery inside 50 from the midfield. Considering how end to end the game was at times it wasn’t even a case of the Suns bombing into a congested forward line they were just not kicking to advantage most of the time. And when the ball was in the vicinity of a Suns player particularly King, Casboult and Moyle looked weak in the marking contest. It wasn’t an ideal game to debut in for Walter but the flashes we saw suggest he should stay in the lineup, although I worry about dropping Casboult and risking more weak marking games like this one.

If you pick such a tall lineup you have to kick accurately and lead dangerously in the forward half and the Suns did neither. The Dogs only had 4 more inside 50s for the game but theirs were plainly far more effective whether they were marked or not. Hardwick is not known for picking tall forward lines so this felt like a gamble and it really didn’t work. If he is going to try something like this again I would expect it to come much later in the season against a lesser team where they can build it as a plan B if the usual set up doesn’t work.

That first quarter run was fueled by Cody Weightman roaming free and centre clearances. If you watch each of Weightman’s goals there is no one within 2-3 metres of him for each one. Uwland looked lost defending him early and swapping around defenders didn’t help either. You would think after the first couple they would have got a tighter grip on him. Small forwards have done most of the damage against us this year and the inexperience in our backline has to be responsible for that, there isn’t really an easy fix out there either. Farrar, Johnston and Lemmens are just as iffy to me on paper. If they can figure out how to exit quickly and more effectively they can at least minimse the number of balls they have to defend and avoid cheap holding the ball set shots.

The Bulldogs clearly won the clearance battle but the centre clearance is where they really did their damage. The three leading centre clearance players were Bont, Libba and English who created very good scoring chances out of these. It would be easy to say that if Witts was fit it wouldn’t have been that bad, but I don’t think Moyle and Casboult did badly enough for that to be the case. After all the Suns combined for more hitouts and hitouts to  advantage were fairly even. Bont was able to break tackles which is always hard to stop and Liberatore gave Rowell his toughest test yet at the coalface. The attendance rotations have remained largely the same over the first three rounds, and I know Humphrey didn’t play, but maybe just maybe someone like Ainsworth could get a look-in or at least give Flanders a few more opportunities because he has used the ball very well so far this season.

I think its fair to say that the breeze wasn’t the deciding factor, outside of the first quarter no team had a run anything like that. The Dogs were just better in every area. They won the clearance battle, Weightman and the Dogs’ talls took more marks inside 50 and Jones and co. took as many intercepts as any team ever. The Suns disposal was also just generally below standard making it impossible to chain together enough possessions to get the ball into the forward line. Hardwick will see this as a useful reality check, their turnover game was nowhere near as effective as the Dogs and no matter how good the mids are at clearance their ball use hasn’t improved enough on last year. It’s a good time for a bye to reset and get tweaking.