What a horrible game. Would have been more interesting if we had our best 22 out there, but alas. Frawley and Dunstall mentioned in the commentary they thought we need some run and pace. I agree, our midfield is frighteningly one paced. Freo are a team full of giants and made us look physically inadequate. They just might be building the prototype AFL list of the future. Centre clearances were frankly an embarrassment. We needed a 2nd ruckman to give Jamar a chop out. Watts is just a laughable bruise free player that will not get another contract I guarantee that.

Edited May 3, 201510 yr by leucopogon

Nope he is a genuine star.

That's what I said.

He is a star.

I'm not surprised at this loss. Roos has been telling me for ages now that we were hopeless ("the worse it got the more interested I became") and although we have made some progress we still had miles to go to be a good team. He's also been telling me good teams like Freo and Hawks are.

Personally I believe him as I'm sure the players took it on board as well. I went along today expecting to be thrashed as I'm sure the players did. He was right of course and I thank him for warning me.

I haven't read this thread but I'm sure McKenzie, Watts and Grimes have been mentioned but our leaders were dreadful and were the reason we finished as poorly as we did.

How many times has Roos said that about the side this year? You seem to be quoting from 12-16 months ago? What should he say about Freo who have demolished all in their path when asked?

FWIW take out the the first 10 and the last 20 and we put up a good effort but didn't take our chances. They were too big and classy and showed again we just need more midfield class and maturity.

They hit the contest hard at the start and our leaders did not respond. We needed more from Jones and Vince. Tyson is useless on the spread away from the contest and only ok at the stoppage at the minute. He is clearly not fit and needs to get whatever it is sorted.

None of McKenzie, Watts or Grimes cost us the game but only one gets a pass mark.

McKenzie should not have been sub and should not have been in the team in the first place unless a suitable job was the reason. Watts had the least impact of any player on the ground. Grimes had a good game I thought nullifying his opponent.

NB: Fyfe is playing a different game than any other at present. He is a freak and I could watch him all day.

That's what I said.

He is a star.

But he is not a protected species.

I know its hard when someone that good is on the opposition side.

Can we play with both Dawes and Pedersen? Or does that leave us too tall?

There is certainly no need to rush Dawes back: Pedersen did a good job today.

Reality is Freo is absolutely a 10 goal better team than us. We all know it.

Add that to Jones, Tyson and Vince having poor games, no Viney, no Jetta, Salem injured, no Dawes, disposal efficiency in the toilet and bad umpiring and the result was inevitable.

I'm just disappointed that we lost it completely in the last and stopped trying.

Positives; McDonald, Brayshaw, Hogan.

Glad I'm leaving the country tomorrow and won't be back until the Hawthorn game.

First half showed that we had made significant progress since last year. Just outmuscled in the second half though.

Any news on Salem?

And I thought that having McKenzie as a sub was really a very strange choice. Surely start him as a tag, and bring him off if he doesn't perform, or don't pick him at all.

He is never going to be an "impact player", someone one can bring on at ¾ time if not needed earlier, to bring in some oomph.

McKenzie should not have been sub and should not have been in the team in the first place unless a suitable job was the reason.

Agree entirely.

Edited May 3, 201510 yr by titan_uranus

But he is not a protected species.

I know its hard when someone that good is on the opposition side.

No, he is.

Not too unhappy when you take out poor kicking & two umpires.

I honestly think though that Watts remains in the side because he's tall & blonde. He costs us today big time & my last visions of game was Garland electing to get mauled rather than give off to him.

Gus will be a gun.

We're better than today.

Three certain goals by the maggots.

1. When the Freo player was running back to take a kick and got a 50m penalty taking him to the goal line.

2. When Hogan was going for the mark in the 4th and McPharlin had him in a bear hug when the ball was 20m away. Would have been a certainty.

3. Mayne's shepherd in the goal square when he had his back to the ball. Free kick every day of the week.

All had a huge impact in the context of the game at the time.

Number 2 - In a marking duel What is the rule when the player caught behind just grabs the player in front and throws him aside to take the mark? It was deemed legit today except when Dunne tried to move Sandilands aside but couldnt and was pinged for holding?

As for number 3 yes it should be a free but they rarely pay shepherding when it is a forward blocking a spoiler from touching a ball on the goal line. Do it anywhere else on the field and you get pinged.

And the 50 meter ruling was an absolute pizzer

There is a lack of logic in the way the game is adjudicated at times.

There is certainly no need to rush Dawes back: Pedersen did a good job today.

Agree on Dawes/ Pedersen.

First half showed that we had made significant progress since last year. Just outmuscled in the second half though.

Any news on Salem?

And I thought that having McKenzie as a sub was really a very strange choice. Surely start him as a tag, and bring him off if he doesn't perform, or don't pick him at all.

He is never going to be an "impact player", someone one can bring on at ¾ time if not needed earlier, to bring in some oomph.

The first 15 minutes of the game suggested otherwise.

We have improved but it is marginal at best. We are 13-14 ladder position side.

And I am not sure who the better impact player would hsve been given Freo's dominance. Not a fan of McKenzie as they player though.

No, he is.

Get over it. I know its hard.

I thought we were solid from 10 minutes after the start to early last quarter. Again missed all the opportunities to get us within meaningful striking distance and put scoreboard pressure on. Again we capitulated in the last quarter. Agree Hogan played too far up field. He was all over the place and when the ball came forward he was usually nowhere near it. Watts needs time out. Not sure whether we are two steps forward, one step backwards or the reverse at this stage. Why can sides side Collingwood and the Bulldogs wilth callow lists play with such maturity and we still flounder? Sure Freo were awesome but we made the game into a training run for them.

It's because we were absolutely the worst team in the league for 2012, 2013 and looked like the Fitzroy that disappeared. This was partly because we had almost all weak players with almost no skills. We have recruited well and weeded out part of the dead wood. There are still several that need to go and be replaced with top level AFL players. We do not have the depth yet so when two of our best go down they are replaced by VFL types. Also some of our regulars are nowhere near the top teams' regular players. It will take at least two more years of careful recruiting of excellent AFL players both from other clubs and through the draft before we can regularly compete at the highest level.

Our midfield is terrible and Fremantle's is possibly the best in the competition. We aren't capable of going with sides who have midfields that much better than ours.

We were also thoroughly outcoached today. Doesn't mean Roos isn't doing wonders for the club, but two key structural issues were rampant all game and he did nothing to fix them - firstly, we continued to have our forwards too far up the ground, which meant any time we got the ball off them, we'd look up, try to take the game on and move fast, but see nothing but Fremantle players; secondly, the loose man in defence - as a low-skilled side we gain nothing from putting someone behind the ball. It allows the more talent opposition loose man the opportunity to clean up our untidy forward entries and they just go around/over/past our hapless loose man. Terrible coaching from Roos today.

Salem getting injured doesn't help at all, but surely we can find someone at Casey who is better than McKenzie? He's so devoid of confidence and ability in kicking the ball that he thought the best option at one point in the fourth was to handpass to Jamar, who was standing still and not calling for it. To be clear, no one player can cause a 68 point loss, but it's an indictment on our depth that McKenzie was considered the best option to replace Kent. He did absolutely nothing to show he has improved one iota, so what does that say about Riley, Bail, M Jones and Terlich?

Dunn is also in terrible form. He has been next to useless so far this year.

I thought Jamar battled well in the ruck, McDonald did his part again in defence, and Brayshaw is really going to be a great player. Garlett continues to do a fine job, especially with far less to work with today than last week.

Aside from the Dunn comment, agree with the rest.

Coaching was very poor, both in the set up and picking of a slow tagger, without basic AFL skills, as a sub. Mind boggling selection. The failure to man up the 7th defender was a match losing move.

Poor disposal again and a brilliant midfield opposition, in a team well drilled and with good disposal, meant certain defeat.

Some of you are too preoccupied with the blonde kid.

Frontrunners are only effective when the team is winning its share of the footy.

We got smashed in the midfield, simple

Pedersen, Garlett, McDonald and Grimes (who blanketed Ballantyne) and Brayshaw all gave a yelp all game, the 4th quarter can be added to the 2 against GWS

Garlett once again showing why he's been a crackerjack pick up. Faded in the second half (probably because we couldn't win a clearance and boot the ball forward to safe our life) but he's been a revolution in our forward 50.

Not too unhappy when you take out poor kicking & two umpires.

I honestly think though that Watts remains in the side because he's tall & blonde. He costs us today big time & my last visions of game was Garland electing to get mauled rather than give off to him.

Gus will be a gun.

We're better than today.

His kicking is deplorable. Has all the attributes except kicking skills and turned it over quite a bit today.

Thought we looked slow and there was a lack of accountability. No one wanted to pick up Fyfe.

I think to be fair, the game was much more even from halfway through the first until about 5 minutes into the last. Between that period the margin hovered repeatedly around the 20-25 point mark, and there were critical times where we had a bit of momentum or we were holding them at bay, and then a massive free to us was missed or a soft one to them wasn't paid, which really hurts when you're pushing the proverbial up the hill to keep in touch with the premiership favourites.

I agree with you TU rarely do btw. If some few players stood up at those moments showed real leadership we wouldnt have been flooged but as usual mental waekness showed once more

I don't see any humble pie eating re Pedo.

I seem to recall most saying he was completely useless pre-game.

He is nothing special but some seem to forget that he showed last year he can contribute.

Our team when compared to Freo today are not nearly strong enough. More weights work or diiferent bodies. Freo mids just danced through the contest with speed and strength

Very disappointing when we were suppose to ahve a great preseason

Other teams also do it do us it is a real concern

It's quite funny (read: tiresome) how you avoid commenting on the team's performance after a win, but the second we lose you're right back in the thick of your agenda.

As I said above, Roos was outcoached today, but that's an on-field, game day problem. Not some sort of persistent, underlying issue that you seem to think exists.

I find it tiresome, boring, misplaced, dumb, pathetic etc etc that the same posters use any loss or mistake to criticize and blame the same players who in reality have very little to do with our situation.

I try not to come on here and repeat what has already been written. When I post I try to add something new. Roos message to the players for some time is that we are still a poor team who can't expect to compete with the elite. He's right but I criticize him for saying it publicly. His job is to instil confidence, not sap it out of players but telling them the opposition is better. Am I only able to question him I've praised him somewhere else. Give me a break.

If you don't like my posts don't read them. Roos has done a good job since he came to the club along with Jackson but he's done some questionable things. This is one of them. And I'll question him on a public forum if I feel like it.

His kicking is deplorable. Has all the attributes except kicking skills and turned it over quite a bit today.

Thought we looked slow and there was a lack of accountability. No one wanted to pick up Fyfe.

I must have missed these today and his 80%+ DE doesn't show it out on the stats sheet. Do you have any actual examples from today?

I don't see any humble pie eating re Pedo.

I seem to recall most saying he was completely useless pre-game.

He is nothing special but some seem to forget that he showed last year he can contribute.

I wasnt! Wanted him for Dawes all season at least he can take a contested Mark

His kicking is deplorable. Has all the attributes except kicking skills and turned it over quite a bit today.

Thought we looked slow and there was a lack of accountability. No one wanted to pick up Fyfe.

Really? Picking on Brayshaw? Demonland is amazing.

Good on Tom McDonald. He was filthy post match. That's the sort of attitude I like to see

As for Roos setting us up to lose, what a joke. He was filthy at the team and had a huge crack at them at the breaks.

We shouldn't have stopped in the last quarter.

I'm pretty sure they scored a goal when Fyfe grabbed Garland and threw him to the ground, but no free kick for holding the man.

I gave Dunn all the credit in the world last year for his work, he was a much improved player and a vital cog in our backline for 2015.

He wasn't 'fine' today at all. He was led to the ball by whoever he was playing on (which included Taberner, who is the only member of that 22 I don't rate), didn't zone properly and didn't work hard enough in transition. He's losing a lot more contests, a strong suit of his last year.

It's a drop off in form for him so far this year and we're worse for it.

What's that got to do with continuing to persist with a loose man in defence and not working on keeping our forward structure intact?

T-U id agree pretty much with that. I Sort of felt Dunn had a dirty day. Hes not quite in the vogue of his 2014 form but overall hes been handy. Today is one he wont be putting in his scrap book im betting

IM really starting to think Roos struggles game day when the other coach gazumps him. In his Swanny days his list was far more able to carry out the roles he assigned. Ours is some ways off that so why tell a colt to do a Steed's job. Horses for courses or more poignantly courses for horses surely.

Edited May 3, 201510 yr by beelzebub