Its not goo feasting when the team has been outplayed for most of the three games since the re-start. While we weren’t terrible for most of the game, City were much better than us and wanted to win more than us.
In terms of intensity, I don’t blame anyone at the club. I think every champion team has that issue once they’ve wrapped up some silverware. As someone pointed out last night, though, that kind of intensity is not something you can just switch off and on again, so the club needs to be careful how things are handled. And last night, things were not handled well at all.
You don’t just give a potential Grand Final opponent a free confidence boost in such a manner. Taking off Baumjohann, one of the team’s best performers on the night, while keeping on Retre for as long as he did, with the game in the balance did not indicate Corica was taking the game as seriously as he should have. Sadly, the game played out just as some of us feared, with the tactical balance being knocked out of kilter as a result. Maybe Corica was trying to keep as much experience out there as possible against a tough opponent, but it certainly didn’t work.