While Dunn's kicking is still an asset, he is incapable of playing his role in our current game plan. He makes too many bad decisions in deciding when to push up and he struggles to play in front of his opponent because he can't jump. Either Roos changes the plan back to a man on man or he is no longer best 22. I think the coaches agree judging by his switch to the forward line.

I think we missed Matt Jones yesterday. Our midfield looks very slow and lacks run and spread. This has been covered over by Gawn's dominance and our straight goal kicking.

We looked slow, tired, unorganised and lazy. 

Not acceptable. 

  On 30/04/2016 at 14:58, Demonated said:

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.

Unfortunately we had a plan, which didn't work, but the defenders stuck to it and that allowed Nick to roam free. If we would have just manned him up, even with a different player each quarter it would have cut the Saints goals down. However, our Coaching box stuck to their plan and allowed a loss to happen, without even trying to stop it.

I think Nick was involved in nearly every Saints goal in the first 3 quarters. Most of his possessions were uncontested.

Like the Bombers game, because of our game plan and structure, we saw Jetta or Bugg or Hunt on Nick close to goal with the ball coming in. Same happened with Daniher, who got his highest marks tally ever marking over Jetta, Bugg and other midgets. 

Our players were poor but our Coaches were poorer.

Yes, Dunny brush was terrible.  Played off his man too much, which meant he often couldn't even attempt the spoil, and was shocking below his knees.  He couldn't even bend over to pick the footy up. 

Roos famously called North a "one metre" team when he was a regular on On the Couch, we were a 5 metre team yesterday. 

  On 30/04/2016 at 17:45, Jaded said:

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. 

Unfortunately the Pies and Tigers win papered over some of our cracks.

We bled goals in both games, but won. Those goals came the same way as yesterday. 2 dollies over the top to Cloke. Dollies over the top to Jack Reiwoldt and Lloyd. The quick entry to loose men, who have run hard, to get free in the forward 50. Yetserday was coming and the only ones who didn't see it coming, were the Coaches, who selected poorly and coached worse.

First game that Gawn doesn't dominate the hit-outs and this is what happens.

To have only brought in one player, a new player, who copped so much publicity, was poor.

CP was ok and I don't look at him at all in regards to yesterday, other than to say the club made it all about him and that was poor, also. He should have been one of about 3 ins, like the Saints.

As I said before, how did the 3 Saints who came in go?  

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:16, ProDee said:

Yes, Dunny brush was terrible.  Played off his man too much, which meant he often couldn't even attempt the spoil, and was shocking below his knees.  He couldn't even bend over to pick the footy up. 

Roos famously called North a "one metre" team when he was a regular on On the Couch, we were a 5 metre team yesterday. 

He likes to stay off his man and then try to time the spoil perfectly by coming in late.

He never timed it perfectly.

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:16, ProDee said:

Yes, Dunny brush was terrible.  Played off his man too much, which meant he often couldn't even attempt the spoil, and was shocking below his knees.  He couldn't even bend over to pick the footy up. 

Roos famously called North a "one metre" team when he was a regular on On the Couch, we were a 5 metre team yesterday. 

The game plan requires all defenders to play off their men and needs 'heat' on the ball carrier to work. Dunn is finished if we continue under this method because he makes bad decisions about when to push up and lacks the required athleticism.

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:25, Fat Tony said:

The game plan requires all defenders to play off their men and needs 'heat' on the ball carrier to work. Dunn is finished if we continue under this method because he makes bad decisions about when to push up and lacks the required athleticism.

I understand that, but he plays off "too much", which was my point. 

  On 30/04/2016 at 22:50, Wiseblood said:

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

Wisey.

Sarcasm only works verbally.

But I think you like a bob each way.

 

Hey it could be worse. We could wake up this morning as a richmond fan. 

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:47, dees189227 said:

Hey it could be worse. We could wake up this morning as a richmond fan. 

Exactly, it is just footy though, went to game, after first few minutes realised it was going to be one of those games where we were just outworked, Roos wants an 18 man defence, yesterday he didn't have that......positives were Hogan, Viney's consistency, Petracca showing a couple of things, and not losing by a huge margin, and still kicking nearly a hundred points whilst playing poorly

We need to prevent the over the back goals we are building the right brand of footy , rebound footy alone ain't September footy - the dogs port and saints are pretenders in my book . Do we go one on one against rebound cheats

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:47, dees189227 said:

Hey it could be worse. We could wake up this morning as a richmond fan. 

Like being confronted by your misguided hope? It feels like I did. We even moved up a spot to 9th just to rub it in.

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:57, Skuit said:

Like being confronted by your misguided hope? It feels like I did. We even moved up a spot to 9th just to rub it in.

Percentage out of the 8.  Plenty of time in the season to fix things in the back half and win some more games.

Also plenty of time to let the season slip away, if that's how you want to look at it.

  On 30/04/2016 at 16:18, stuie said:

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.

Said the exact same thing with TMac.. He looked like he was carrying a corkie because at one stage tried to sprint back into defence but seemed to have a slight limp.

Still it doesn't excuse him from his [censored] poor performance.

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:54, CityDee said:

We need to prevent the over the back goals we are building the right brand of footy , rebound footy alone ain't September footy - the dogs port and saints are pretenders in my book . Do we go one on one against rebound cheats

Sorry chap this is the modern game, cause the turnover and rebound, or launch of half back with the switching, it requires 18 man defence and gut running,  yesterday we did neither and got caught out continually, last week we did it to Richmond

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:19, Redleg said:

Unfortunately the Pies and Tigers win papered over some of our cracks.

We bled goals in both games, but won. Those goals came the same way as yesterday. 2 dollies over the top to Cloke. Dollies over the top to Jack Reiwoldt and Lloyd. The quick entry to loose men, who have run hard, to get free in the forward 50. Yetserday was coming and the only ones who didn't see it coming, were the Coaches, who selected poorly and coached worse.

We haven't found the balance, which i suspect comes on the back of the players being confused as much as anything else. 

Our offensive ball movement and ability to score is now at an acceptable level and that's great, but we're neglecting defense to do it, 

we only see to be able to get one of offense and defense right which is why we can now kick big scores and win games, but we aren't smashing them, we keep leaking easy goals.

I think Roos said as much last week after the win - we still need to work on our balance. Hopefully it will come with greater leadership and maturity.

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:25, Fat Tony said:

The game plan requires all defenders to play off their men and needs 'heat' on the ball carrier to work. Dunn is finished if we continue under this method because he makes bad decisions about when to push up and lacks the required athleticism.

For mine, this is what the "finding the balance between defence and attack" is all about. Knowing when it's the right time to go.

  On 01/05/2016 at 00:05, Satyriconhome said:

Sorry chap this is the modern game, cause the turnover and rebound, or launch of half back with the switching, it requires 18 man defence and gut running,  yesterday we did neither and got caught out continually, last week we did it to Richmond

Its part of the modern game but balance is required . We get over the back too but if thats all you've got you are vulnerable when its shut down even partially , look at the dogs friday couldnt win a contested mark to shoot at goal , all scrap and rebound inflating contested possesion stats and then scoring mostly through unconested chain footy - rubbish footy if its all ya got . We need to defend it and continue with a balanced offence of pure contested wins and fast break , thats deep into september footy . 

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:09, Fat Tony said:

I think we missed Matt Jones yesterday. Our midfield looks very slow and lacks run and spread. This has been covered over by Gawn's dominance and our straight goal kicking.

  On 30/04/2016 at 23:19, Redleg said:

Unfortunately the Pies and Tigers win papered over some of our cracks.

We bled goals in both games, but won. Those goals came the same way as yesterday. 2 dollies over the top to Cloke. Dollies over the top to Jack Reiwoldt and Lloyd. The quick entry to loose men, who have run hard, to get free in the forward 50. Yetserday was coming and the only ones who didn't see it coming, were the Coaches, who selected poorly and coached worse.

What's with all the revisionism?

We did not look slow and certainly did not lack spread against Richmond or Collingwood (or North, for that matter). That's just complete rubbish.

As for bleeding goals, wtf? Richmond kicked 14 goals, the week before Collingwood just 9.

When we are on, we are fast, we spread, we score highly but we defend (hence the previous two weeks we scored over 100 points and won by 30+ points both times).

When we're not on, we are slow, we don't spread, we don't score enough and we don't defend (hence the losses to Essendon and St Kilda).

  On 30/04/2016 at 13:24, jnrmac said:

Last 4 weeks our defence has let in 21, 9, 14 and 20 goals.

The zone thing isnt working and today was a shambles. No-one had a clue what they were doing. Tackles didn't stick. We allowed them to get hands free and dish off to a runner. Infuriatingly Reiwoldt was alone all day. They took 18 uncontested marks iside their fwd 50. Unforgiveable.

Our defence stinks. Dunn had a complete shocker. Salem gets out muscled constantly.Jetta had a shocker, Harmes was poor, Hunt was poor, McDonald was a joke today. Lumumba tried to start some runs but they had him worled out very quickly and he had one of those running in circles before getting caught games.

So much for Roosy teaching us defence first before moving on to offence. Our defence leaks like a sieve. They need to go back to the drawing board. Fast.

Stats seem to suggest otherwise, jnrmac.

12 teams have played 6 games already. Of those 12, 6 of them have conceded more points than we have (Richmond, St Kilda, Fremantle, Port, Gold Coast, Hawthorn).

Brisbane has already conceded more than us and have a game to play today. If either Essendon or Collingwood concede 75-odd points, they'll both pass us too.

  On 30/04/2016 at 13:12, AdamFarr said:

I maintain Lumumba will look like a headless chook when his team mates don't work on the spread for him. He is also learning to play with the vast majority of them. He's looked the goods when we have brought the work rate this year.

I also thought Salem was terrific in the first quarter and then unsighted afterwards. Did I read somewhere that he copped another concussion?

The Salem concussion wasn't until the last quarter. In the 2nd and 3rd quarter he was getting run off the ground by Mav Weller who has elite endurance. Clever coaching by the Saints. 

Agree on Lumumba, I don't really mean to have a go at him, more saying he's not experienced voice of reason we need down back.

When we don't bring pressure and the other team have forwards with huge work rates like Riewoldt, Weller, Bruce even young Acres, it's bound to cause us big trouble.