Eastern Massacre

[BeeEmmAre]

The Digital Sports commentary team was at Drummoyne Oval, which was in fantastic condition, but I can promise you that even though badly beaten on the scoreboard, they were not as bad as Trouble is making out.
Especially for the first half the Dockers had as much of the ball as East Coast and were competitive for long periods, but with 12 new players in the team they will take a few weeks to gel together.
Their skill level needs a fair bit of work but they will be better when Luke Thatcher returns from army duties and any team who takes Balmain lightly will do so at their peril.
Evan Davis and Ben Kinnaird (with three goals) were very good for the Dockers while the others all tried hard - Hamid Mangal had a good first half before being worn down.
The Eagles were as scrappy as Balmain in the first half, wasting countless opportunities - it was 7.12 to 2.8 at half time and probably 16 of those 20 behinds should have been goals.
However, there was no doubt the Eagles would come good, and when they did they powered away with eight goals in the third quarter to lead by 77 at the final change.
Balmain kicked the first three goals of the last quarter and looked impressive doing it, but East Coast steadied again with eight of the last 10 to win 23.16 154 to 8.12 60.
The ominous sign for other clubs were the performances of the Eagles' four recruits, who kicked 14 goals between them.
Damien Russell looks an outstanding player with six on debut, Ben Rogers slotted straight back in with four, Adam Floyd kicked two and can play, while Aian McMillan kicked two from the wing and showed himself to be an outstanding player.
Oh, and Jon Vlatko and Jason Coulloupas had 70-odd touches between them as well.
Tune in at 8.30pm on Wednesday night and form as good an opinion as you can from the highlights.

[The Spoiler]

witnessed by a crowd which had a canteen which ran out of food at half time saw a newly recruited 30 plus balmain tigers/crows players lose the first ever eastern derby by just under 100 points.

i stand by my prediction, wooden spoon for this club.

wearing not even there own tops but tops naming fremantle the club which had had the biggest recruiting of any club i can remember looked as worse as they did last season.

tip of advice for anyone coming to the drummoyne oval.... bring your own food, drinks as it is well needed, however one thing though first round the ground there looked awesome, just a pity the team that run out on the track couldnt play no matter how many they recruited.

Well what a classic quote from the team that has no home ground! Bag someone else's! It's no good having a canteen when East Coast are around anyway, they usually bring all their own food and grog and wont spend a cent.Still there still are Mc Mansions around aren't there? Er.. aren't there? Round 1 Barney Rubble and you've done it again.You've worked out the wooden spooner.Still we all know that a season goes for home and away games, and for a lucky few finals, then a Grand Final, and you know sometimes a team wins every game for a whole year and then loses a GF. Does anyone know a team like that...? Hope I haven't spoilt the idea.
Bye the way Barney.....have you any idea on punctuation? You probably think it is the address to "see becks" boxing ring.

[Rafters]

North Dalton Oval looked fantastic tonight, with the re-laid surface and the lights. They're creating a sensational facility down there, and the best crowd I've seen at that ground.

Ground & lighting looks sensational - congrats to all involved with that wonderful facility. Outstanding effort by Lions president Ian Ferguson & his committee team for getting such a large project done in time for round 1. Lions may not be a force this year but look out in coming years. Definitely a case of "build it & they will come".

[Norris Lurker]

Totally agree Woodsy. If the clubs have gone to the effort to ring through the results to Sydney AFL HQ straight after the game, then they should be made available as quickly as possible. Even 24 hours after the round has finished, we still don't have quarter-by-quarter scores or goalkickers up.
There may have been some unanticipated disaster or one-off factor that stopped it happening quicker, but hopefully over the course of the season we won't be waiting as long for the results.

[trouble]

penno beat wests easy and campbelltown thrashed uni were what i have heard