Reality Check

[praha 11,236]

Eh. No excuses for today. I can accept a loss like that against a finals side, but to allow another bottom-half team to come in and outplay us on OUR ground in front of a sea of red and blue is not right and is unacceptable. I am sick of the young excuse when we have loses like these. I can handle them after a loss like last week or the Collingwood loss, but not today. Not good enough. We should have won easily today.

And this club cannot counter the zone. All five of our losses have essentially come at the hands of zoning. If it happens next week and we still struggle to get the ball past the center-line for 10-20 minutes at a time, I'm going to kill a puppy.

[Guest]

Amazing noone has corrected you on this yet.....we lost by 29 points.

46 points was our total score

[Sir Why You Little 36,985]

We were out coached today. The chemist did his homework.

Thus our players were reactive from the first bounce.

Disappointed mostly that after half time nothing changed. Bailey & co need to really put in this week, as we are too easily read.

Every player on the ground was hesitant today apart from Bennell & Junior.

That performance by the club is just not acceptable.

Charlie Watts was ok today, but even he had no idea how to attack the eagles when he got the ball-his contested marks though were great.

[Old Gregg 1]

Amazing noone has corrected you on this yet.....we lost by 29 points.

We scored 46 points.

[drdrake 3,162]

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

[Jaded No More 68,867]

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.

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.

Le Cras is the quickest little [censored] going around, he burnt both Garland and Frawley on the lead, and these boys are super quick.

And the set ups around the contest were weird too. How many times did West Coast have free men standing around the back of the pack just waiting for the ball to come out. We had very little accountability which was so so disappointing.

Coaching let us down, and so did our intensity. We were so flat today, and not just the kids who might be a bit sore and tired, but senior players. Bruce had a shocker with disposal again, Green was very very quiet, Sylvia was nowhere to be seen, Davey was off early, Bate struggled with the ankle, PJ was wasting his time and ours, and Rivers struggled. Then you had Moloney again resorting to his long, high, useless bombs into the 50m out of frustration, and Jonesy who struggled to get a clean touch. With the exception of Junior (the man is a warrior), our experienced players really did let us down.

[Eth 4]

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

Harsh. Wrong too.

[Adam The God 30,129]

Priddis unmanned for long periods.

He absolutely killed us. When a bloke like that plays well on you, you know you're in trouble. And who the [censored] was on Rosa? He had plenty of time about 7 or 8 times to pin point a pass inside 50. So many easy possessions today.

Edited May 15, 2010 by AdamFarr

[Demon3 2,541]

Amazing noone has corrected you on this yet.....we lost by 29 points.

Actually meant that we only managed 46 points. Hope that clears that up!

[DirtyDees DDC 176]

West coast did their homework. the clogged us up the middle and locked us in at the kickout. Can anyone remember one instance where we cleared the ball from the kickout to the forward zone in one passage of play? They did it 3-4 times. This is not a call for the coach or coaching staff to be sacked, but we were outcoached today.

[Dee Dee 1,105]

We were out coached today. The chemist did his homework.

Charlie Watts was ok today, but even he had no idea how to attack the eagles when he got the ball-his contested marks though were great.

OK? I thought he was shocking! Yes a couple of marks but otherwise he was just a space filler on the ground!

Wasn't he supposed to be super quick! He was lead footed and quite at sea for most of the day!

[loges 6,767]

Actually meant that we only managed 46 points. Hope that clears that up!

Bottom line we have no key forwards and when the side plays poorly like today we will invariably kick a low score. We are filling in with undersized players trying to hold down these positions. Before someone mentions Liam Jurrah despite his undoubted brilliance , he is not a key position player!

[Demon3 2,541]

OK? I thought he was shocking! Yes a couple of marks but otherwise he was just a space filler on the ground!

Wasn't he supposed to be super quick! He was lead footed and quite at sea for most of the day!

Because you would have kicked 5 today..

I thought he did a couple of really SMART things which tell me he will be a very good player and the marks he took were very encouraging.

[Sir Why You Little 36,985]

OK? I thought he was shocking! Yes a couple of marks but otherwise he was just a space filler on the ground!

Wasn't he supposed to be super quick! He was lead footed and quite at sea for most of the day!

you expect too much considering the Forward line structure.

Jack will learn quick he needs to run harder & he will learn to read his team mates better.

The contested marks were a major positive.

Edited May 15, 2010 by why you little

[Adam The God 30,129]

Coaching let us down, and so did our intensity. We were so flat today, and not just the kids who might be a bit sore and tired, but senior players. Bruce had a shocker with disposal again, Green was very very quiet, Sylvia was nowhere to be seen, Davey was off early, Bate struggled with the ankle, PJ was wasting his time and ours, and Rivers struggled. Then you had Moloney again resorting to his long, high, useless bombs into the 50m out of frustration, and Jonesy who struggled to get a clean touch. With the exception of Junior (the man is a warrior), our experienced players really did let us down.

Sums my thoughts up exactly.

[DEES 0]

...

Edited May 16, 2010 by Fan
Sorry I didn't see this earlier. Inappropriate post.

[agent_orange 0]

Bailey got his matchups wrong all game.

A poor coaching effort today as much as the players.

The umps were just a plain disgrace today. You wonder if they lack training. Woudnt mind betting they had a vested interest in the result.

Edited May 15, 2010 by agent_orange

[Dee Fan 3,247]

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.

Kennedy kicked 2 goals in the first 5 minutes and didn't get another for the day. Rivers took some very good marks in the back line today.

[two sheds jackson 3]

What sort of strategies do you think Mahoney is trying to impart on our forwards, and why do think they're failing?

[Great_little_footy_team 8]

The "Sack Bailey" calls are a joke. Yes, he was outcoached today but he has outcoached many others this year as well. He can't do much about the fact the majority of our team wasn't trying...

And I for one am not that frustrated about the over handballing. Yes it looked very bad but there is a major reason for it.

The bottom line of everything today is we didn't turn up. We had no intensity. We didn't tackle, we didn't chase, we didn't work to cut off their free men and most of all we didn't work to make an option. That is why we over handballed. The amount of times you looked up the ground and saw everyone just standing around looking bored was unbelievable for an AFL match.

The performance today was unnaceptable and Deano better let them know that. In the long run performances like that will kill us and all we can hope is they learnt a lesson today that every week, no matter what, you put in 100%. Heard Scully talk about that on the radio. We're young and we need to learn to cut that out NOW!

[Deeoldfart 8,005]

Reality check? Absolutely! Time to hit the panic button and write players and coaching staff off? Don't be so bloody naive (stupid?)!

It was very disappointing to be beaten in just about every aspect of the game today, and the scoreboard could very easily have looked much worse for us if WCE had capitalised on their opportunities ....... but we are only 10% along a very steep learning curve, for God's sake! 'Lows' like today, along with some 'highs' (like our win over Brisbane), will be the norm for the next year or so. But undoubtedly, the 'highs' will progressively become more dominant as we get games into our youngsters.

[Dee Fan 3,247]

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.

Le Cras is the quickest little [censored] going around, he burnt both Garland and Frawley on the lead, and these boys are super quick.

And the set ups around the contest were weird too. How many times did West Coast have free men standing around the back of the pack just waiting for the ball to come out. We had very little accountability which was so so disappointing.

Coaching let us down, and so did our intensity. We were so flat today, and not just the kids who might be a bit sore and tired, but senior players. Bruce had a shocker with disposal again, Green was very very quiet, Sylvia was nowhere to be seen, Davey was off early, Bate struggled with the ankle, PJ was wasting his time and ours, and Rivers struggled. Then you had Moloney again resorting to his long, high, useless bombs into the 50m out of frustration, and Jonesy who struggled to get a clean touch. With the exception of Junior (the man is a warrior), our experienced players really did let us down.

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.

[Brettmcg 24]

Interesting to see how the back setups panned out during the game, especially after having attended Before the Bounce beforehand. Seemed to me as if we persisted with matchups which were failing for too long.

Rivers was killed by Kennedy and I reckon Grimes probably should have taken Le Cras (even though the Frenchman had an average day by his standards). Whole team seemed flat and lacking energy. I reckon the wet slog last Friday night really took it out of their legs.

[Pipefitter 2,150]

Its a reality check on how ordinary our skills can be. It was just a constant groan today.

[rpfc 28,263]

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...