Post Match Discussion - Round 1

[bing181 8,165]

8 minutes ago, Doodle Dee said:

The bloke sounds like a plank of wood in interviews, its no wonder he's slow to respond and inflexible on gameday!

Seriously? You've decided he can't coach because of the sound of his voice?

[RalphiusMaximus 5,993]

2 hours ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Bad team selections, bad tackling, bad fumbling, bad kicking, bad in close, bad out wide and bad coaching to allow the loose Geelong defender.

They had so many injuries and we got the run of the green from the umpires.

To quote a well known figure, "You can not be serious!"

The umpires were a disgrace today and we certainly got the worst of it.  Of particular note was Ablett being held by one hand and tossing the ball with the other to a teammate in full view of the central umpire at the centre bounce.  This led directly to a score, one of many Umpire Assisted Scores Geelong were awarded.  On the other hand, I saw Hunt get clotheslined twice for no call, Pedersen was spear tackled in a marking contest for a no call and Oliver copped a few high shots.  Maybe I'll keep track of it when I look at the replay. 

On to the main game, a few things stood out to me. 

One, we allowed them to have unlimited uncontested marks.  At one point they had six before they got the ball out of our attacking 50 after a kick in.  They ended with 90 uncontested marks to our 44.  That's an absolute disgrace. 

Our mids still don't look before they kick.  How many times do we have to see them take the ball facing away from goal and do a quick turn and kick without looking for a target?  It kills us.  Same with the bomb to the hot spot.  We took two marks from that play all day and one of them was less a bomb and more a pass to Big Max (Who missed).  I'm assuming that there's some team rule/instruction/tactic that says that they are to play the percentages and put the ball there.  Sadly, whoever thinks that this is a viable tactic is a blithering idiot and needs to be sacked before they can do more damage.  Every team we play knows where the ball is going and they set up for it, wait for ALL of our forwards to jump at the ball and spoil each other, then run it out. 

On that note, how can these guys who have played the game for years and in theory have access to the best tactical minds in the country still play like ten year olds?  NOBODY EVER STAYS OUT!  If the ball is on the ground, everybody rushes in and tries to win it.  They crash into each other, they get in the way and prevent their teammates from getting the ball out.  None of them think to create space for a teammate.  And then when the ball does reach the outside of the maul, there are only opposition players waiting to take it away because all of ours are fighting each other for the inside ball. 

How about marking contests?  the ball is kicked to two Demons.  Do they talk?  Does one stay down for the spillage?  Hell No!  They both go for the mark and spoil each other!  EVERY TIME!  Kick it to the so-called Hot Spot and watch as every forward in the vicinity tries to mark it.  One or two defenders go up with them to make sure the ball spills, and the rest are positioned around the pack to pick up the spill and run it out. 

And now, for the grand finale.  We can't kick.  How many missed targets does it take?  How many scoring opportunities ruined because half of our side can't be trusted to hit an open target thirty metres away?  I don't know how many times I've said it, but if you can't kick, you can't play football.  It's that simple.  We need to get a specialist kicking coach and put some serious effort into fixing this. 

[Earl Hood 5,789]

11 minutes ago, Males said:

Our defensive pressure was shocking for most of today. At one stage the Cats had 20 scoring shots from 24 inside 50 entries, about 83%. The AFL average is 44-48%. Just shows how easily we let them spread and move the ball, then deliver basically uncontested ball into their F50.

I thought Garlett, Melksham, Hannan, Jetta and Maynard were really off. Starting to think Garlett is done.

 

Wasn’t Garletts sort of game, he was never setup with a one on one opportunity in an Otherwise vacant forward line after an interception and kick forward against the flow of play. That is his strength.

One thing that stood out to me in the 2nd and 3rd was our inability to do any intercepts and turn the ball quickly back into our forward line.

For most of the game our backline couldn’t punch, our tall forwards couldn’t take a mark, our small forwards couldn’t get front and centre and neither could they put any forward pressure on. If Gawny had kicked straight and we won it would have been a steal on my observations today at the ground. 

And then we need to ask the question of the coaching staff and leadership group. 

In the second quarter I reckon Geelong kicked out from our behinds at least 4 times to the Members flank and each time cats players took uncontested marks, turned inboard and delivered to a free player at CHB and then had running options on either side. A set play time and time again that we did not counter. OKay perhaps except we had selected a number of small defensive forwards, Hannan, Melch, ANB etc who did not play all that defensive. 

Anyone else notice how our key forwards and key backs kept running under the marking contest leaving the Geelong player to take a clean mark and play on? 

 

I am am worried about our game plan against top sides. As has been said it relies on contested ball control to work. Loose the contested ball and we get smashed. 

[Wiseblood 24,636]

Just now, bing181 said:

Seriously? You've decided he can't coach because of the sound of his voice?

You should know what this place is like after a loss.  Sensible posting is few and far between.

[Jara 1,149]

2 hours ago, Satyriconhome said:

He'll be shattered to know that????

Maybe not, but it's a sign of something. Clearly a lot of others here feel the same way. We can only respect the guy when he's achieved something. So far, there's been nothing. I thought today's was a very wooden coaching performance. 

[Forest Demon 4,681]

58 minutes ago, Bay Riffin said:

Yes but let’s face it a rubbish soft free to geelong. I would be hard pressed to not  feel aggrieved 

So what? Of course it was a rubbish decision, like 10 other ones throughout the afternoon. Didn't see anyone else deliberately deciding to unload a tirade and give away a goal.

I might forgive a youngster, but not  someone who was solely bought in to steady the ship and add experience.

[Pottsydee 129]

2 minutes ago, gOLLy said:

Jones had 7 turnovers.

Imagine Oscar did that.

Imagine if Oscar survived 12 seasons of being stomped.

[deelete my account 1,194]

57 minutes ago, bing181 said:

Seriously? You've decided he can't coach because of the sound of his voice?

It was a joke conflating sounding wooden and being slow to respond, calm down. 

[Hot as Hell 465]

1 hour ago, ProDee said:

You never quite know what you're going to get in round 1.  And you're not exactly sure what the opposition will throw at you.

We lacked cohesion forward of centre, but there's much he and Jennings can work on.  Goodwin is a very astute coach and I have faith they'll improve the connections you refer to.

I just get annoyed with the plethora of nuffies who target him.  

Many have posted and l would have agree we lacked cohesion back of centre. 

If you are correct and the rest correct, we lacked cohesion both forward and back of centre.

This is precisely why we could not beat 19 fit players in a very depleted Geelong outfit. 

It would be naive in my view to take a lot of positives out of today after a full pre-season to prepare. 

If that is not at least partly the responsibility of a coach, what the hell is he responsible for. 

He played his hard nuts with questionable skills and got exactly what he should have expected.

Even a 2nd rare Geelong can take advantage of a turnover. One turnover = one opposition goal. 

We relied on too few to do too much. As was expected by many posters. 

 

[Dockett 32 1,213]

1 minute ago, buck_nekkid said:

Jones had a stinker in the first half. Later got back into it a bit.

Our ability to rebound from our back half was atrocious.  Our kick outs were easily read, and we were outmarked over and over again.

Our half forwards seemed out of position and we therefore had to bomb into the 50 - where we were outmarked consistently.

We let then get outside and didn’t chase back defensively back hard enough.

The first quarter was a drag race.  The second a disgrace.  We did not have the polish to get home in the end.

Didnt deserve 4 points.

Too many passengers in the first half.

Lots of Love for Clarry and Trac, Maxxy owned the middle.  Salem was good until smashed.  Should have gone straight off.

Seems taking the legs of a player like Selwood did with Salem is no longer an issue.

Right in front of the umpire, ( and us) just a free. Dangerous and reckless I reckon. Was ordinary and what’s with all the 50 metre penalties? Where have these come from?

 

[titan_uranus 22,293]

2 hours ago, Nasher said:

Thought it was a gripping and entertaining game of footy. Props to the usual bunch of drawing long bows from short sample sizes - no, we don't yet know if we are "same old Melbourne". Besides, I thought we showed spirit after half time to get back in the game and nearly clinch it.

Also an honourable mention to the usual "this is going to be a blowout" crew at half time in the match day thread. You guys seriously crack me up. You know who you are.

The Lewis 50 was a disgraceful example of leadership. However I thought his assistance in the back half of the ground was significant in our second half improvement. I don't know how to weigh the two factors off against each other.

The Gawn miss was a huge letdown, but the call above to drop him for it currently leads the race for the most absurd post in this thread. That would clearly be harmful to the team as he was on top all day, and there's no punitive/education benefit either: I suspect he may already realise he might have been better off kicking the goal and doesn't need to be dropped to get the point. Nobody misses on purpose.

Wagner has copped some criticism but I thought he lifted significantly in the second half. His pressure was first rate.

Petracca is going to be a star and Oliver already is.

Overall, very disappointed to have lost, but it hasn't done much to dent my optimism for this season.

I find myself agreeing with almost all of this, until the final sentence.

If this had just been a close game between two good sides, with one just edging the other out, then I would be totally fine with it. Gawn's miss is understandable (albeit not good enough), he was exhausted. 

But that's not what happened.

We had two big flaws in 2017 that we all wanted to see addressed in the off-season. The first was the negative ratio we had in converting inside 50s compared to our opponents (i.e. our opponents score more frequently from their inside 50s than we do from ours). The second was our standard switch-off moments.

It took two quarters of 2018 for both to re-surface. We lost the second quarter by 31 points, and at half time we had scored 13 times from 30 inside 50s, but Geelong had generated 20 scores from 24 inside 50s.

What did we do in the off-season to prevent this from occurring, and whatever it was, why did it fail so quickly into the season?

Lever and Jetta had bad matches but the reason why Geelong was scoring so easily was not our defensive unit. It was our forward line and midfield which failed, repeatedly, to apply any pressure on Geelong. They had no problems with their kick-ins, they had loose men all over the place, and we didn't tackle anywhere near enough inside 50.

How is this a problem in Round 1? 

Why did we play Hannan, Fritsch and Harmes, all of whom played the same sort of role and none of whom played four quarters? Why did we play Maynard, who is absolutely nowhere near AFL standard and, to my eye, does not bring a single skill/trait to the table (he's slow, he can't kick, he doesn't read the play, and his only job was to stop Selwood and Ablett and he failed at that).

There are positives to take from the game - Petracca, Oliver and Gawn all played well, Lewis (despite his horrendous 50-metre penalty) made a huge difference across half back in the second half, Fritsch showed he has what it takes, and we didn't let a key forward ragdoll us for once.

It's only one game, so the sample size is admittedly insignificant at this point. But when the same problems which haunted us in 2017 and stopped us from making finals resurface two quarters into the new season, the optimism takes a battering.

[D4Life 2,299]

Maxy was also good. Pity he missed the last shot.

It felt like a lot of the guys were down today, so let’s hope there is a lift in performance next week.

[Ron Burgundy 8,584]

Seriously. Gawn as a senior player and leader of the club cannot be missing simple set shots as important as that.

I cannot bloody believe it.

 

[deelete my account 1,194]

1 hour ago, Wiseblood said:

You should know what this place is like after a loss.  Sensible posting is few and far between.

Sounds like the perfect opportunity for you to whip out your holier than thou attitude Wisebore.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Doodle Dee

[Wiseblood 24,636]

5 minutes ago, Doodle Dee said:

Sounds like the perfect opportunity for you to whip out your holier than thou attitude Wisebore.

Who are you?

[Dr.D 1,771]

wagner improved but his push in the back that resulted in a 50m is inexcusable. it cost us a goal. i know its just 1 play but it demonstrated stupidity and i can't have that from defenders. 

[Males 577]

1 minute ago, Chris said:

7 minutes ago, Chris said:

Really really early call in Garlett. I’m not going to say you are wrong but I haven’t even seen a hint of him being done. I don’t even think he is in particularly bad form, he just isn’t in great form. 

Haha, I'm not going off just today's game for Garlett. ? And to be fair, our F50 delivery has been average too. I just think he goes missing too much, also tends to go to ground in 1V1 easily.

I'm not sure we can play Garlett, Fritsch and Hannan in the same team either? 

[DemonOX 8,530]

We do play some dumb football at times and it’s bloody frustrating. 

[Demon Dynasty 15,395]

53 minutes ago, billyblanks29 said:

We had 23 more inside 50s than them. We just need to score. We need 2 X permanent talls down there like Hogan and T Mac or The Weed. One tall simply isn't enough threat.

Need an extra tall that can get away from his opponent on the lead bilky BUT you also need players who can lower their eyes and hit up that leading tall or kick to his advantage most of the time.  At this point we don't have an effective lead up tall and most players can't hit the side of a barn door coming i50.  And the one that could, who was ranked 2nd best at it in the league, well we just let him go to Port!

We also lack a few quality smalls who can clean up the ball front and square when bombing in long to HF, hit the score board occasionally AND, just as importantly, place decent forward 50 pressure on the opposition defenders to help keep the ball inside our 50 more often resulting in repeat shots at goal.

In summary we lack a genuine extra tall leading forward who can kick a long goal and we lack a genuine small or two up forward also.  Garlett occasionally plays a cameo role when he is on but just isn't consistent enough to do enough damage in enough games to see us winning more of these close ones.  Fritch,  Pedo and Hannan look handy but at this point none of them offer us a true genuine leading forward option that will impact the scoreboard and the match on a weekly basis. 

We will be lucky to make finals this year given the above as many i50 entries will be going to waste and will be quickly rebounded out again, as we witnessed today.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Rusty Nails

[bing181 8,165]

4 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Who are you?

I think the more relevant question is "how old are you?"

[ding 5,126]

Like i said pre-game................. that was a reality check.

Cant wait to see the reactions here when we lose next week. lol

Finals yes, premiership, you gotta be kidding.

 

[bing181 8,165]

Viney and Tom McDonald are big outs which really hurt us. Both play key roles, and we don't really have anyone to replace them in those roles.

[Chris 2,892]

8 minutes ago, Males said:

 

I get your point on Garlett but out of the three you lost Garlett is first picked every single week. He is in a different class to Hannan and Fritzch. 

[Males 577]

15 minutes ago, Earl Hood said:

Wasn’t Garletts sort of game, he was never setup with a one on one opportunity in an Otherwise vacant forward line after an interception and kick forward against the flow of play. That is his strength.

One thing that stood out to me in the 2nd and 3rd was our inability to do any intercepts and turn the ball quickly back into our forward line.

For most of the game our backline couldn’t punch, our tall forwards couldn’t take a mark, our small forwards couldn’t get front and centre and neither could they put any forward pressure on. If Gawny had kicked straight and we won it would have been a steal on my observations today at the ground. 

And then we need to ask the question of the coaching staff and leadership group. 

In the second quarter I reckon Geelong kicked out from our behinds at least 4 times to the Members flank and each time cats players took uncontested marks, turned inboard and delivered to a free player at CHB and then had running options on either side. A set play time and time again that we did not counter. OKay perhaps except we had selected a number of small defensive forwards, Hannan, Melch, ANB etc who did not play all that defensive. 

Anyone else notice how our key forwards and key backs kept running under the marking contest leaving the Geelong player to take a clean mark and play on? 

 

I am am worried about our game plan against top sides. As has been said it relies on contested ball control to work. Loose the contested ball and we get smashed. 

I agree it didn't suit him, but that is part of my issue, where is his game B? I'm probably in the minority on this, but I believe Bugg's fwd defensive pressure and nagging would be better. Or give Spargo a crack, he tackles hard and has a bit of mongrel I believe? ?

[whatwhat say what 18,907]

most disappointing aspect was the unwillingness to chase from f50

champion data have a stat that the teams that win provide incredible r50 defensive pressure

cats were allowed to waltz the ball out of our backline without any pressure applied to them whatsover

as senior players, garlett and melksham were particularly poor, while anb, hannan and fritsch weren't much better

hogan and pedo at least continued to try to apply defensive pressure

our small forwards were non-existent in doing so, with the exception of trac and oliver when they played their third tall role