Having had a few days to forget about what I saw live, I just watched the TV coverage and I am far more optimistic than I was at 7pm on Sunday.
Between the 5th minute and Perth's first goal we were absolutely on top and should have scored twice at least. It does raise the spectre of the Not A Striker meme, but we will score plenty of goals this season if we can consistently create that many chances. Apart from the mistakes for the two goals, I think we defended fairly well, and through Doyle cost us a goal, he made two or three absolutely key interventions. He will learn from the mistakes, I am sure. However, Siggy probably shouldn't be trying to split two players with his passes. People have complained about Wee Mac not crossing from the left, but he often had no one to cross to, or no space to do it in. He can after all use his left foot. Finally, though we were ponderous at times, when we got the tempo up we looked really good.
One concern though. In preseason I heard Ernie talk about how he always wants at least four men getting into the box, but it was almost always only two or maybe three. I think that held up our attacks as much as anything.
In the end we had more shots, more shots on target, better shot accuracy (shots/shots on target - blocked shots), won more duels, had better passing and cross accuracies, and won a higher percentage of our tackles. Possession was almost exactly 50/50. The one stat that concerns me is how much better Perth were in the air (they won aerial duels 60% of the time). Sauce.
Its funny you say all of this because there are a couple of others that were at the game, went home and watched the replay and then went 'huh, that was not as bad as I watched live' posting similar commentary on here.
I see the McGlinchey opener and for once in the last 27 games, we had a later runner into the box (and we lamented all last year that we were missing Tim Brown for that very skill) and slotted it. Burns got down, there was a runner, another and I think there were 3 players in the box and I actually said to myself 'that's how an attack works'. Last year we could not do that at all. That spell you talk about from about 10 mins on in the 1st half was amazing to watch. The pieces are there, the execution is kinda there, its just needs a bit of chemistry now. That comes with time on the park. You can run 6 up Canty but judging by that, its seems not to be not too difficult a task considering the difference in leagues. Against actual resistance.....
I am optimistic.