The Blues needed to win their final five matches of the campaign to make the finals but this defeat has not only ended that but will almost certainly heapmore pressure on coach David Teague as part of the outsourced football-department review well underway.
The Blues had won three of their past four matches but during the third term meltdown Hawthorn great Jordan Lewis declared they had too many “pedestrians”,while Brisbane great Jonathan Brown,also commentating on Fox Footy,noted there was “no care,no urgency to chase”.
“That is not up to AFL standard. Only nine tackles in that third quarter — that was disgraceful,” Brown said.
Veteran Kangaroo Ben Cunnington,Jy Simpkin,who had an intriguing battle taggingSam Walsh,and Luke Davies-Uniacke were impressive,while key forward Larkey had a day out,including three in the third term,on a day the Kangaroos celebrated only their fourth win of the season but third in five weeks.
“We had some great ball movement ... we have been building a lot since the bye,” Larkey said.
Tarryn Thomas was also instrumental in the win with four goals,and his star is dramatically rising Youngster Will Phillips has poise and class with the ball,while Bailey Scott was always busy. Jaidyn Stephenson (three goals) was also a threat.