13 hours ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Sorry if this one's been pointed out before.

1st quarter, 11:18 in: Parish 5 metres away running at him, with momentum, directly in his line of sight as he marks. How could he possibly have thought he could play on safely? Is this (lack of) awareness reparable? He has so much upside, particularly the crunch intercept marking. These moments are letting him down.

He's done this too often for mine. But I understand the need for him to take risks and break the game often starting in defence. He does back himself which I like, but he's got to have a better understanding of who is around him. 

We shouldn't discourage this, because when it works well our team is more dangerous.

Tom maintained giving up 3 goals a week due to turnovers, poor kicking, poor decision making and poor spoiling. He is not anywhere near a lock for the team. Good bloke but needs to learn to make better decisions.

On ‎3‎/‎04‎/‎2016 at 10:24 PM, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Sorry if this one's been pointed out before.

1st quarter, 11:18 in: Parish 5 metres away running at him, with momentum, directly in his line of sight as he marks. How could he possibly have thought he could play on safely? Is this (lack of) awareness reparable? He has so much upside, particularly the crunch intercept marking. These moments are letting him down.

Am I alone in thinking McDonald has the spatial awareness of Kosi from the Saints? Played like he was wearing blinkers and ear plugs

Edited April 4, 20169 yr by faultydet
retard spelling

I was almost hoping the ball didn't go near him by half time. To say it was an off day is an understatement. 

On 4/4/2016 at 0:07 PM, H_T said:

He's done this too often for mine. But I understand the need for him to take risks and break the game often starting in defence. He does back himself which I like, but he's got to have a better understanding of who is around him. 

We shouldn't discourage this, because when it works well our team is more dangerous.

Nope lack of awareness irreperable!! trade at years end! IMV

7 minutes ago, picket fence said:

Nope lack of awareness irreperable!! trade at years end! IMV

We don't exactly have a plethora of tall backs, fence. McDonald is still one of the best young defenders in the league and he'll bounce back, I have faith.

For such a maligned bloke, he does have a few scalps to his credit. Like many people however struggles to play on blokes 8 -  10cm bigger than he is. It wasn't him who disrespected the opposition.

3 hours ago, Dockett 32 said:

For such a maligned bloke, he does have a few scalps to his credit. Like many people however struggles to play on blokes 8 -  10cm bigger than he is. It wasn't him who disrespected the opposition.

Which taller defender would you have played on daniher instead? I thought Tom's lack of awareness & poor disposal especially early in the game gave them confidence & was a clear sign he arrived at the game expecting a walk in the park........

Geez those turn overs in the first quarter really hurt. Surprising though, Round 1 Tmac made some good decision making and didn't have as many clangers. Last week was terrible and what makes it worse is his turnovers in the back half directly turn into goals against. I still reckon he should be looking to dish off either an easy short pass to a Salem or Vince etc or long down the line. 

On 2 April 2016 at 7:27 AM, Sir Why You Little said:

My God he was slaughtered yesterday...just shocking. 

WYL....never a truer few words......dismal in one word..

15 hours ago, picket fence said:

Nope lack of awareness irreperable!! trade at years end! IMV

The bloke that was in ALL Australian contention half way through last season....

13 minutes ago, H_T said:

The bloke that was in ALL Australian contention half way through last season....

But was he aware that he was? 

2 minutes ago, Dr John Dee said:

But was he aware that he was?

Probably not. 

Like Apache Cat with the blinkers on.

12 hours ago, thevil1 said:

Which taller defender would you have played on daniher instead? I thought Tom's lack of awareness & poor disposal especially early in the game gave them confidence & was a clear sign he arrived at the game expecting a walk in the park........

Good question as Frost is only a cm or two bigger, so in our case I believe either he or  Dunne should have played to have provided assistance. Two against one if you like. We simply don't have any Gorilla minders.  It wasn't one of Tom's better games but if your supposed ball winners cant win the ball and your undersized down back then you're likely to be in for an interesting day IMO. So the issue for me is why didn't our on ballers get the pill? As has been so often the case over many years, our on ballers simply went missing so Ill be interested in selection this week as I thought N.Jones, Tyson and Vince were our better players in this area. On the other hand  I felt Viney, Bugg, Brayshaw and Oliver weren't up to scratch. There were others who were also down across half forward but IMO the heat seems to have turned to McDonald, Garland  and Hogan who were in my opinion stitched up by their own midfield who didn't seem to want it. Ben Brown is 200 cm so we could be in for a bit of the same if we don't go at it a bit harder.

 

On 6 March 2016 at 8:06 AM, sue said:

However justified criticism might be, I find it hard to grumble about blokes in a backline which has had the ball coming in endlessly over and over during the last few years.  Let's hope they can improve disposal when the ball spends a bit more time up the other end.

Agreed, but until we learn to run and spread, with genuine gut running, set up our kick in from a point strategy, so we just don't bomb it to a contest all the time and learn to use the corridor, that aint going to happen

Tom is unfortunately the outcome of starting your career in a mindboggingly bad team and staying in that side at the same level of ineptness for 4-5 years. He plays like a guy who doesn't quite know how to embrace *winning* football: that is, being able to trust your teammates and trust your skills. Roos has mentioned this many times, that the players sometimes seem to not know how good they actually are. We've seen how good McDonald can be after his blinding start to 2015. He's a shadow of that player now. I do think it's a mental thing. He's a competitive beast and I think that in a way he really epitomises the club from over the past decade: not quite sure where it's going, what its place is, why it's here. 

It also doesn't help that his teammates don't run both ways like they didn't on the weekend. When we went forward and they got it out, it was a stream of Essendon. When they went forward and we got it out, it was a wall of Essendon. We still don't run two ways for long enough during games. 

I just don't get. 

His good is up there with the best. His bad is down there with the worst.

Needs to eradicate those shockers like Saturday and the Bulldogs game in the NAB Challenge.

He seems to be a confidence player. If he makes a big turnover early, like he did in both those games mentioned above which both directly resulted in goals, he goes to pieces.

Gerard Healy is spot on here.

http://m.3aw.com.au/news/gerard-healys-message-for-tom-mcdonald-20160518-goye0l.html

Just now, dazzledavey36 said:

Gerard Healy is spot on here.

http://m.3aw.com.au/news/gerard-healys-message-for-tom-mcdonald-20160518-goye0l.html

Agree with everything Healy has said.

Sign on Tom.  Get behind the club like Jack did.

Now don't bite my head off. This is merely a discussion point.

If Tom refuses to sign a long term deal (note long term), does he become tradable at the end of this year? We need all hands on deck and as Healy says, we've shown the direction this club is going, show a bit of faith back the other way now, Tom.

Come on Tom get on board!!!

Just now, AdamFarr said:

Now don't bite my head off. This is merely a discussion point.

If Tom refuses to sign a long term deal (note long term), does he become tradable at the end of this year? We need all hands on deck and as Healy says, we've shown the direction this club is going, show a bit of faith back the other way now, Tom.

Not unless we get a backman in return.  If he wants to sign for 2 years then he signs for 2 years.  I don't think we can afford to let him go unless we have a good replacement ready.

And no, O Mac is not that replacement.  He still has a long way to go and while he's played a few decent games at AFL level he hasn't done it consistently or shown the level that Tom has.

9 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Not unless we get a backman in return.  If he wants to sign for 2 years then he signs for 2 years.  I don't think we can afford to let him go unless we have a good replacement ready.

And no, O Mac is not that replacement.  He still has a long way to go and while he's played a few decent games at AFL level he hasn't done it consistently or shown the level that Tom has.

FWIW, I agree with the above.

9 minutes ago, AdamFarr said:

Now don't bite my head off. This is merely a discussion point.

If Tom refuses to sign a long term deal (note long term), does he become tradable at the end of this year? We need all hands on deck and as Healy says, we've shown the direction this club is going, show a bit of faith back the other way now, Tom.

I hope people don't bite your head because i think it could be legit. I am yet to see any improvement at all with McDonalds decision making and disposal in the 6 years he has been here. Also if its true that the club has questioned his attitude after the St Kilda game thn who knows.

Also i swear i read a Brett Anderson tweet the other day that Hurley and Steven May would be our number 1 targets over the summer.

Can you paraphrase what was said?

I cantlisten to it