With a finals spot on the line and missing their best player in Rowbottom, the Suns got it done against Essendon on Friday night, setting up an elimination finals against my Sydney Swans this coming Saturday night.
I wasn't sure if they could replace what Rowbottom does and that Maddy Prespakis would take over in congestion but Lucy Single tagged her to death, especially in the 2nd half.
You don't see it often in AFLW yet, but Gold Coast have made internal growth with Single and Whitford becoming bonafide midfielders, Dupuy becoming one of the great contested marks in the comp and the speed/run of D'arcy out of defense set them up as a destination target for free agents going forward.
The Bombers ended up playing 3 teams in the final 8, going 1-2 in them with their only win against Geelong in an almost unwatchable affair down in my hometown of Warrnambool, but I still thought they get the win Friday night off the back of Rowbottom not playing,
We've 5 clips from this game looking at:
Essendon not taking the 100% option and instead opting fora 50/50 that misses the target, ending in a ground ball situation and a resultant turnover, instead of a deep inside 50 and potential scoring opportunity.
Gold Coast's Daisy Davies not continuing to run towards the goal as the ball transitions forward and stays connected to the play and is eventually used as a hit up option at center half forward resulting in a 50m penalty and goal.
The extremely zippy Niamh McLaughlin pressing too aggressively in her own forward 50, getting stepped and giving Essendon and easy overlap off a bouncing loose-ish ball that could easily have been held up right there with better decelerating and pressing technique.
The Suns are a lot of better at balancing out their inside and outside game but fall in old habits here, with too many players getting too far into multiple contests and simply allowing the same 4 - 5 Essendon players to pressure about 8 different Gold Coast players.
Essendon lacking leadership and communication down back without Brooke Brown and failing to man up after a kick out of defensive 50 that comes straight back at them resulting an uncontested mark from a high ball 20m out from goal.
For full access to this game analysis post, register for a level 3 membership from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.
No comments:
Post a Comment