Just now, jnrmac said:

I'll give you credit for consistent championing of Garland but he's not the answer in my book. May get a run next week though because Frost is sure to be out or maybe Dunn after his shocker..

Ah mate, I'm only being facetious.  I think fixing our structures and getting the balance right is the first thing.  Moving around the deck chairs won't improve it that much.

9 minutes ago, SaberFang said:

I'm not convinced it's about balance anymore; I think the gameplan is flawed. How can you spend 2 years focusing on defence yet still leak 20+ goals 3 years later? It makes no sense.

Because it's pretty much a completely different system to what we've played over the past two years. We've focused on contested possessions and keeping things congested. Now we're looking at spreading and backing our players to win the contested ball and convert this into uncontested possession from the strength of our spread. 

All we tried last year was a big of slingshot from half back, but tried to lock games down for pretty much the rest of play. There was a bit of a focus on improved uncontested possession, but there was certainly no 18 man press.

It will take time to get used to the 18 man press and get a balance between offence and defence. That means more specifically, when to pull the trigger and when not to. I'm looking at you Tommy Mac.

8 minutes ago, Redleg said:

And the fact that an 85 year old Saints Captain ran harder and put in more effort than any Demon, is a disgrace.

I swear to god McDonald was trailing behind him there during the 3rd with his tongue hanging out clutching at his heart.
Thought he was gonna die I think.
He's a running machine Riewoldt that always give 100% and it doesn't surprised me that he inspires his teammates.

We both had short breaks between games and the Saints brought in 3 fresh players. We brought in one, a first gamer. How did the 3 Saints go?

As with the Bombers game, we started stuffing up at selection, followed it with poor match day coaching, then poor skill and disposal and ended with a lack of effort, from most of the side.

2 minutes ago, Redleg said:

We both had short breaks between games and the Saints brought in 3 fresh players. We brought in one, a first gamer. How did the 3 Saints go?

As with the Bombers game, we started stuffing up at selection, followed it with poor match day coaching, then poor skill and disposal and ended with a lack of effort, from most of the side.

Yup, many of us all week said we needed to make multiple changes due to the short break .  

Why would something so obvious be ignored by the selectors?

[censored] I hope we target a gorilla backman this off season. Losing my [censored] with TMac we won't win a premiership or make finals with him in the side. He has lost us too many games.

I think we should go back and view the tapes of the Western Bulldogs first few games. No team run the ball better out of their back line - and set up offense from defense - than the Bullies did. They have now been decimated with injuries, but they had a game plan that I think we could adapt to. We need to free up our backman, and not just have them be stationary targets. Today they were essentially witches hats. St Kilda ran both ways, we didn't.

 

Looking at the replay, Hogan's free kick half way through the last quarter when he was held occurred just outside the corner of the goal square. But the filthy maggot lined him up on a ridiculous angle that passed through the middle of the side of the square. No excuses for the horrid kick of Jesse's but he should have been well around in front of goal.

 

I'm also well aware that it wouldn't have changed the outcome but the man should have had 8.

 

They out-worked us.  It's that simple.  Every contest they had more bodies around the ball, then when they got it out they ran harder and got more players free for the uncontested possession chains.  Most of our side need to take a good hard look at themselves and ask if they showed up to play today.  The Saints weren't any more skilled, they just worked a lot harder. 

Points of note to me:

Interesting to see Gawn and Hickey break dead even today.  Very little difference in any of their stats. 

Our entire defensive unit owe the fans an apology.  The number of times their opponents snuck out the back and got uncontested ball in front of goal was shameful.  Letting Membery kick 5?  DIsgusting. 

Watts showed us today what he's like when he thinks he's having a bad day.  In the past few weeks he's taken an early mark and kicked a goal, players got around him, and his confidence was up.  Today he had a man tagging him from the start and decided early on that it wasn't his day.  Lots of complaining to the umpires, head down, one-handed marking attempts...  It's to his credit that he got his act together and scored a couple of goals, but he really could have done more. 

Petracca will be better as he gets his head around the pace of the game.  You could see that he would think he was in space and suddenly had a tackler on him again.  He started to get the speed as the game went on and showed us some of what he can do.  Hopefully next week he's still in the side and shows us what he can do. 

 

1 hour ago, Redleg said:

And the fact that an 85 year old Saints Captain ran harder and put in more effort than any Demon, is a disgrace.

Agree with the lack of effort being a disgrace but not in comparison to Riewoldt. He is the hardest running player I have ever seen in football, he may not cover as many kms as the fittest mids, but he does such high intensity efforts. Absolute champion that for some reason we though we could give space and freedom. How many times are we going to let him beat us before we tell McDonald, who should be a prefect matchup, to stick with him at all costs.

1 hour ago, TONKA said:

f**cking disgusting performance. i got my a** ripped on here for not signing up last year and guess what? i still ain't signed up to this dog [censored] team. we wont pass 8 wins again, game over, rebuild, new coach, new players, who f**cng cares anymore???

on a side note well done Jesse, been a long time since I've seen a demon kick a real bag.

Great to see supporters like you who don't buy memberships!

1 hour ago, olisik said:

[censored] I hope we target a gorilla backman this off season. Losing my [censored] with TMac we won't win a premiership or make finals with him in the side. He has lost us too many games.

Frawley.

1 hour ago, olisik said:

[censored] I hope we target a gorilla backman this off season. Losing my [censored] with TMac we won't win a premiership or make finals with him in the side. He has lost us too many games.

He also had a massive say in winning our last 2. I admit he's flawed but he's great at bouncing back from bad games. Drove me crazy concentrating on him and his lack of coverage on Riewoldt though, that said watching Riewoldt's work rate is quite a sight.

1 minute ago, Je Roos Salem said:

He also had a massive say in winning our last 2. I admit he's flawed but he's great at bouncing back from bad games. Drove me crazy concentrating on him and his lack of coverage on Riewoldt though, that said watching Riewoldt's work rate is quite a sight.

TMac had an absolute shocker of a game. Probably the worst I've ever seen from him.

Have a feeling he wasn't 100% though, a couple of times he called for a rotation when it wasn't his time, like he was injured or struggling with something.

4 hours ago, Redleg said:

We both had short breaks between games and the Saints brought in 3 fresh players. We brought in one, a first gamer. How did the 3 Saints go?

As with the Bombers game, we started stuffing up at selection, followed it with poor match day coaching, then poor skill and disposal and ended with a lack of effort, from most of the side.

Amen to that. We have a plethora of players knocking the door down in the VFL, but got too comfortable and didn't make any changes to help us maintain fresh legs, which is what I was banging on about pre game. 

We are carrying too many kids who aren't fit enough to run out games and we were coming off a short break and playing against a really fast team. 

My frustration is that I know we are capable of better, but I look at Richmond and I think they are easy beats and maybe this loss takes some gloss off the win. 

There's stuff you don't pick up unless you're at the game, but their team defence was miles better than ours.  

We played way too far off our opponents.  Forward of centre we couldn't spot up a target, because there were always Saints players right on their ginger, but at the other end we were not only metres off our opponents we were outnumbered.  Riewoldt was left on his own all day.  In the second and third quarters they were also far better around the stoppages, while we over possessed when we did get it due to their pressure.

Hogan was constantly double and triple teamed and when we pressed hard up to their forward-line he was constantly complaining to McCartney on the bench that he had no support, so when a ball did come back he'd be picked off.  At one stage they had a spare in defence in front of Hogan, which should mean we had a spare, but we were still getting outnumbered at contests.  The fumbles and mistakes were extraordinary.  Vince kicking 10 metres to contests !  We had a dominant forward and when we should have gone long we didn't.

Hogan and Viney are the only two who can hold their heads high.  Maybe Jones.  Certainly not the coaching staff.

At least we can stop worrying about finding positions for Brayshaw (when he's ready), Oliver, vandenBerg and Trengove.  Pick any one of Harmes, Kent, Bugg, Frost and friends.

Prior to round 4, if we looked at the block of 3 games coming up (Collingwood, Richmond and St Kilda) most here would've been happy with 2 out of 3 wins I would've thought.

7 hours ago, Wiseblood said:

Garland dropped, backline leaks goals.  It's no coincidence!

And the Tigers didn't kick 20 goals against us, but I get your point.  We still struggle to get the balance right.

Yes GARLAND is the answer .

FMD Wisey, you should be coach.

Nobody ever thought of that.

 

Is Dunn done? I accept that he's a fine kick, but he's now losing one on ones - something that was a strength of his a few years ago. And his approach to marking ... Sad if this is so, and it would leave our backline very wobbly.

1 hour ago, Biffen said:

Yes GARLAND is the answer .

FMD Wisey, you should be coach.

Nobody ever thought of that.

 

Ah Biff, we are not the quick one this morning. Clearly I was being sarcastic, hence sticking the pic of Roos under the comment. 

10 hours ago, Go the Biff said:

 

You're right - Oliver wouldn't have helped with run but the damage was done in close. In the second quarter when the tide really turned we got smashed in clearances and Clarry would have helped there. I understand resting him last week and managing his loads but I was surprised he didn't come straight back in. I think he makes us a better team

It's amazing how much better your outside game looks when you are winning on the inside

Correct, but wiaser heads that know more on this site will find an angle for everything!

9 hours ago, Petraccattack said:

Yup, many of us all week said we needed to make multiple changes due to the short break .  

Why would something so obvious be ignored by the selectors?

Coz they know more than us and are paid to know more, how logical is that eh??

Can someone please try to explain in simple terms how this defence zone works, in theory.   Like having Jetta in a marking contest vs Reiwoldt?  I really don't understand.

5 minutes ago, monoccular said:

Can someone please try to explain in simple terms how this defence zone works, in theory.   Like having Jetta in a marking contest vs Reiwoldt?  I really don't understand.

They can explain it to me also Mono.

12 hours ago, dees189227 said:

It's just frustrating because we could have been in the 8. 

We won't make the 8 this season, I can't really see the ladder changing to much from now. It will be us, Saints, GC fighting to break into 8th spot which is were I expected us to be.