I am obviously a total masochist because I sat down and painstakingly went through the third quarter of last week and analysed it. Why did I do such a thing? Because I needed to clarify in my mind exactly what went wrong. Of particular interest was how much effort was being applied and skill errors.

LM (loose man)

0:20 - Ineffective tap Jamar, JV concedes free, ball streamed straight out of the middle with no resistance via LM Shuey (Trengove's man) and ends up OOB in pocket. Garland lucky not have gifted a free.

01:00 JV concedes head high tackle (his second in a minute) Hams kicks excellent goal from boundary ("worst possible start" Dunstall)

02:15 Easy clearance from bounce by Masten, LM in Hams (Grimes was too loose), TM out of position on Darling, mark... hits post.

03:40 WC mark on wing from pitiful kick-out play, three LM for WC get it to CHF, long bomb, easy mark then goal Sinclair (Sellar nowhere near it)

05:35 Absurd free aganist Clark in the middle, then his man was let off after being caught playing on. Long bomb, Le Cars gets crumbs, hands to Masten, snap goal. 3 goals in 5 minutes.

06:40 MJ ineffective tap, WC clear, work to the goalsquare, Garland concedes free to Kennedy, goal. Crowd upset, it was just there.

09:05 Jones free kick completely blind bomb easily rebounded.. good passage by us to CS, nobody leads for him in50, Jamar was supposed to be the target and didn't bother, he bombs, uncontested mark WC.

10:30 Jetta blatantly denied free kick.

11:00 Great mark in defence Howe, starts good passage, with Davey hittng Jetta in50 but it pops straight out of his hands

11:30 Garland/Terlich both go up against 1 opponent, ends up Eagles ball, we scrounge it back, tapscott drops a pass short i50 to CS, Byrnes gets it, pathetic shot on goal OTF, should have done something else, panicked a bit

13:00 Le Cras too good, kicks to square, Garland again easily outmarked, goal.

14:00 Pederson in ruck, allows easy Cox-Priddis-Masten clearance straight to CHF, sinclair kicks awesome snap goal.

15:30 dees centre clearance, Sylvia bomb to 30m out hotspot, Clark outnumbered, eagles clear to wing, we get it back in, clark again outnumbered, ends up gathering it loose and having a shot which misses.

16:10 eagles kickout marked uncontested 65 metres out

16:40 great passage, Davey-Trengove-Tapscott nice bomb goal, almost no celebration whatsoever

18:00 Kerr-Shuey clearance too easy, shuey misses

18:30 another poor kickout, ends up being turned over by Evans, free against Pedo. Garland gives away another free, doesnt matter Cox goal (Frawley's man)

20:50 Jetta misses mark, MJones turnover

21:30 Darling mark, 14 blokes touched it, McDonald's man. Goal. Talk about Masten coming of age, this is the bloke that went a pick before Morton WTF is wrong with our development

22:50 big thump to Jamar but again to no advantage.. again downfield MJ taps directly to Priddis, ball bombed to square McDonald's man Darling crumbs off the pack easy goal

24:50 MJones fumble, bomb from Evans to nobody in50

25:50 Sellar pathetic at ruck, ends up with Kennedy, Garland left him free like a first year player, goal

27:10 Byrnes turnover shocking

28:00 clark off the ball free, cost us a probable goal

28:40 Sinclair again easy uncontested mark

20:00 aimless bomb out of back pocket JV, eagles win contested ball, another mark i50 Grimes too loose, goal

30:30 MJ to Priddis again

31:00 Tapscott nothing kick

31:30 frees to Clark and Jetta not paid.. clark gives away stupid free seconds before the bell

if it wasnt so early in the day I would buy you a few drinks after watching that quarter and doing that

i havent watched it since and really couldnt sit through it

well done

So what (if any) conclusions can you draw C&B?

I thought the eagles midfield were a bit fumbly in the 1st half which allowed our guys to effect tackles and pressure their disposal.

After half time they seemed much cleaner which allowed them to dispose of the ball a fraction earlier than they were able to do in the first half, which opened us up - they had superior pace/spread all oveer the ground and their forward line was too strong for a backline which had no winners on the day?

My biggest positive from the day was the performance from Evans and Bail on the wings and Sylvia and Tapscott on the flanks - at least we seemed to have some structure for getting the ball from one end of the ground to the other (when we did get our hands on the ball)

C&B a member of Opus Dei?

Because that is some serious self-flagellation.

In conclusion - after a slow start and a few things against us (frees), we let our heads drop.

05:35 - Absurd free against Clark in the middle, then his man was let off after being caught playing on. Long bomb, Le Cars gets crumbs, hands to Masten, snap goal. 3 goals in 5 minutes.

06:40 - MJ ineffective tap, WC clear, work to the goalsquare, Garland concedes free to Kennedy, goal. Crowd upset, it was just there.

From that point there was just no hope the players knew that they were going to lose it and that's why they stooped spreading and going hard for the footy.

It was clear we lacked someone that has the ability to stand up on field (kick/set up a goal) and get others to lift their heads.

So what (if any) conclusions can you draw C&B?

I thought the eagles midfield were a bit fumbly in the 1st half which allowed our guys to effect tackles and pressure their disposal.

After half time they seemed much cleaner which allowed them to dispose of the ball a fraction earlier than they were able to do in the first half, which opened us up - they had superior pace/spread all oveer the ground and their forward line was too strong for a backline which had no winners on the day?

My biggest positive from the day was the performance from Evans and Bail on the wings and Sylvia and Tapscott on the flanks - at least we seemed to have some structure for getting the ball from one end of the ground to the other (when we did get our hands on the ball)

Agree with all that

No real revelations for me, except that

-our key backs were even worse than I had perceived at the match. Garland in particular was incredibly bad, he failed at every test. McDonald and Frawley not much better, and unfortunately Grimesy had some bad moments too. Why don't they chuck Sellar up forward? He did OK in the preseason and clearly would take some heat off jamar. He and Pederson are absolutely useless in the ruck.. this I feel is outr biggest weakness at the moment. It is well recognised how poorly the Russian is going, and how N Jones was taken out of the game, this left our midfield completely ineffective. Masten and Priddis absolutely killed us, it is as if we were not even trying to contain them.

Clark was not the superstar we all think he generally is. Viney made some blues, but that's excusable. Toumpas, Pederson and Byrnes again gave us nothing.

The complete lack of enthusiasm for Tapscott's goal, and the play that set it up was worrying at the time and in replay. It was 16:40 into the term and the Eagles had 6 unanswered goals, smashing our spirit.. that's the reason, but it's not an excuse. We seem to be a very emotional group, when the chips are down we really drop our heads and stop fighting. This is another problem high on the list.

The usual chasm between effectiveness at kick-outs, this has been going on for the better part of a decade.

I suppose the good news is that it could have been a lot better, the umps cost us a few and simple errors denied us a few.. also the eagles were pretty darn good, particularly some of the shots on goal.

Neeld's things-to-list:

1. Emotional strength - he needs to somehow make the group not drop their heads when things go pear-shaped. Tough ask. What is needed are some strong personalities on the field, generating talk and fire.. perhaps MN needs to identify who these players are and tell them that part of their performance assessment from now on will be a review of how they are doing this in matches. This is supposed to be the domain of the captains and leadership group, but clearly it is not happening.

2. The ruck division is appalling. I don't know what has happened to MJ but I hope stern words are being said to him. Unfortunately we have no quality backups. I can't see a fix to this except via the trade table at year's end.

3. FCS sit the group down and have them watch a few hours of top sides handling kick-outs, both creating and defending. Juxtapose these video clips with clips of us getting wrong. Get creative on how to have them workshop the ideas involved, they need to be educated on this aspect as it something that occurs approx. 27 times in an average match and it kills us every week, because we stuff up about 25 of them.

4. The midfield is a joke. NJones carries it as much as he can.. but JV is too young, Trengove needs to do more, unfortunately Toumpas is not a straight-out-of-the-box type. McKenzie back will help, we really need stoppers because we continually get torn a new one eg Priddis and Masten this week. I would be playing Howe as a midfielder full-time, we need some genuine class in there. I agree with other threads in that at year's end we should put draft picks on the line to steal a gun mid from another club.

5. Put Pederson and Sellar deep forward with clark - they are both useless but they demand a player to give space to Clark.. and obviously if Clark is still being double-teamed then the team needs to know to actually USE the decoys. Watts should be down there also, Howe and Jamar part-time.. there is no excuse for us having a vacant forward line when we have plenty of tall options on the list.

In conclusion - after a slow start and a few things against us (frees), we let our heads drop.

05:35 - Absurd free against Clark in the middle, then his man was let off after being caught playing on. Long bomb, Le Cars gets crumbs, hands to Masten, snap goal. 3 goals in 5 minutes.

06:40 - MJ ineffective tap, WC clear, work to the goalsquare, Garland concedes free to Kennedy, goal. Crowd upset, it was just there.

From that point there was just no hope the players knew that they were going to lose it and that's why they stooped spreading and going hard for the footy.

It was clear we lacked someone that has the ability to stand up on field (kick/set up a goal) and get others to lift their heads.

Agreed, as noted above, this is problem #1 for mine.

I hear you C & B and this is where our lack of leadership hurts us most, if teams get a run on against Cats or Hawks up step Joel Selwood & Luke Hodge to either do something inspirational or make a move on field to stem the stide and take control of the game by slowing it down.

Hi all. Long time reader, first time poster. That free Jack Viney gave away at the 1:00 minute mark against Hams was classic West Coast ducking of the head. I should know, I was 5 metres away. I was close enough to see the smirk on Hams face. I am a Melbourne FC gold member & for what it's worth I have never seen us in as bad a situation as we are now. That 3rd quarter fade out was unacceptable. But I'll keep the faith cause I have nothing else. I feel for Viney, Toumpas & Hogan. I hope we don't screw their careers.

So the real culprits yet again are our senior players:

Jamar and Garland

Well done. You deserve a beer and a Curry

Thanks for doing this C&B. It is interesting reading. What strikes me is that most of these goals were from set plays (centre bounces, kick-ins) or bad turn-overs. It is hard to imagine fitness being a factor in the first 15 minutes after the major break as some have suggested. Also more goals means more rests.

Surely set plays is a coaching issue - either our plan is wrong or our players can't implement it.

With turnovers I notice that our elite kickers were either not playing or missing in action. (Davey, Watts, Strauss, Tapscott, Toumpass). These are the guys we need to get the ball to when kicking into attack.

I guess with about a quarter of our team on Saturday having played 5 games or less we should not be too surprised.

C&B, great effort! This was excellent analysis of what actually happened (or didn't happen).

In conclusion - after a slow start and a few things against us (frees), we let our heads drop.

05:35 - Absurd free against Clark in the middle, then his man was let off after being caught playing on. Long bomb, Le Cars gets crumbs, hands to Masten, snap goal. 3 goals in 5 minutes.

06:40 - MJ ineffective tap, WC clear, work to the goalsquare, Garland concedes free to Kennedy, goal. Crowd upset, it was just there.

From that point there was just no hope the players knew that they were going to lose it and that's why they stooped spreading and going hard for the footy.

It was clear we lacked someone that has the ability to stand up on field (kick/set up a goal) and get others to lift their heads.

Exactly our problem since Junior left - NO SENIOR on field leadership. We are going nowhere until someone SENIOR stands up: the big question is who has the interest to do so? We cannot rely on our young captain to do it all. Sylvia?

C&B excellent replay. Though I wonder if the club should not be looking at the first 2 quarters to go over what they did there that was different, where we won, and how we won. As those two quarters are the style of play we need to reproduce for 4 quarters well enough to be competitive.

C&B excellent replay. Though I wonder if the club should not be looking at the first 2 quarters to go over what they did there that was different, where we won, and how we won. As those two quarters are the style of play we need to reproduce for 4 quarters well enough to be competitive.

gee do you think they might review the whole match??

What do you actually think they do down there??

I am obviously a total masochist because I sat down and painstakingly went through the third quarter of last week and analysed it. Why did I do such a thing? Because I needed to clarify in my mind exactly what went wrong. Of particular interest was how much effort was being applied and skill errors.

LM (loose man)

0:20 - Ineffective tap Jamar, JV concedes free, ball streamed straight out of the middle with no resistance via LM Shuey (Trengove's man) and ends up OOB in pocket. Garland lucky not have gifted a free.

01:00 JV concedes head high tackle (his second in a minute) Hams kicks excellent goal from boundary ("worst possible start" Dunstall)

02:15 Easy clearance from bounce by Masten, LM in Hams (Grimes was too loose), TM out of position on Darling, mark... hits post.

03:40 WC mark on wing from pitiful kick-out play, three LM for WC get it to CHF, long bomb, easy mark then goal Sinclair (Sellar nowhere near it)

05:35 Absurd free aganist Clark in the middle, then his man was let off after being caught playing on. Long bomb, Le Cars gets crumbs, hands to Masten, snap goal. 3 goals in 5 minutes.

06:40 MJ ineffective tap, WC clear, work to the goalsquare, Garland concedes free to Kennedy, goal. Crowd upset, it was just there.

09:05 Jones free kick completely blind bomb easily rebounded.. good passage by us to CS, nobody leads for him in50, Jamar was supposed to be the target and didn't bother, he bombs, uncontested mark WC.

10:30 Jetta blatantly denied free kick.

11:00 Great mark in defence Howe, starts good passage, with Davey hittng Jetta in50 but it pops straight out of his hands

11:30 Garland/Terlich both go up against 1 opponent, ends up Eagles ball, we scrounge it back, tapscott drops a pass short i50 to CS, Byrnes gets it, pathetic shot on goal OTF, should have done something else, panicked a bit

13:00 Le Cras too good, kicks to square, Garland again easily outmarked, goal.

14:00 Pederson in ruck, allows easy Cox-Priddis-Masten clearance straight to CHF, sinclair kicks awesome snap goal.

15:30 dees centre clearance, Sylvia bomb to 30m out hotspot, Clark outnumbered, eagles clear to wing, we get it back in, clark again outnumbered, ends up gathering it loose and having a shot which misses.

16:10 eagles kickout marked uncontested 65 metres out

16:40 great passage, Davey-Trengove-Tapscott nice bomb goal, almost no celebration whatsoever

18:00 Kerr-Shuey clearance too easy, shuey misses

18:30 another poor kickout, ends up being turned over by Evans, free against Pedo. Garland gives away another free, doesnt matter Cox goal (Frawley's man)

20:50 Jetta misses mark, MJones turnover

21:30 Darling mark, 14 blokes touched it, McDonald's man. Goal. Talk about Masten coming of age, this is the bloke that went a pick before Morton WTF is wrong with our development

22:50 big thump to Jamar but again to no advantage.. again downfield MJ taps directly to Priddis, ball bombed to square McDonald's man Darling crumbs off the pack easy goal

24:50 MJones fumble, bomb from Evans to nobody in50

25:50 Sellar pathetic at ruck, ends up with Kennedy, Garland left him free like a first year player, goal

27:10 Byrnes turnover shocking

28:00 clark off the ball free, cost us a probable goal

28:40 Sinclair again easy uncontested mark

20:00 aimless bomb out of back pocket JV, eagles win contested ball, another mark i50 Grimes too loose, goal

30:30 MJ to Priddis again

31:00 Tapscott nothing kick

31:30 frees to Clark and Jetta not paid.. clark gives away stupid free seconds before the bell

I'm trying to work out why you didn't head to the bar at .03.50

jnrmac, on 16 Apr 2013 - 16:36, said:

So the real culprits yet again are our senior players:

Jamar and Garland

Well done. You deserve a beer and a Curry

Jamar was not brilliant, but he was doing this alone most of the day, maybe he would do better if he had better backup so could go off the ball. As for Garland, he was obviously outgunned. Given Frawley is supposed to be our gun backman you have to ask why Garland was given the role he was given.

gee do you think they might review the whole match??

What do you actually think they do down there??

You mean they do things at the club during the week?

I assumed they were overseeing the players' parma intake and making sure they were logging FIFA minutes, whilst lightly suggesting they might like to take a beep test every so often so that the coaches looked like they knew what they were doing.