Terrible news about Mackenzie's ACL and also Libba going down with a knee today too.
Yeah, poor guys. Still early days yet and already out for the season. Must be heartbreaking. Also saw earlier that Petracca for Melbourne was in the same boat.
Edit: Fairly happy with what I saw from the Geelong game.
Mostly watched to see what our kids and new players were like.
Random thoughts:
Bartel and Kelly stood out from the seniors.
Mitch Clark looked really rusty, fumbling everything that came near him but kept trying and got himself 2 goals in the last quarter.
Our young kids (1-2 year players) Lang, Cockatoo and Gregson I was really impressed with. Cockatoo was quiet early but got himself in the game later on and showed very brief glimpses of something more.
Sadly though, it felt like you could take most of what we had learnt last year and apply it to this year. Beaten soundly in clearences, the ruck and contested footy for a couple of the quarters again. Seemed to work ourselves into trouble constantly much like last year. Also felt like the same players struggled to make an impact despite them being in the system another year. No one really stood up out of the regulars who hasn't already. It was also the same players who seemed to be the ones that were keeping us in the game with the exception of Lang who didn't look out of place and will hopefully get more game time.
The only really big change that I saw was our forward line. Hawkins looked strong and dominant when he got near the ball and with a bit more game time into Clark that should make the most change from what we had last year.
Saad from the Gold Coast looked really impressive. Looked to have a lot of pace and regularly burnt off players with ease.
