Post Match Discussion - Round 15

[rpfc 28,239]

You are right RF but at some point we are being unfair to Toumpas.

Wines has come in to a great situation and is a genuine outlier when it comes to kids coming into the AFL.

I reckon if Jimmy gets a running coach and some confidence - we will soon forget about the kid we didn't take in that draft.

But the larger point about our recruiting is spot on - it is the predominant reason we are where we are.

[binman 42,492]

Yesterday was frustrating, yes... but typically in a D'Land game day/post-match discussion, the focus is on the poor one and a half quarters in the first half of the game, and little to do with the gutsy come back. People set themselves up for disappointment by saying that the Western Bulldogs are not up to our standards and as they are without certain players it will be a disgrace if we lose... rubbish! The Western Bulldogs won 8 games to our 2 last year and were a team that was looking to be going places defeating West Coast, Carlton and Adelaide before finally defeating us by 20 points in the last 5 rounds of the season. Just exactly what were we doing at that time? They have had a well balanced list for quite some time and so I was not surprised at all with yesterday's result... the only thing that disappointed my was our lack of effort and appalling skills by hand and foot in the first half.

Spot on hardtack. The bullies are at least a year ahead of us in terms of development, a point made a number of times by Roos this year. They have a much better mid field and are a terrific clearance team. The're so strong in the middle that they could afford to let Cross go - one of our best mids this year.

The dogs are a better side as was evidenced by the fact that despite the same number of wins the bookies had them as clear favorites. Lets not forget the week we beat Essendon (a bottom 8 feeder at best) they beat the Maggies who are every chance of making top 4. Do we have a top 4 scalp? No.

So despite a very poor first half a 6 point loss to a better side is no cause for cliff jumping.

[Satyriconhome 10,675]

So you think Cook might still make it?

Who knows?....his first go at it was a failure...he may see the light and be re drafted as a mature age..that's why I am not an AFL recruiter, and neither are most of the posters on here....

perhaps I will ask Burgo to do an article on exactly how a club's first few picks are decided, who has input, whether a player or player's manager says don't bother recruiting me coz I will go home after two years, whether they are swayed by everybody and his dog having an 17yr old being drafted in the top 10 after being named as an All Australian etc etc etc.........

.I just get a bit bored with the next young superstar being all over the newspapers......yes Bontompelli may be a really good player....but let's wait 5 years and then say so

...Roos said as much in his presser...

Edited June 30, 2014 by Satyriconhome

[Dee Fan 3,247]

It appears that Blease hasn't been able to work his way in because he isn't ticking all the boxes, the most important perhaps to Roos being defensive pressure. We laud Roos as out potential saviour, so we need to back him if he says one essential is missing.

OMG - another Wines vs Toumpas argument.

Yes, Wines has been playing for a year and a half in a successful team surrounded by very good mids: Toump has been thrown into essentially a cesspit and is expected to shine (without a first pre-season).

I know that one cannot make the call, but I just wonder how they would have compared in the other's environment. One cannot ever know.

Come on Mono, give me a break, Wines would play well in any team, there are plenty of big young players that are in poor sides and still do well in their first, second and subsequent years.

We made a blunder and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can move on. It took 2 years before some on here could see that Cook wasn't up to it and even then they were disappointed when he was delisted. I'm a real big fan of Jack Trengove but if his pace doesn't improve I accept he may not make it; that's life.

The only reason Toumpass gets dragged in to these threads is you can see a number of players taken before and after him that are doing well and he's struggling.

[Dee Fan 3,247]

Who knows?....his first go at it was a failure...he may see the light and be re drafted as a mature age..that's why I am not an AFL recruiter, and neither are most of the posters on here....

perhaps I will ask Burgo to do an article on exactly how a club's first few picks are decided, who has input, whether a player or player's manager says don't bother recruiting me coz I will go home after two years, whether they are swayed by everybody and his dog having an 17yr old being drafted in the top 10 after being named as an All Australian etc etc etc.........

.I just get a bit bored with the next young superstar being all over the newspapers......yes Bontompelli may be a really good player....but let's wait 5 years and then say so

...Roos said as much in his presser...

Who knows? Well he no longer plays football so I doubt he will get another chance.

[Tony Tea 2,806]

Interesting contradictions in yesterday's and today's commentary and reports. I kept hearing what a good job was done by the Bulldogs on various Melbourne players. Wallace did a "great job" on Jones - Jones 23 and consistently at the bottom of packs. Picken on Howe - Howe close to Melbourne's best. Someone (I can't remember who) on Vince - Vince 24 and a big part of our comeback. Minson on Jamar - Jamar (and Gawn) had top games. And, for the record, Viney mugged Libba. There was a time when a tagged Melbourne player was reduced to single figure stats. Roos has clearly enabled our on-ballers to still contribute. (Hello, Travis, Beamer and all your FTB mates.)

The reason we lost is not because our backs and on-ballers were stopped, it was because we were unable to find clear and present threats to goal. While we struggle to score, we will struggle to win. Roos has made great strides getting us physically competitive, but he has a long way to go to enable us to score easily enough to throw the opposition out of whack.

WIP.

[Satyriconhome 10,675]

Who knows? Well he no longer plays football so I doubt he will get another chance.

Wrong chap, check out the North Ballarat VFL team, you may find a familiar face and name there

Edited June 30, 2014 by Satyriconhome

[old dee 23,699]

I agree with most of this OD, but I would think that top 8 is possible next year if the draft/trading period this year is productive (which I do not doubt it will be with the current coaching group and admin running the club).

The vitriol I see being spat out on the game day threads here never ceases to amaze me, particularly when you see where the current list is now compared to where it was this time 12 months ago. PR is a superb coach and has already shown where he is taking us (in fact, I would argue that we are well ahead of where most would have predicted at the beginning of the year) and it should be obvious even to Blind Freddy and his dog, that we were never going to be contenders this year.

The following is in no way directed towards you OD (I just thought I would vent a little while I am here):

Yesterday was frustrating, yes... but typically in a D'Land game day/post-match discussion, the focus is on the poor one and a half quarters in the first half of the game, and little to do with the gutsy come back. People set themselves up for disappointment by saying that the Western Bulldogs are not up to our standards and as they are without certain players it will be a disgrace if we lose... rubbish! The Western Bulldogs won 8 games to our 2 last year and were a team that was looking to be going places defeating West Coast, Carlton and Adelaide before finally defeating us by 20 points in the last 5 rounds of the season. Just exactly what were we doing at that time? They have had a well balanced list for quite some time and so I was not surprised at all with yesterday's result... the only thing that disappointed my was our lack of effort and appalling skills by hand and foot in the first half.

Vent away hardtack

[Dee Fan 3,247]

Wrong chap, check out the North Ballarat VFL team, you may find a familiar face and name there

I stand corrected, but can you get rid of the photo, it brings back many bad memories.

[binman 42,492]

We made a blunder and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can move on.

RF, this is what i don't get. When you say the sooner 'we' accept we made a blunder drafting the toump the sooner 'we' can move on who is 'we'? DL posters, the MFC, Roos? What do you mean 'move on'?

The irony of course is you and some others clearly believe we made a blunder yet it is the same posters who seemingly find it impossible to 'move on'.

How about you accept nothing can change history so 'moving on' is the only logical conclusion. What's done is done. Or do you feel the need for a chorus of DL folk to agree with you that we made an error?

Which by the by will to be possible to answer for some years. Case in point you could swap the names Watts and Natanui a few years back on DL and exactly the same discussion was being had. Except there were even more people saying we made an obvious blunder (and some who were so strident in their views they simply could not countenance alternative views). I guess there are still quite a few on DL who still think we made a blunder but i'd be guessing the numbers would look pretty different today.

[Webber 10,452]

I found our performance against the bulldogs similar to the Essendon game. Smashed early, then made an unlikely comeback from a near impossible position. Something we had not done in recent memory. This time we lacked a little class and luck to finish off the job. It is a fantastic sign that we are now capable of keeping ourselves in a game when things are against us. My biggest issue is still our poor clearance work. Forget about the umpires and skill errors, we dominated when we had a purple patch of winning clearances in both games. And got trashed when we lost long sequences of them. If we could just break even on clearances we would have won easily. Biggest offenders are Jones and Viney as always who can get the ball but choose to try to bulldoze their way out of congestion rather than looking for the next option. Sometimes just a tap or knock on can be the better option if they can't break free. These bad habits have to be eradicated.

Agree with all, excepting that the problem with 'forget about the umpires' as a philosophy is that it excuses the rubbish adjudicating that is blighting the AFL. It's not about us, or excusing our performance, it's about the quality of our national game. Mick Malthouse has recently said the game is becoming harder to watch because of the rolling maul trend, and he's right, but the MOST unwatchable thing about the game is the decision making raffle being served up by the part-time professionals in charge out there. Yes it's a tough job, yes they have to deal with changes of interpretation that seem to flip around weekly, yes they have to deal with coaches/players who push the limits (tagging), but the utter lottery of what we get served up game to game (Dees or not) is offensive to every other part of our game.

[jumbo returns 6,737]

Ah yes, but to quote a lot of the posts here, was he the superstar able to drag the team over the line.....er no......I think a lot of what Judd these days is taken as being good because of past glories, have a look at his disposal efficiency from last night, I like to watch the Carlton games closely, they are in a supposedly similar position to us, a messiah like coach, a couple of superstars who were bought in (unfortunately ours retired), lots of high end draft picks......where are they at the moment.....er let's think 4 wins....hence why I am not slashing my wrists like a lot on here

Your commentary is full of sarcasm and histrionics, isn't it?

Posters are upset after the loss. Our list isn't good enough. There's some critical feedback and reasonable posting on here.

Your blue sky disposition is getting tiresome.

[Satyriconhome 10,675]

Your commentary is full of sarcasm and histrionics, isn't it?

Posters are upset after the loss. Our list isn't good enough. There's some critical feedback and reasonable posting on here.

Your blue sky disposition is getting tiresome.

There is some absolute twaddle posted on here...feedback to who, you really think Roos and the players read the stuff on here.............reasonable, in comparison to what?

I am not blue skying, the first half was deplorable

I am rather frustrated that we can't seem to get it together, but we are where i thought we would be........

I have faith that Roos will sort the wheat from the chaff at seasons end, so therefore I find it rather pointless to have post after post saying delist him, and him and him etc etc ad infinitum

I prefer to take the positives, another step forward in the redemption of Nev Jetta, Jack Viney going toe to toe with Libba Jnr (one of the latest orgasm generators amongst the media), the third quarter, Jamar and Gawn's performance

I sometimes wonder, apart from the interstaters and overseas posters, who highlight the fact that that is what they are, how many who have actually contributed to this topic were at the game, at lot of the comments seem to be based on telly commentary....just saying

Edited June 30, 2014 by Satyriconhome

[jumbo returns 6,737]

There is some absolute twaddle posted on here...feedback to who, you really think Roos and the players read the stuff on here.............reasonable, in comparison to what?

I am not blue skying, the first half was deplorable

I am rather frustrated that we can't seem to get it together, but we are where i thought we would be........

I have faith that Roos will sort the wheat from the chaff at seasons end, so therefore I find it rather pointless to have post after post saying delist him, and him and him etc etc ad infinitum

I prefer to take the positives, another step forward in the redemption of Nev Jetta, Jack Viney going toe to toe with Libba Jnr (one of the latest orgasm generators amongst the media), the third quarter, Jamar and Gawn's performance

I am sometimes wonder, apart from the interstaters and overseas posters, who highlight the fact that that is what they are, how many who have actually contributed to this topic were at the game, at lot of the comments seem to be based on telly commentary....just saying

Okay.

I respect and understand what you're saying.....I, too, have faith Roos' ability to build a club, but I'm concerned too, that time might be running out for all and sundry.

It would have been terrific to have recruited players who were at least 90% AFL ready.

[Satyriconhome 10,675]

Okay.

I respect and understand what you're saying.....I, too, have faith Roos' ability to build a club, but I'm concerned too, that time might be running out for all and sundry.

It would have been terrific to have recruited players who were at least 90% AFL ready.

No player is 90% AFL ready when drafted, it all depends on the the players physiology, the actual team environment they come into, the coaching and development staff or lack thereof....listen to Roos' presser, yet some young players light up early, but will they still be lighting up 5 years down the track, they won't if they are not developed properly

[Ted Lasso 19,191]

No player is 90% AFL ready when drafted, it all depends on the the players physiology, the actual team environment they come into, the coaching and development staff or lack thereof....listen to Roos' presser, yet some young players light up early, but will they still be lighting up 5 years down the track, they won't if they are not developed properly

Jack Viney may be an exception in that he had essentially been a demon for a few years before being drafted

[Adam The God 30,065]

We've come a long, long way when a 6 point loss can be described as "diabolical".

I concur, although base camp was so low, that it muddies what should be reasonable expectations for any AFL side. When a fellow bottom side have two of their three best mids out, we should beat them. Our resurgence in the third term shows how 'diabolical' our first half was.

How good was Jamar I for one was ready to write him off last year !

Standout game Minson was done over big time fantastic

Our mids need to be more aattacking at the stoppages Bulldogs ran through the ball all day we were more worried about them than the ball It was horrible

Jamar was absolutely hopeless in the ruck. In the first half, he was clearly winning the hit outs, but the Bulldogs had 9 hit outs to advantage, we had zero. Yesterday, he regressed to his 2012/2013 self in the ruck. He was half decent up forward, except for a contest late in the fourth, where he failed to mark against Morris (a foot shorter than him), when the kick was perfectly placed to his advantage.

Perhaps, some of the blame can be placed on our mids shoulders for their lack of work rate in the first half, but Jamar consistently tapped directly at his feet and appeared content with that result. Gawn was the one that changed the game, when he started to tap into space for our mids to run onto it.

The first half was diabolical. The second half was just OK to poor.

Spot on, mate.

[bing181 9,193]

All this Toumpas talk. Don't get it myself. Dane Swan played 30 not-particularly-noteworthy games in his first 4 seasons - that's four seasons.

The only point the "Wines is ripping it up" argument establishes is that different players develop at different rates.

As was posted above, the time to judge a player's career is at the end of that career. We only have to look at what has happened this season to players like Dunn (never going to be anything), Jamar (he's finished) and Pedersen (whoever drafted him should be shot) to see how true that is.

[autocol 448]

You guys are hilarious. This thread reads like we're the worst team in the history of football.

You remove three absolute shank kicks and three terrible umpiring decisions from that game and we'd have won by three goals. Roos' plan is working. Even with players like Matt Jones and Dan Nicholson on the park, we're playing respectable football. Yeah, it's frustrating when a player butchers a kick, but to have Bernie Vince and Jack Watts both shank a shocker within five minutes isn't bad preparation or bad management or bad training or anything. Those guys are both excellent kicks, 99.5% of the time. It was just straight bad luck.

We played, by our new standards, quite poorly, and yet we still almost won. "Quite poorly" under the previous regime was a 100 point plus belting. We're on the right track. The sky is not falling in. We'll be playing finals in a year or two.

[beelzebub 23,312]

I wonder with the Bail decision what would be the result if a player simply kicked it at the goal post..."accidently like "

[beelzebub 23,312]

You guys are hilarious. This thread reads like we're the worst team in the history of football.

You remove three absolute shank kicks and three terrible umpiring decisions from that game and we'd have won by three goals. Roos' plan is working. Even with players like Matt Jones and Dan Nicholson on the park, we're playing respectable football. Yeah, it's frustrating when a player butchers a kick, but to have Bernie Vince and Jack Watts both shank a shocker within five minutes isn't bad preparation or bad management or bad training or anything. Those guys are both excellent kicks, 99.5% of the time. It was just straight bad luck.

We played, by our new standards, quite poorly, and yet we still almost won. "Quite poorly" under the previous regime was a 100 point plus belting. We're on the right track. The sky is not falling in. We'll be playing finals in a year or two.

Strangely Paul disagrees with you. Thought it was unacceptable . He thought it diabolical. Half way through 2nd qtr we were 6 goals down from all but one way traffic.

It's not so much the outcome...a 6 pt loss that worries many, its the wavering appetite for the game some of our players are showing.

(typos)

Edited June 30, 2014 by beelzebub

[Adam The God 30,065]

I found our performance against the bulldogs similar to the Essendon game. Smashed early, then made an unlikely comeback from a near impossible position. Something we had not done in recent memory. This time we lacked a little class and luck to finish off the job. It is a fantastic sign that we are now capable of keeping ourselves in a game when things are against us. My biggest issue is still our poor clearance work. Forget about the umpires and skill errors, we dominated when we had a purple patch of winning clearances in both games. And got trashed when we lost long sequences of them. If we could just break even on clearances we would have won easily. Biggest offenders are Jones and Viney as always who can get the ball but choose to try to bulldoze their way out of congestion rather than looking for the next option. Sometimes just a tap or knock on can be the better option if they can't break free. These bad habits have to be eradicated.

I'd argue the only one of our mids who doesn't do this is Bernie Vince. He consistently gets quick kick clearances. Jones has got better at this (hence his rising status in the game), but Viney and Tyson still try to do too much. Get it on the boot and get it moving forward. I agree, ADC. We have to get rid of this.

Apologies AF. Misinterpreted your post. Just for curiosities sake, doggies had 108 of those tackles in R8, a club record.

Our highest ever is 106. Against Geelong last year.

All good, mate. My post should have made that clearer. : ) Yeah, I thought the Doggies would have had an incredible tackle count. That's also a fascinating statistic, that Geelong one. I was at that game. We had a real dip that day, but lacked class across the ground - sound familiar? ; )

What I'm saying is, you have a choice of picking a ready made player like Wines who has the body to contribute immediately or you pick a player who you believe will be a very good player but needs time. At this point in time the choice of Wines has been vindicated by his outstanding performance on the field whereas the performances of Toumpass haven't shown he will be anywhere the player we hoped he would be.

You can usually tell after a season or so if a player has the goods, look at Macrae, Stringer and Bontempelli, they were all in Footscray's best yesterday and were picked last year and this year, but Toumpass can't get a game with a side that is near the bottom of the ladder and has shown nothing to indicate that he will make it in AFL.

I'm hopeful that he will turn out to be a very good player, but at this time I just don't see in him what the recruiters did. I just get p1ssed off when we make excuses as to why he needs time when other players don't seem to and we do it all the time. Big guys need time, young kids need time, it's always the same excuse on Demonland, just look around and see the type of football other draftees are playing.

Anyway I don't want to go on about this, I've said what I want to say and given my opinion others can make up their own minds.

Toumpas was picked under a different regime. Would Roos and co have picked him? Who knows? If you're to believe some rumours, Neeld overruled Viney on that call. But, what's done is done. Toumpas is an MFC player and I will back him, until his position on the list is untenable.

For the record, JT has better careers stats than Stringer, who was taken the pick after him, but played more games than Jimmy. Stringer also hasn't played the majority of his footy without leaders, in possibly the worst team of the past 30 years. Okay, we've improved this year, but Roosy is making the young guys earn their stripes. That's fine. JT will be back and given more chances. That's Roosy's style.

Bernie is close to my favourite player at the club but we only got him because Adelaide wanted to get back in to the draft.

Mine too, RF. Thank you, Adelaide.

[Dockett 32 1,239]

M'lar, I have the greatest respect for N.Jones and the last thing I would call him was a pretty boy. Was trying to make the point (unsuccessfully it would seem) re the type of players Roos and the Swans recruit for midfield duties. Tough hardarses who get in hard, apply brutal tackles and have no regard for their own safety. Hope he gets a few for us. Re Nathan I believe he has been more effective previously than he has shown the last couple of weeks and I am sure he will bounce back.

[beelzebub 23,312]

M'lar, I have the greatest respect for N.Jones and the last thing I would call him was a pretty boy. Was trying to make the point (unsuccessfully it would seem) re the type of players Roos and the Swans recruit for midfield duties. Tough hardarses who get in hard, apply brutal tackles and have no regard for their own safety. Hope he gets a few for us. Re Nathan I believe he has been more effective previously than he has shown the last couple of weeks and I am sure he will bounce back.

Hes already shown a different tac for the type of player than was previously sought

Am sure the trend will continue.. Makes it easier on all of our lads and harder on theirs. Footy aint that hard sometimes

[Adam The God 30,065]

Stringer broke his leg in his draft year, and kicked 4.2 yesterday.

And Jimmy Toumpas had a double hip operation in his draft year. What's your point?

Tend to agree with RF , Nathan Jones has been held the past two weeks and this has impacted. He needs to stand up this week and with Vince and Viney get right into the tough stuff at every contest. You take a look at who goes through Sydney's midfield and how they go about it, to get a slight insight as to what Roo's requires and that means no weeks off for anyone. Swans engine room Kennedy, McGlynn, Hannebury,Jack and apologies to others, not a pretty boy amongst them. They just love the challenge of every single contest.

I'd argue that the birth of his first child might be affecting his game over the past two weeks.