Quick Thoughts - Lions vs Bombers
General - Old fashioned slop for the first quarter and a half, did dry out a fair bit after that but was still impacting the contest to a degree. Lions jumped the Bombers and then held them off well, wasn't a fierce game by any means but fairly contested purely because it was wet, things to take out of it for both teams.
Lions - Looked a lot better tonight than they have this season and got the chocolates at the end, adapted a lot better to the wet early and then just held on.
Neale - Looked a lot better, ran out all 4 quarters very well, working for the cheap touches to the spaces of the ground, evading tackles in the clearances. Will be in every side in a couple of weeks if he keeps this up.
McCluggage - Really strong game again also, rounding into some nice form after a really ordinary start to the season.
Lyons - Same old from him, just keeps ticking along and scoring fantasy points.
Daniher - Continued his strong start to the season and put a real score on the board to back it up. Been a really solid starting pick and now in a prime position to make some serious cash. To score like that in pretty bad conditions for a KPF makes it even sweeter.
Rich - Game was won and lost here, Essendon seemed to genuinely want him to be the guy with the ball for the Lions and it's safe to say they paid a brutal price for it, baffling coaching.
Zorko - Worked hard, not his best game but kept working and salvages a decent score.
Prior - Was really decent, two strong goals probably made it look better than the actual role/performance but you take that. He's got some good traits as a fantasy target, think there are a couple of better looking picks right now but he's in play.
Bailey - Another stinker, his collapse this year has been really confusing.
Bombers - Probably better than the scoreboard but their lack of forward pressure and their desire for Rich to be the man who beat them were big problems given the lack of quality on their F50 entries and their propensity to turn it over in the forward half. Were pretty good from the clearances early and it kind of hurt them because of the aforementioned issues.
McGrath - Was solid but pretty wasteful with the ball and the ratio probably not too far off.
Merrett - Lucky he played so well in the first quarter when the game was lost that enabled him to keep it ticking over and stay ahead of the count, ratio was harsh early and probably generous by the end but he played nicely. Shame he refuses to play 4 quarters right now as he was primed for a big one after the first!
Heppell - Really strong junk ratio by him, he was solid and stole the majority of the kick-ins once Ridley went down. This is basically his range for the season I assume, lowish end here and some 110s on the other side and a fair bit of 90s.
Perkins - Really solid, ratio felt kind of harsh to me but I guess 5 clangers is the grading that does it as he didn't hit a lot of targets to be fair.
Hind - Really solid, unlucky that he got caught off the ground in a couple of the patches where the ball lived in the Bombers defensive 50, probably not a coincidence, but he was great in his rebound and desire to take the game on, made a few mistakes but was mostly very good and his ratio felt about right to me.
Reid - Started really well and then faded which is kind of interesting given the conditions kind of went the other way for a guy his size. Looks a good prospect and plenty to be happy with for Bombers fans. Probably not worth the premium but worth watching at least, quite aggressive with his positioning and play on the ball which can make for good fantasy scoring.
Cox - Tough conditions for him and it just didn't work out.
Waterman - Not a good game, honestly think the Bombers probably went in too tall with essentially 4 KPF and Wright in the ruck and it did show, he was probably better than Jones in that he did pressure but this is probably not the last score in this region, very dependent on goals for fantasy purposes.
Jones - As with Waterman, terrible conditions for him, didn't really do much of anything but I think they'll keep sticking with him.
(That's a compliment Klo
