Bombertalk

Dude looked great out there last night. Reminded me of the 2004 model. I hope he can build off that.

Its not like he's been a bad player for us over the years since then, but he hasnt been quite the same either. But that in large had to do with him filling holes and such... like his stint at CHF and in the forward line in general, which I dont think is his best possie.

I like him down back. He always does well on cloke. Our crappy turnovers up the ground hurt us and McPhee since he was playing that attacking style of defense, looked like he was playing too loose. I dont agree. He was like another fletch out there, just being a general down back and was everywhere. His run out of defense was great. Our turnovers and poor decision making werent though.

Overall he was very, very good last night. He and Prismall easily our best.

McPhee is awesome!!! He played well too.

Hmmm. Thought he was good and killed Cloke early, but Cloke finished as one of Collingwood's best and was McPhee's direct opponent for most of the match, so that cancels out a lot of McPhee's good work for mine. He still made a number of bad errors - whenever you've got McPhee getting almost 30 touches, there's bound to be some crap in there.

He's like a better version of NLM - a bit of a utility without a set position who usually plays in defence, and who has the tendency to have multiple brain explosions in every match. Still not sure where McPhee's best spot is.

I thought McPhee had a chance for BOG last night, the way he started. He looked great.

However, after the Q1 he played without brains. They moved Cloke back towards the goals a little, and McPhee didn't adjust. He needed to stay further behind the ball.

He then started thinking he had more time than he had and got caught a few times, causing turnovers.

McPhee rarely has as much time as he thinks he has. He's not a Jobe, or a Hird, or a Mercuri and needs to take his first options more often. He holds the ball too long, far too often. It costs us badly.

I thought they might've moved him forward, with Hooker going back. Unfortunately Ryder looked tired and struggled to run to position as well as he has been, so using Hooker down there exclusively wouldn't have helped. Lucas might've been the other option.

Hurley would have been the solution I think.

Maybe cloke got up torwards the end, but if you have time watch the replay and see how many times McPhee was the third man up at contests and helped his team mates out. He could of played more selfish and not try and help out his team mates and he could have not run off and held cloke better.

But I prefer him to attack and help the way he did.

I agree to bring in Hurely. McPhee off the HBF.

Maybe the coach had told McPhee to play that role. It is more consistent with the game plan. Cloke looked twice the player in Q2 than Q1 however. I should see the replay sometime to reacquaint myself, but that'll be hard work!

I see the issues with personnel Knights had last night. Hooker was needed as back up for Ryder. Ryder is looking tired. I'd like to see stats like tackles, second efforts, etc that may indicate Ryders output over the last 5-6 games. I suspect they'd be slowly diminishing. I don't dispute his endeavour here. He will be under the pump next week, but the smaller ground might help.

Played very well. Our best defender along with Fletcher. 2 of Cloke's goals were unfortunate happenings for McPhee. One came after McPhee went and laid a great tackle on John Anthony - the ball spilled out to that f***'n goose and he snapped it. The other came courtesy of a 50 metre penalty against Reimers. I though McPhee genrally beat Cloke on the one on one's quite easily.

BenDoolan wrote:Played very well. Our best defender along with Fletcher. 2 of Cloke's goals were unfortunate happenings for McPhee. One came after McPhee went and laid a great tackle on John Anthony - the ball spilled out to that f***'n goose and he snapped it. The other came courtesy of a 50 metre penalty against Reimers. I though McPhee genrally beat Cloke on the one on one's quite easily.

The other 2 were when Cloke was running back with the ball to a vacant forward line. Very difficult to stop a KPP in that position.

(Mind you any Cloke progeny reminds me of Frank Wilson's immortal words in 'The Club'...."He boofed his legless sister")