I don't buy the talk that GWS simply beat us because of their superior midfield and talent. We had them on toast early. Our attitude and application after QT was pizz poor. Whilst Jones is our best player and sets brilliant solo personnel leadership by example he is no leader of men. No one rises to great heights to follow his example. Because his personal form was off there was nothing to provide any sense of leadership left. Another of our recent clayton's captains if he can't impose excellence on his teammates when his personal game is down. Sadly there is no one to take up the slack to support him.

very harsh assessment of Jones. your second point is more to the point, in that we do not have others who can rise to the challenge when needed particularly in the midfield. GWS midfield also showed us up last season with their numbers around the ball, their tenacity in the clinches, their run and quick and effective disposal.

very harsh assessment of Jones. your second point is more to the point, in that we do not have others who can rise to the challenge when needed particularly in the midfield. GWS midfield also showed us up last season with their numbers around the ball, their tenacity in the clinches, their run and quick and effective disposal.

But it is up to Jones to make the players rise to the task. That is what a Captain does.

The fact he couldn't will himself into the game at all is most concerning.

To be beaten in a quarter is one thing. To have no influence over the entire game is another story.

3 hours per week The Captain MUST lead

Another thing which hasn't had much comment so far is that GWS used Cameron to lead Tommy away from the play out to the flanks. They didn't even look for Cameron thus preventing Tommy from stopping other passages of play.

This in no way diminishes Tommy's fantastic work on Cameron for the whole day...just saying GWS were very clever about opening up their forward 50 to let their small guys charge through. The ploy worked!

Another thing which hasn't had much comment so far is that GWS used Cameron to lead Tommy away from the play out to the flanks. They didn't even look for Cameron thus preventing Tommy from stopping other passages of play.

This in no way diminishes Tommy's fantastic work on Cameron for the whole day...just saying GWS were very clever about opening up their forward 50 to let their small guys charge through. The ploy worked!

thats a 'coaching " matter surely

thats a 'coaching " matter surely

Of course...several times I have posted about being outcoached...I just didn't want to labour the point...

Of course...several times I have posted about being outcoached...I just didn't want to labour the point...

please do ....seems about 90% here want to run away from it.i.e Its all the players !!

It was a 100% team failure , from the head down..as they say

please do ....seems about 90% here want to run away from it.i.e Its all the players !!

It was a 100% team failure , from the head down..as they say

Spot of BB, the TEAM includes the coaches, if you are confident enough, the coaches are also on the field.

Long time since I have commented here but like to put in a few gut feelings from the game. I remember looking at Garland when GWS goaled to make the diffence only a matter of points. You could just read that he was thinking, I think we all know that moment in sport when you say to yourself. Can I be stuffed now that the game is going away from us. The other was looking at Roos and saying to myself. Well Roosy your going to have to make some moves here that are not conventional. Beyond that I would review all games where we have capitulated and find the common link of those that havent performed without fear of favour. Would also love to hear some opinion on our trading of picks for Tyson and Salem as opposed to Bontempelli and say a Merrett as a pick in the twenties.

Didn't see the second half (luckily) but can someone tell me what Roos did after/at half time because it looked ominous in the second quarter...

Don't think the coach can escape scrutiny after an effort like this.

Bump

Didn't see a response to this. Anyone enlighten me?

Bump

Didn't see a response to this. Anyone enlighten me?

I cant because I cant really tell what he DID do.

I saw lots of positional changes from my vantage point on the couch - none made a difference.

In the last term alone we had Howe forward, Watts back, Jones forward away from middle, Salem into the middle, Lumumba back, Vince subbed for Brayshaw.

It was deck chairs on the titanic.

I would be interested to hear from anyone at the game just how much bigger Mummford looked than Jamar. It was clear from mid second quater he was Public enemy number one. Just like the Aussie cricket team its about time we had a strategy of cutting off the head of the oppositions gun. We did it against Gold Coast with Ablett and it needed to be done with Mummford.

This was nothing more than a reality check. The display on Saturday showed we can play very good footy, but as Roos pointed out in his post game presser, if you are not a top team, ladened with talent, then you have to sustain your effort for the entire game. If you drop off in today's modern footy, you will be overrun. And of course that is precisely what happened. The game was symptomatic of our slow evolution as a footy team. Our current structure is not set in stone, to state the obvious.

Last week we beat a clearly below par Suns, while the Saints were beaten narrowly by GWS. This week we weakened badly to be swamped by GWS while the Saints beat the still below par Sun's by a similar margin to our win last week. The true measurement of our improvement on 2014 or otherwise is still several weeks away.

Let's hope confidence builds.

Bump

Didn't see a response to this. Anyone enlighten me?

When has Roos ever done anything during a game to alter its course?

Players come off at pre-determined intervals for a rest. He swaps his ruckmen around occasionally. Every now and then Watts sets off for the backline.

It seems to me that if something isn't planned during the week, it doesn't happen. That either suggests that the players are too stupid to have their instructions changed on the fly, or the coach doesn't have any ideas. Perhaps both of these are true.

The inability of Roos to stop the run of goals by getting any one (or all) of Dunn, Howe or McDonald into the heart of the action during that third quarter was inexcusable. Instead we spent 30 minutes watching Garland getting flogged by McCarthy, and a steady stream of runners trotting through our forward line unimpeded, whilst those three players were dragged miles out of the contest by their opponents.

That is to say nothing of the calamity that was our centre square work after half time. Instead of having Jamar waving his hand feebly at the football we should have put Dawes in the middle to earn his pay by sticking his knees into Mumford for a while. Or perhaps tried manning up occasionally.

The inability of Roos to stop the run of goals ....

Seriously?

A week ago Roos was a hero.

You can make all the changes you want (a number of which were made), but at the end of the day, if the players don't respond and make an effort, it's all for naught. Viney made the observation in his post-match interview that it's not about any individual player, it's about the whole team and the way they attack the ball and the contest. If that's not there across all 18 on the field, then you allow for the possibility of what happened in the second half.

Plenty of posters here just kidding themselves.

This whole post annoys me no end.

After one loss we are already lowering ourselves to dumping players and talking about the offseason. Absolutely ridiculous.

Some people are acting like the world has caved in. Last week we couldn't stop praising the side, and now we are potting them and even trying to imply they don't play for the jumper. They certainly looked mighty proud of the jumper last week.

Normally I would agree with you on the flighty, knee-jerk reactions but describing it simply as 'one loss' is underplaying things. GWS didn't turn up til half time. Had they been switched on at the start we would have lost by 100 points. It was every bit as bad as the Neeld years, which of course brings into question everything we thought we knew about the Roos 'revival'. Are you really so sure they played for the jumper? Looked to me like we lost every single contest because the other guy simply wanted it more.

It's pretty simple what went wrong the question is how do we stop the team having these periods of the game where they go to sleep. GWS won just about every clearance in the second half and our defensive structures around the stoppages fell apart. Any side that continually gets their hands on the ball first and has little pressure applied once they have the ball will always win by a considerable margin. I find it very strange that we can play such a good brand of footy for a half then play a completely different way in the 2nd half.

It's pretty simple what went wrong the question is how do we stop the team having these periods of the game where they go to sleep. GWS won just about every clearance in the second half and our defensive structures around the stoppages fell apart. Any side that continually gets their hands on the ball first and has little pressure applied once they have the ball will always win by a considerable margin. I find it very strange that we can play such a good brand of footy for a half then play a completely different way in the 2nd half.

See I dispute this point - and it is not through the rearview mirror that I dispute it.. at half time I said to the people I was with that we were lucky GWS were such a bloody awful side, because we ourselves were playing bad footy and only through being out-carped by our opponent were we in front. I said if we were a decent team we would have been 10-12 goals up at half time. Of course GWS got their act together at half time and made our effort and talent look embarrassingly bad. My point was is that I didn't feel like we went to sleep at half time, but we never really turned up at all.

Seriously?

A week ago Roos was a hero.

You can make all the changes you want (a number of which were made), but at the end of the day, if the players don't respond and make an effort, it's all for naught. Viney made the observation in his post-match interview that it's not about any individual player, it's about the whole team and the way they attack the ball and the contest. If that's not there across all 18 on the field, then you allow for the possibility of what happened in the second half.

Plenty of posters here just kidding themselves.

Whilst I agree with that, sometimes you need a spark to change the trend of the game. Unfortunately, gone are the days of starting an all-in brawl.

I mentioned in the pre-game that if Mumford was dominant, we needed a 3rd man up at the stoppages, which is something that Hawthorn do with Lewis and Hodge. Howe could have been worth a shot, given that he was a non factor in the backline.

Tyson & Jones collected 4 clearances out of a total of 86. That is an aberration and the chances of it happening again are minimal.

Both those 2 normally average over 11 clearances between them per game and what also should be remembered is the high clearance figure for the game (86 - about 10 over the average)

To me, that's the main reason why we lost the game. Our 2 best players (both midfielders) couldn't win anywhere near enough clearances (otherwise known as winning the ball out of the middle or winning the ball at the 'other' ball-ups or the throw-ins)

Clearances 2014

Jones 138 (season) 6.3 (average)

Tyson 108 (season) 4.9 (average)

I would be interested to hear from anyone at the game just how much bigger Mummford looked than Jamar. It was clear from mid second quater he was Public enemy number one. Just like the Aussie cricket team its about time we had a strategy of cutting off the head of the oppositions gun. We did it against Gold Coast with Ablett and it needed to be done with Mummford.

Now that is a big ask for Viney, I reckon he would give it a go though.

Macca, you are spot on.

I always watch for holding at stoppages, and i always get annoyed at the zero protection Jones gets from the umpires. But, even though Jones was held an aweful lot, that was not the problem. Our midfielders were knackered, plain and simple.

Macca, you are spot on.

I always watch for holding at stoppages, and i always get annoyed at the zero protection Jones gets from the umpires. But, even though Jones was held an aweful lot, that was not the problem. Our midfielders were knackered, plain and simple.

There were other issues that came out of the game but many of those issues were caused by our inability to win enough clearances (for instance, our forward line became largely dysfunctional as the game wore on)

Other clubs would be fully aware of our reliance on Jones & Tyson (before Tyson it was just Jones for a time) so that's why we need others to step up.

Viney, Vince, Brayshaw, Cross, vandenBerg, Newton, Lumumba and others need to increase their numbers with regards to contested possessions and clearances. Even just 1 extra clearance per game, per pertinent player would make a big difference. And of course we need a quick return to form for Jones & Tyson.

In the first quarter we fumbled and dropped but had room and time to recover.

We did not put on scoreboard pressure because our possession was in their part of the ground.

We had no one deep and no one running deep.

In the second half the game was still played in a congested fashion with no one spreading.

Hogan was great but was contesting to far up the ground.

Dawes was still competing against two with no one in front of and behind the pack

Howe was flying for everything but with teammates and neither were marking.

GWS sat down and roved off our spillage and always had a spare player as we had knocked each other out.

Put Howe in the pocket tell him he must NEVER go outside 50.

Let Jesse go wherever he wants.

Make DAWES go in a different direction to Hogan

Kick to Dawes or Hoganand if covered just bang it to inside 50 to one off Howe

Just some ideas

In the first quarter we fumbled and dropped but had room and time to recover.

We did not put on scoreboard pressure because our possession was in their part of the ground.

We had no one deep and no one running deep.

In the second half the game was still played in a congested fashion with no one spreading.

Hogan was great but was contesting to far up the ground.

Dawes was still competing against two with no one in front of and behind the pack

Howe was flying for everything but with teammates and neither were marking.

GWS sat down and roved off our spillage and always had a spare player as we had knocked each other out.

Put Howe in the pocket tell him he must NEVER go outside 50.

Let Jesse go wherever he wants.

Make DAWES go in a different direction to Hogan

Kick to Dawes or Hoganand if covered just bang it to inside 50 to one off Howe

Just some ideas

Then Howe will never touch the ball. Howe needs to move and be unpredictable. If he's stuck deep he will never get to a contest, opposition defenders would give him no room to fly. It's been tried and it's failed before.

He didn't have a good one on the weekend but has played some good footy at HB so maybe leave him there and watch what happens...personally I would play him on a wing or high HF, a great let out kick from defence.