Reality Check

[Real Demon 232]

Today was a shocking performance..........young team or not, there are no excuses for how we played.

I can't quite get my head around the whole "wake up call" comments.......what a load of crap.......surely being pummelled by the competition and being the worst team in the AFL for the previous 2 years is all the wake up call that was required!

It's not even the fact we lost, but how we lost..........West Coast is a very ordinary team, and we simply didn't work hard enough.

[Inner Demon 1]

We weren't outcoached today. The boys were just flat and listless. There was no run, there was no intensity. It looked as if they just didn't get up after the hard slog in the wet last week. We know full well our gameplan isn't "handball at all costs". If you think they're being told to stand flat-footed and pass to stationary targets, you're simple

[bing181 8,169]

Rivers was killed by Kennedy

After a couple of early goals, Rivers kept Kennedy goal-less for the rest of the match ... and that when they were all over us.

Team was flat, a bit like the North game. Not used to being favourites, and perhaps not ready to take on the responsibility of being winners. I almost get the feeling that they'd rather be losing honorably to Geelong every week.

Very nervous about the next Richmond game now!

[Nasher 33,055]

Most on here did their pointless "where do we think we will end up?" exercise at the start of the year and expected 7-9 wins for the year.

But as the 15-13 losses come rolling in we don't see the disconnect.

On fire as usual rpfc. Excellent post. Particulary this ^ bit.

[Geddy Lee 582]

What a game like today does is highlight that we have been the worse team in the AFL for the past 3 years. We will win between 6-9 games this year which is what we should expect. Games like today highlight areas we need to improve and the type of players required to move forward.

Our ruck needs improvement that us why we have a 205+cm giant on our list. We all know that Bennell is a better defender then small forward, thats why we have Aussie and Maric. Don't lose faith we are have players on our list that given 12-24 months will make us a much better team.

Watts, I thought was good today should enough to convimce me that he will be a star

Losing sucks, but 2010 will be about taking the good with the very bad

We don't all know this. Bennell has been very good off the flank this year, and because Maric has done nothing and Aussie can never get on the park, Bennell will stay there.

[DemonSG 1]

Don't let the Coaches off. Thought they were very ordinary too. 240 handballs, handball at all costs. No forward structure. Rivers on Kennedy far too long. Priddis unmanned for long periods. No counter to the Eagles pressure.

Spot on Redleg, the forward line was a joke today... time for one of Juice or miller to return and hang around the goals?

[Jerry Lundergard 382]

That game was like Rnd 1 all over again. It is pretty disappointing to go to a game and have literally nothing to cheer for the whole game. I mean can you remember cherring and getting excited once yesterday?

My theory on why we are playing well against the better teams and poor against teams around the same mark as us is that the better teams just back themeselves to play their own game and beat us, and therefore allow us to play the game style which we want. Where as the lesser teams actually go in with a plan to stop us by bottling up the corridor(Eagles and Roos) and generally locking down on us a lot more, and we have not been able to counter this.

[DirtyDees DDC 171]

A lot of our angst is about our perceptions of the opposition. We don't rate West Coast as a side so we get angry when they beat us. They probably are a crappy team; just as crappy as Essendon, North, the Swans, and all the other teams that will make up the middle of the ladder this year. Doesn't mean they are easybeats. They are a wealthy professional club with some very good players

We had the same number of critical errors yesterday as Geelong but they seem to cover their mistakes. We play a free flowing high possession game that looks great when it comes off and looks worse than dreadful when it fails.

We will have days when we take it to the top sides, then struggle to beat the other crappy teams in the comp. I prefer to see these peaks and troughs because it shows we can play good football at times, and we can remove the inconsistency with experience. We picked 5 guys yesterday with < 10 games and we were unbalanced with injuries during the match.

I thought the backline was OK yesterday when defending the west coast attacks. True they should have kicked more, Kennedy was injured and La Cras is a handful for any side, however holding a side to 10 goals from 59 forward entries is not a bad effort. But our kickouts!! Oh god do we have a plan here? Contrast with West Coast who waited...and waited... and still found a target. Our tackle count (51) was also well down on the good weeks.

If yesterday was bad, think back to 2008 when we lost 7 games by > 75 points.

[Guest Balls_Grinter_14]

Spot on Redleg, the forward line was a joke today... time for one of Juice or miller to return and hang around the goals?

Or..why not play Brad Green there? I thought that was his role the last 5 weeks. And he was a success. Did he play out of the square at all ? I missed 1st half as I was playing footy myself. I didn't see him in the fwd 50 at all in the second half.Sylvia also. He could not get into the game. why not give him a shot at FF. Bailey made no significant changes yesterday. Sat back and waited. Wrong structures, No plan B and NO BLOODY FORWAD LINE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS JW's was good. very good! So at least we can take that away.

[drdrake 3,038]

Don't look atthe forward line structure, we didn't get the ball in there enough and when we did the delivery was rubbish. Bailey and Co can't kick the footy for our players on Match day. I remember the first quarter Davey running through the middle had a clear run to the 50m arc should of had a shot but short passed to Green, turnover. Then again Watts had a clear break running back to goal we stuffed the kick a 30m kick that dropped onto the chest of Glass.

Our footskills yesterday lost us the game we couldn't hit targets all day.

[Guest Balls_Grinter_14]

Don't look atthe forward line structure, we didn't get the ball in there enough and when we did the delivery was rubbish. Bailey and Co can't kick the footy for our players on Match day. I remember the first quarter Davey running through the middle had a clear run to the 50m arc should of had a shot but short passed to Green, turnover. Then again Watts had a clear break running back to goal we stuffed the kick a 30m kick that dropped onto the chest of Glass.

Our footskills yesterday lost us the game we couldn't hit targets all day.

Players panic and make poor decisions when they have no targets ahead. That is what happened yesterday

[Prof 15]

I've just checked my crystal ball. (Given it a good rub!) Miller will come in this week, and ... play quite well. In fact well enough to hold his place. Not only that, he'll play surprisingly well for the rest of the season, and ... guess what ... he'll get another contract and ... maintain his spot in the leadership group for 2011.

[titan_uranus 22,386]

There were a few things the coaches did poorly in yesterday. The defensive match ups weren't right for most of the game. Starting Rivers on Kennedy was a fail. We never really found the right set up down there.

We also failed to shut down Priddis and Rosa through the middle, and they tore us up on the rebound.

But what worried me the most was the fact that, for the second time in three weeks, an opposition who is worse than us in terms of talent, chose to try and shut us down by clogging up the centre corridor and zoning back when possible, and it worked. When we play teams like the Dogs and the Lions, who think their own game plan is good enough to knock us over, we end up playing well. But against teams who adapt their own games to mould around ours, we end up being forced far too wide and we fumble around with it as they defend through the middle. Both North and West Coast did this to us from the get go, and in neither game were we able to adapt to it and kick a winning score despite it.

[#MYHEARTBEATSTRUE 27]

Green Should Be Playing Out of the square for the next 4years....

Edited May 16, 2010 by WattsHappening?

[gOLLy 401]

DB better be putting everyone on notice and putting mighty big rockets up their *&^$%. I haven't paid $500 to go to Darwin to watch that rabble.

[Daryl Keith 39]

They bottled us up in their forward line and we just couldn't break out. Our kick ins are a joke and have been for 20 years I don't know why that is but we never seem to have the right structure and never seem to be able to take the quick kick in. We are the only team in the comp who don't relish the kick in, most other teams seem to regard it as a way to attack, we freeze like a rabbit in the spotlight.

Our field kicking was terrible today and I don't know how many times we kicked it too the opposition. When we did kick it to one of our players, usually in a contested situation,we kicked it to the wrong side of the contest and put our player at a disadvantage.

BTW Someone tell Jamie he doesn't have to take the mark of the round every week and then tell the players that he is not to be used as a high marking option perhaps one or two directed at his chest every now and then would help.

"we freeze like a rabbit in the spotlight"

Couldn't have put it better myself.

[Jaded No More 58,037]

Oh, yeah! It's effing easy...

GTFO with your logic, you are ruining Demonland!

[Lil_red_fire_engine 10,193]

Yeah some of the match ups today left me scratching my head.

Frawley on Kennedy was the most logical match up of all, followed by Warnock on Lynch and Bartram on Le Cras.

LeCras would have killed Bartram. Garland was the right match up but he was beaten by a very classy player. Frawley was moved to him at the right time.

[Sir Why You Little 34,529]

The worst thing about yesterday was that after half time nothing changed.

The coaches box is too busy rotating the midfield & thus cannot coach with a lot of strategy.

It's a hard one to find an answer.

[Guest watts04]

All of lecras marks were from great delivery, they hit him lace out

hence no pressure from midfield so not defenders fault

garland is a star

[Jaded No More 58,037]

LeCras would have killed Bartram. Garland was the right match up but he was beaten by a very classy player. Frawley was moved to him at the right time.

I agree in a sense. I don't think Garland was the wrong match up and that if our midfield put an ounce of pressure on West Coast then Garland would have had him covered. But his pace did burn Garland on the lead and I think maybe Bartram would have been able to keep up with him a little more.

As a side note, it was probably due to poor defensive match ups that I saw Bartram kicking the ball and driving us forward a lot more than usual on Saturday, which is a disaster. He should be the last person to be taking the ball out of the backline and has only been great in recent times because we haven't relied on him to be creative.

He is your bread and butter small defensive player who tackles hard and might get a couple of handballs out. But because he didn't really have a match up on Saturday he ended up with the ball in his hands far too often. As did Bruce.

No wonder we couldn't convert many of our inside 50's.

[The Big Ticket 94]

I agree in a sense. I don't think Garland was the wrong match up and that if our midfield put an ounce of pressure on West Coast then Garland would have had him covered. But his pace did burn Garland on the lead and I think maybe Bartram would have been able to keep up with him a little more.

As a side note, it was probably due to poor defensive match ups that I saw Bartram kicking the ball and driving us forward a lot more than usual on Saturday, which is a disaster. He should be the last person to be taking the ball out of the backline and has only been great in recent times because we haven't relied on him to be creative.

He is your bread and butter small defensive player who tackles hard and might get a couple of handballs out. But because he didn't really have a match up on Saturday he ended up with the ball in his hands far too often. As did Bruce.

No wonder we couldn't convert many of our inside 50's.

Agreed. We were never going to have a chance with Bartram putting the ball inside 50 and rebounding off the half back.

I thought Garland did OK on LeCras, forcing the majority of his leads very wide into the pocket and a long way out from goal. The West Coast mids found him on the lead too easily, obviously because there was little or no pressure from us.

[Rogue 585]

We basically have the players, but they need good development and coaching.

Bottom line is Bailey has to go, and probably his assistants.

No more excuses from the Bailey apologists - today was the inevitable proof, it was just a matter of time!

We might 'have the players' but they do indeed need good development as they're not good enough (yet?).

While the way we lost was poor, it's no surprise we've slipped.

Whole team seemed flat and lacking energy. I reckon the wet slog last Friday night really took it out of their legs.

Apparently everyone who has played the WB (or all bar one side) so far this year have lost the following week, and we looked pretty flat.

That game was like Rnd 1 all over again. It is pretty disappointing to go to a game and have literally nothing to cheer for the whole game. I mean can you remember cherring and getting excited once yesterday?

Yes to all three points.

[H_T 2,941]

Apparently everyone who has played the WB (or all bar one side) so far this year have lost the following week, and we looked pretty flat.

Yes, Collingwood is that one side you speak of.

[H_T 2,941]

Whole team seemed flat and lacking energy. I reckon the wet slog last Friday night really took it out of their legs.

The boys were just flat and listless. There was no run, there was no intensity. It looked as if they just didn't get up after the hard slog in the wet last week.

I'd like to query this thought. Our team played last Friday. We had an extra day up our sleeve and we didn't have to travel. West Coast had a pretty close game against Hawthorn at Subiaco. Likewise the Dees v Dogs game.

Whilst I understand a slog in the wet can sap a bit of energy, I think they had ample time to recover and refresh to face the Eagles. I also think West Coast came well prepared and turned up to play. Some of the Melbourne boys didn't.

We were sh!te today but, really, wake up people.

Most on here did their pointless "where do we think we will end up?" exercise at the start of the year and expected 7-9 wins for the year.

But as the 15-13 losses come rolling in we don't see the disconnect.

Our talent is young and we have poor onfield leaders - this leads to losses like those to the Hawks, Roos, and Eagles. 3 wins, 2 honourable losses (Oh, no! Not honourable losses! They give me the vapours - there is no such thing as an honourable loss!), and 3 disappointing losses.

I see it as the inevitable birthpangs of the embryonic team we are building.

But that means I letting them off the hook, doesn't it?!

Oh, noes!

And why don't you try and be a forward coach with Jurrah, Petterd, Wonaeamirri, and Morton missing, Miller out of form, a disinterested Sylvia, a Robbo-incarnate in Hughes, the glorified doorman in PJ, and a 19 year old playing his 4th game.

Oh, yeah! It's effing easy...

Well said. Agree on Sylvia too. Of which I'm usually a big wrap for. Disappointed.