Jet lag? What about the jet leg! Any hope of a few extra first-class business seats, AFL? Time to Restump Podcast the ever-treacherous Tassie trip.
There is a reason why 2 wins separate positions 2 and 13 on the ladder. It’s that type of remarkable year where the difference between most teams on any given day is negligible. A year, rightly or wrongly, in which the AFL’s equalisation endeavour army will be patting themselves on the back.
We had the opportunity to almost secure a top 4 finish but couldn’t get it done. However, as far as losses go, this one wasn’t in the soul destroying, therapy requiring category. It was almost acceptable. I said almost! Ok, maybe understandable is more appropriate than acceptable. But with understanding comes acceptance… you get the point.
Quite simply there was too much Hawk Torque for us. They matched or bettered our intensity and endeavours and, more importantly, they took their chances, whereas we didn’t.
We had the opportunity to put the game away in the third quarter and it felt like we went all in. +36 poss’, +12 contested poss’, +8 clearances, +11 marks… we were dominating the so-called ‘premiership quarter.’ But for all our dominance, 10 scoring shots to 4 for the quarter, we only outscored Hawthorn by 16 points. The inaccuracy fever re-infected the freo folk with Jye, Vossy, Freddy and Caleb falling victim and it proved fatal.
We’d thrown our best punch and in Fast and Furious analogical speak, we mistimed hitting the nitro button.
The Hawks took the ascendency in the final term and were beating us at our own game. That said, again we had our chances but the story of the day continued. We failed where it counts most, inaccurately kicking 1 goal 3 to Hawthorn’s 5 goals 1.
It was a tight, hard fought, defence orientated contest all day and, in God’s country, as the final siren drew near, we were left with nothing other than a prayer that went unanswered.
The Hawks have now won 8 of their last 10 games, they’ve won 60 of 80 games at York Park and over the last 7 weeks they’re top 4 for centre bounce clearance wins and number one in the league for scoring from them. They’re very far from your typical 13th placed team and they deserve credit for what they’re doing and for their win over us.
We’ll get out of Tassie, regroup and reset for the Dees this week.
Rabi Rchy is snacking on his 2 Brothers Foods $50 spend after winning the Mi Casa Property Boutique metres gained competition on the weekend. Jye Amiss may have kicked inaccurately, but inaccuracy doesn’t compromise metres!
On this occasion, the usual therapeutic 50 minutes post-loss is unnecessary. However, some reasoning, some realigning rationale and some sobering sounding sentiments can’t hurt, can it? But we’re not the gate keepers of public opinion! So, feel free to join us, disagree with us, converse with us and share the ever-emotionally erratic expedition all us Freo folk forever fancy.
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