Post Match Discussion - Round 16

[chook fowler 19,459]

I think most supporters, like the players, have mid season fatigue and are getting grumpy. The initial excitement has worn off and the stark reality becomes obvious. The list is shite and many on I it don't and never will have what it takes. We still need to press for a priority pick and address whatever the issues are at Casey because development still seems a massive issue.

[titan_uranus 25,020]

2) Our kicking skills when under no pressure are deeply flawed. Our really good ball users like Toumpas and Watts just don't play hard enough for long enough to impact a game with their foot skills, especially at critical moments. Grimes, McDonald, Terlich, Tyson, Viney and Bail are simply crap kicks who also happen to be necessary components in our 22. I don't understand the root of the skills problem and I don't know how to fix it, but the big fear is that even Roos so far has not been able to fix it.

3) Once again, we lose due to what WE do when WE have the ball. Our decision making through half-back and half forward, whether it is a defensive push or an attacking one, only works 60% of the time. We decide to slow down when we should run, we decide to handball to a stationary player, we decide not to take the first option, we decide to handball backwards 10 times in a row but never get a free possession out of it.

Agreed.

The stats really do show this. Last year we couldn't even get our hands on the ball, so we've improved in that regard, but every week we see the same thing - lots of possessions, very few inside 50s, even fewer shots on goal.

Our decision-making is terrible and means that possession chains which should be turning into inside 50s and/or goals are instead breaking down, and our skills are so bad that those possession chains are not just failing to give us scores, they're giving our opponents scores.

It starts, IMO, with the players in the back half of the ground. We either need to get McDonald, Frawley, Grimes, Garland and Terlich to improve their kicking, or we need to replace them with players who can kick. Unless and until we have players able to execute the kicks needed to create those possession chains that lead to goals, we will not improve enough.

[beelzebub 23,380]

Weve changed course and heading in the right direction...there's no doubt. We just need to get a better overall crew manning the oars !!

[Demonsone 2,042]

We simply just don't have the cattle....

The improvement is evident but we don't have the polish....

Dawes is great but just can't take a overhead mark & missing from 10-15 mts

Roos mentioned 6 goals from our turnovers ....

[Demon_spurs 1,861]

After 22hrs of hand wringing I've decided to look on the positive.

My top five positive things to come out of last nights game

1. Howe's smother (not Howes mother as i originally typed it...mind you I haven't actually met his mother)

2. Kent's Goal on the run

3. Sylvia is a spud and even in a good team he is ordinary and I'm glad he went

4. Jack Viney's ability to gut run and make opportunities

5. Nathan Jones' ability to shake a tag and still be trying at the very end

and one extra Roos for his ability to know exactly where this team is at, and hopefully know what we need to fix it

[Jaded No More 68,966]

We are not the first or last team to fluff up in front of goals.

Plenty of top class teams do it as well.

The missed goals will happen every game, and are very hard to eradicate. Sometimes you're on, sometimes you aren't.

It's the [censored] poor field kicking in general play, as well as horrible mind boggling decision making by hand & foot that are killing us right now.

We've gone from being a no effort no hope team, to a team that competes really well, tackles hard and is defensively sound, but which fails to execute basic skills on a consistent level.

Eradicate 80% of the turnovers by foot (you'll never have perfect disposable, and that's OK), and we are a 6 goal better team without even doing much else.

Add a real monster up forward *cough* Hogan no pressure *cough* plus true crumber, and we are an extra 2-4 goal better team without even doing much else.

For now Roos wants players who compete, the Bail-Terlich-Matt Jones of the world. Of course the better we get, the more we will be able to bring in players who are better skilled.

There is a reason why guys like Tapscott, who is a good kick, aren't getting a game ahead of these less skilled players. Effort is king right now, because no amount of skills will help a team that doesn't gut run and compete for 120 minutes.

[beelzebub 23,380]

5m out is not a fluff..... its a total f up

[beelzebub 23,380]

We simply just don't have the cattle....

We dont,....many want to paint it one way or another but What is...IS and we;re wanting

Some ( a very few ) may react to further mentoring and tutoring a lot simply need to be replaced, well if we want to be serious ion this competition

[praha 11,240]

Roos has till round 20.

THERE I SAID IT.

[beelzebub 23,380]

Roos has till round 20.

THERE I SAID IT.

to....?

[beelzebub 23,380]

if theres anything I hang a hat on is Roos taught the current 1st and 4th placed teams how to play

They have the cattle we dont.

Get us the cattle and surely the Master can once again leap frog the apprentices !!

[Adam The God 30,286]

Demonland - a group of incredibly dumb posters, love a loss, brings out the best, listen to Roos, he know exactly where we are at.

Satyriconhome - the poster that makes everything personal. Seriously, it's a discussion forum. Just because a few posters views do not align with your own, does not make them dumb.

[old dee 23,801]

nupp

Havent for a long while

25% list is vfl grade only...another 25% ebb and flow but inherent poor deciders. 50% keepers.

Agree bb

I think you might be a little generous with 50% but you cannot change more than 6-8 / season so I guess we have to keep 75% of the list each year.

That means it is going to take 2 -3 years to get a half decent list.

That is going to be tough to watch

[Axis of Bob 11,836]

BP & Schwab recriuted a bunch of basketballers.

Name two basketballers Prendergast recruited.

[Adam The God 30,286]

Agree bb

I think you might be a little generous with 50% but you cannot change more than 6-8 / season so I guess we have to keep 75% of the list each year.

That means it is going to take 2 -3 years to get a half decent list.

That is going to be tough to watch

I think we could improve vastly to become, say a 9th, 10th or 11th side by next year, simply by recruiting one or two players who are sound decision makers off half back. If blokes like McDonald have somebody to handpass it to, he could easily become an A grader. Currently, the majority of our goals conceded, occur directly from our defenders poor decision making or kicking. If we can eradicate most of this, we'll start to win a lot more games and our strangling of the opposition will become far more effective. They will then have to make the play and that opens up the possibility of us being able to force turn overs and create our own scoring chances. At the moment, even when we blanket sides, a lot of the time we eventually turn it over in dangerous areas. This cost us both Bulldogs games for example.

Delist or trade out two or three of our poor makers currently in the starting 22 and replace them with better decision makers. I'll back our recruiters and Roos to identify those vital pieces of the puzzle.

2014 is unfortunately another stepping stone season. Next year though, we should be pushing for the eight or at least the fringe. It's very doable, particularly as we have a promising recruiting team now and the genius of Paul Roos.

[Deecisive 1,709]

I think one of our problems is that we have so many players pushing up onto the ball that when we do get a kick out of the defensive 50 or towards our forward 50 we have no players there to receive it, which results in it being turned over a lot. yes we also had some dumb @$$ handpasses and kicks in our back 50 but I think we lost the ball usually further up the ground.

As garland is not playing his best football maybe bring georgio in and run garland up in the forward line. he does have talent and skill and has shown he can kick a goal, it may give him a chance to get himself back into form. i would obviously love to see our players try to stay a little more in their positions as we just seem to kick the ball into our forward line where we are sadly out numbered and out played.

[Moonshadow 17,676]

Name two basketballers Prendergast recruited.

Is that a trick question? Would it be Watts and Stef Martin?

[Axis of Bob 11,836]

Is that a trick question? Would it be Watts and Stef Martin?

Stef Martin was recruited in the draft before Prendergast took over, IIRC. WYL said that BP recruited "a bunch of basketballers", when I can only think of one basketballer that he recruited (Watts).

I don't like people throwing out stupid claims without any evidence to back it up. It isn't even a stupid opinion which can't be backed up ... it's just plainly incorrect!

[Ted Lasso 19,521]

Roosy has set a great foundation for the future, we have a game style, we are starting to develop a culture where you have to dominate the VFL consistently to get a look in, young draftees aren't expected to dominate games, they develop in the seconds, hard work and team first is what we are about, I think we have made huge gains off field

we haven't lost by 100 points all year, that in itself says a fair bit,

I think our two biggest enemies are

* Our errors in skills and decision making, especially out of the back line

* Our lack of class and polish, we have some good players, but i'd still argue at least half our list is VFL standard, while that's the case we will be a bottom 4 side.

Next year there will be a big change over to our list again, a lot of blokes moved on, a lot on thin ice and some good fresh players bought in.

It's important to remember that this was always going to be a multi season prospect, it wasn't going to happen overnight, we are coming from in my opinion very close to the worst team of all time.

[What 18,810]

Was just thinking how % is used a lot as an indicator for our improvement

We are 74% and play Geelong, Port at Port and Hawthorn over the next month

Really hope we can keep things respectable

[Ted Lasso 19,521]

Was just thinking how % is used a lot as an indicator for our improvement

We are 74% and play Geelong, Port at Port and Hawthorn over the next month

Really hope we can keep things respectable

I don't think the hit to the % will concern the coaches, we have pushed port once, played well against the cats in the NAB cup, I expect we will compete hard against them, ground can be made on a weekly basis

[Satyriconhome 10,879]

Satyriconhome - the poster that makes everything personal. Seriously, it's a discussion forum. Just because a few posters views do not align with your own, does not make them dumb.

You do read some of the posts surely?, don't normally read yours, but saw it actually quoted me correctly this time, what a surprise, just get a bit bored with the posters who are now slashing their wrists and bashing the whole team, what did they expect this season?

From what I can see from some of the topics after Saturday's game, we look like delisting about 30 players, should make draft time interesting

Edited July 6, 2014 by Satyriconhome

[Satyriconhome 10,879]

i do hope so for his own sake.

BP & Schwab recriuted a bunch of basketballers. There reading of where AFL was heading was just so far off the mark it is laughable.

This upcoming draft is going to be a huge offload.

We only have PR for 2 more years.

Wow a few weeks and you're back, anniversary of Schwab running over your cat came quickly again, give it a rest, it is the past.

So how many are we going to delist, 30?

Basketballers?...that's new at least, I can think of one, one of your whipping boys.

As I have said before, why do you waste your time supporting the team, if it brings out such hatred in you, can't be good for your health in the long term

I know exactly where we are at the moment this season, exactly where I thought we would be, Roos probably thought the same thing, think he is just getting a little bit frustrated like the rest of us with the skill errors, and the fact that he can't seem to eradicate them no matter how hard he and the coaches try

[Nasher 33,616]

Stef Martin was recruited in the draft before Prendergast took over, IIRC. WYL said that BP recruited "a bunch of basketballers", when I can only think of one basketballer that he recruited (Watts).

I don't like people throwing out stupid claims without any evidence to back it up. It isn't even a stupid opinion which can't be backed up ... it's just plainly incorrect!

Watts had always played footy anyway - he played both sports, and gave up basketball to concentrate on footy. He wasn't a 'convert' in the same way Martin was. So I'd say Prendergast recruited zero basketballers.

[Dr. Gonzo 24,235]

Just on the misses by Dawes and Grimes, I felt as they were lining up that the slight angle they were on would cause them to miss. A lot of Geelong players opt to "kick around the corner" on those types of shots now and I wonder if using that method wouldn't have helped at least Grimes put it through. It would t have helped Dawes as he was on his wrong side but I always felt when playing/kicking the ball around at training it was easier to kick those "snap" goals than kick straight when on a 45' angle for whatever reason.