1 hour ago, P-man said:

Would've liked to be at the ground to get some kind of understanding as to how they managed to get so many players free when streaming forward.

Basically, Melbourne were guarding space about 40 to 60 metres in front of the ball so all St Kilda had to do was get over or around that zone (which wasn't difficult) and they were away with loose players at the back.

It was absurd.

4 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Basically, Melbourne were guarding space about 40 to 60 metres in front of the ball so all St Kilda had to do was get over or around that zone (which wasn't difficult) and they were away with loose players at the back.

It was absurd.

This is the same thing we saw against GWS.

We turned it around against the Giants, though, mainly by tightening the zone and not being sucked too far up the ground.

22 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

I saw the following players on Riewoldt...Salem. ..Jetta. ..Vince... why...have have NFI

Also Lumumba spent a lot of time pointing to him whilst standing 30m away on his own. 

 

1 hour ago, Demon Jack said:

Disappointed but by no means concerned. As a team, we were still able to kick 15 goals and now appear to be doing that on a weekly basis. We have a good defence but it was beyond average today with Jetta the player who came close to breaking even.

Can't believe some posters who are already calling Petracca 'Toumpas 2.0'. Cut him some slack. Petracca's game was any that I would expect from a nervous kid playing his first game. Certainly had his moments and will be better for the run.

Would love to see Oliver, Neal-Bullen and maybe even Trengove in the team next week in place of Harmes (who looked cooked today), Frost and perhaps Salem (depending on how he recovers from his concussion).

Also, I believe Hogan is the first player to kick 7 goals for Melbourne since Robbo around 10 years ago.

Jetta would be in the first five players I'd put on my team sheet every week. He's a solid, solid player. Love him. He went alright today too. I agree. Didn't think it was his fault. When the landslide started happening in the second and third I felt he stood up when it was his turn. Tried to create from half back as well. Did so on a couple of occasions.

Edited April 30, 20169 yr by AdamFarr

They gave our coaches a football lesson.

We had scoring firepower but let them get it out the back way too easily.

Disappointing but no disaster or tragedy. Unless we refuse to learn from it.

Still only percentage out of the 8.

32 minutes ago, AdamFarr said:

The zone defence worked the last two weeks...

There is a stage, however AF, where you say that it's not working. I would have said somewhere between the 5th to 6th goal of their 8 goal second quarter.

1 hour ago, Glenn Molloy said:

There seems to be alot of hate for the defenders here and I get that....zoning off Riewoldt is asking for trouble in my book and I was staggered how long it took to lock down on him.   But I think we're letting our midfielders get off scott free for the lack of pressure they applied. It's not T Mac, Jetta and Dunn's fault that there are four Saints streaming downfield by themselves....it's because our mids either haven't applied enough pressure or won't run back the other way  Nate Jones got 31 touches today but laid one solitary tackle.  Jack Steven had 25 touches and 11 tackles!  Their frontal pressure when we got it in the backline was exceptional and we didn't handle it at all.  When they got it we weren't prepared to run back with them.  It just felt like after the first 5 mins we thought we were going to have a field day and had too many blokes running ahead of the ball.  

Saints have plenty of talent...I'd love to have a few of their lightning outside runners and small men, their speed killed us.  

It's an 18 man press. The players have said this themselves. So it's not just the midfielders. It's everyone bar the last few defenders.

But I generally agree with the sentiment here. The amount of times their midfielders waltzed past flat-footed Melbourne midfielders - where were our forwards? Kennedy was playing as the inside slider in the first half for a number of centre stoppages and managed to create for a period of 5-10 minutes, but then was unsighted for the rest of the game.

1 hour ago, Roost It said:

We were beaten by a side who'e best is better than ours. No need to slash wrists. i still think we have more upside than the saints. Hats off, they played great footy today.

I disagree. Their best does not much our best. We just didn't bring our best. That's the difference.

Just now, Return to Glory said:

There is a stage, however AF, where you say that it's not working. I would have said somewhere between the 5th to 6th goal of their 8 goal second quarter.

True.  I agree with AF that it's worked previously (the wins are proof of that), but the point is valid that we have no plan B.  When a team worked it out and were beginning to run all over us we had no idea what to do, both from the coaches box and the players.

Hopefully they take that as an opportunity to learn and to put in place measures to stop this from happening in the future.

1 hour ago, bandicoot said:

We are slow... Trenners and Oliver won't help this. Saints buzzed all around us and we couldn't keep up. Need some outside run desperately 

Don't agree...when you've got class players making decisions and using the ball they make you look quicker than you are. Making the play and hitting up targets doesn't let the opposition play to their advantage.

Oliver is the best clearance player I've seen come into the game in a long time and Trenners footy smarts,work rate and skills would be streets ahead of a fair few of his teammates out there today.

Surely when you zone you can still at least cover players, covering Nick Riewoldt would have been a nice start.

11 minutes ago, Ted Fidge said:

They gave our coaches a football lesson.

We had scoring firepower but let them get it out the back way too easily.

Disappointing but no disaster or tragedy. Unless we refuse to learn from it.

Still only percentage out of the 8.

But we won't make it. I understand the trend already for this year.

New sponsor must be Russell  ( Yoyos )

Make no mistake Roos caught flat-footed often on game day when push cones to shove.

Great holistically.,.... Just game days can best him.( his Sydney premiership team team didn't need a coach !!)

There's principle .and there's being the principal ( cause )

Reality check for mine ( chance gone begging also )

Edited April 30, 20169 yr by beelzebub

13 minutes ago, Return to Glory said:

There is a stage, however AF, where you say that it's not working. I would have said somewhere between the 5th to 6th goal of their 8 goal second quarter.

Agreed. I mentioned earlier in this thread that it's either stubbornness or the coaches are trying to teach the players how to work through that. I refuse to be naive enough to suggest that our entire coaches box failed to negate a major issue in the game. I am surprised however that the coaches appeared to miss how high our press was. 

Sorry, third quarter

2 minutes ago, AdamFarr said:

Agreed. I mentioned earlier in this thread that it's either stubbornness or the coaches are trying to teach the players how to work through that. I refuse to be naive enough to suggest that our entire coaches box failed to negate a major issue in the game. I am surprised however that the coaches appeared to miss how high our press was. 

I think you're spot on- they want them to play a particular way (you referenced Hawthorn as an example) and within that there is only so much the coaching staff can change mid-game. In his press conference, Roos commented on the fact that we were unable to control the contested ball situations and that is where they tried to make some adjustments.

17 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

True.  I agree with AF that it's worked previously (the wins are proof of that), but the point is valid that we have no plan B.  When a team worked it out and were beginning to run all over us we had no idea what to do, both from the coaches box and the players.

Hopefully they take that as an opportunity to learn and to put in place measures to stop this from happening in the future.

But are we seriously saying that our coaches haven't devised a Plan B? I think that'd be foolhardy to think that. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced the coaches want our guys to increase their work rate and correct the issues themselves. 

Roos said after the Collingwood win (I think) that the coaches are more about educating the players on why they are being beaten. I'd be saying that our players were incapable of making those adjustments to rectify the situation, because they refused to bring the required work rate and intensity to each and every contest.

21 minutes ago, rjay said:

Don't agree...when you've got class players making decisions and using the ball they make you look quicker than you are. Making the play and hitting up targets doesn't let the opposition play to their advantage.

Oliver is the best clearance player I've seen come into the game in a long time and Trenners footy smarts,work rate and skills would be streets ahead of a fair few of his teammates out there today.

I'm glad Trenners didn't play today, because he would have looked so slow. Trenners wasn't the answer today, but I can certainly see the argument for Oliver. When the tide was going against us and Gawn couldn't get his hands on it, we needed someone like Oliver. 

Ah, the old "we are slow" again.  Name a team who didn't look "slow" when they played like crap.

We aren't slow.  We haven't looked remotely slow in the last three weeks.  We just failed to work hard enough today.  

Just now, AdamFarr said:

But are we seriously saying that our coaches haven't devised a Plan B? I think that'd be foolhardy to think that. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced the coaches want our guys to increase their work rate and correct the issues themselves. 

Roos said after the Collingwood win (I think) that the coaches are more about educating the players on why they are being beaten. I'd be saying that our players were incapable of making those adjustments to rectify the situation, because they refused to bring the required work rate and intensity to each and every contest.

I'm glad Trenners didn't play today, because he would have looked so slow. Trenners wasn't the answer today, but I can certainly see the argument for Oliver. When the tide was going against us and Gawn couldn't get his hands on it, we needed someone like Oliver. 

I'm not saying we haven't devised one, but if we have, we had no idea how to execute it which doesn't look flash.

And this game is another great way for the players to be educated.  Regardless of game plan, instruction etc, when we were challenged we went to pieces.  We need to learn how to stand tall when we're challenged like we were today.

4 hours ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Sam Frost is special, and not in a good way.

That's a potential defender without the instinct to be a forward. How far out was that miss from?

Defence brief for Frost. He gets into good positions, has good hands. Takes at least as many marks and kicks as many goals as the guy he replaced (Dawes), has more upside.

With a little more polish by hand and foot, he'll be potent.

Just now, Wiseblood said:

I'm not saying we haven't devised one, but if we have, we had no idea how to execute it which doesn't look flash.

And this game is another great way for the players to be educated.  Regardless of game plan, instruction etc, when we were challenged we went to pieces.  We need to learn how to stand tall when we're challenged like we were today.

The idea of a plan 'B' is fundamentally flawed, IMO.  The players are drilled and drilled and drilled to get them to play a certain way ("plan 'A'") - there's not enough time in the day to learn a totally different second one.  This is doubly true in the case of a very young side who have a hard enough time getting plan 'A' right.

Plan 'B' is to tweak plan 'A' and educate on the fly until the players get it right.  Hogan and Roos said nearly identical things in the post match pressers - "we were trying hard but couldn't play the way we wanted to play" (paraphrasing).  

4 minutes ago, Olgreybeard49 said:

That's a potential defender without the instinct to be a forward. How far out was that miss from?

No more than 15 metres, he barely hit the ball with his boot.

Just now, Nasher said:

The idea of a plan 'B' is fundamentally flawed, IMO.  The players are drilled and drilled and drilled to get them to play a certain way ("plan 'A'") - there's not enough time in the day to learn a totally different second one.  This is doubly true in the case of a very young side who have a hard enough time getting plan 'A' right.

Plan 'B' is to tweak plan 'A' and educate on the fly until the players get it right.  Hogan and Roos said nearly identical things in the post match pressers - "we were trying hard but couldn't play the way we wanted to play" (paraphrasing).  

Agree with all of that.

Obviously our next step as a football club is for the players to have confidence in tweaking the game plan on the fly - when it all hits the fan, who takes charge and makes those tweaks that help to plug the gaps and stop the flow?  I think Hogan and Roos are both right, and that is why most supporters tonight aren't angry with the performance like we were after the Essendon game.  We had problems today but we can still, clearly, see the way in which we want to play.

The fruits of those labours, and the consistency, will come.

11 minutes ago, Nasher said:

Ah, the old "we are slow" again.  Name a team who didn't look "slow" when they played like crap.

We aren't slow.  We haven't looked remotely slow in the last three weeks.  We just failed to work hard enough today.  

Agree Nash, they may look similar, but there's a difference between slow and lazy

44 minutes ago, Moonshadow said:

Also Lumumba spent a lot of time pointing to him whilst standing 30m away on his own. 

 

I was also 30m away pointing at Riewoldt most of today.

Wish I got paid 6 figures to do so. 

1 minute ago, Demon Disciple said:

Agree Nash, they may look similar, but there's a difference between slow and lazy

Lazy is too harsh a word I think as it implies a degree of it being intentional.  I don't think the players are thinking "nah, I can't be stuffed competing for the ball today", but yeah, for whatever reason, we were a gear below the Saints today.