Call for calm

[fr_ap 2,529]

Don't post here a lot - long time reader.

Reading some of the reactions to the game yesterday both on here and in particular the club's Facebook feed, I feel compelled to post as I'm just so sick of this club's supporters. And yes, I've been through it all so don't say I haven't done the hard time.

Today was an entirely predictable result and the sky is not falling in.

• We came off a 4.5 day break and errors were made at the selection table for not refreshing the squad. Young teams struggle with short turnarounds. It was clear to all watching that from mid-way through the first quarter after the adrenaline had worn off that we were not covering the ground either in offence or defence. Lots of hands on hips/heads at the breaks.
• Our new game style is high risk, high reward, and extremely taxing. We played a team that had the speed to exploit this on their fast home track. Our short turnaround resulted in us looking sluggish and disinterested (I don't think this was actually the case and the effort was there).
• Our fortunes rise and fall with Max Gawn and he has often struggled against Hickey in the past. Mobile, tall tap ruckmen are his weakness, and Hickey is very much in this mould. Max is far more effective against the brutes/undersized rucks like Maric and Grundy (coincidentally when he starred). He's played 40 games and if he continues with his rate of improvement, it wont be long before he has no weaknesses at all.
• Our team is extremely young and one of the youngest in the league. Our half back line relied on two players who have played less than 5 games and they look to a 30-gamer (Salem) for leadership.
• We played 3 players with less than 5 games each which is a lot to carry when our 'experienced' players are 50 gamers. Petracca was overawed - hard for a first gamer to play in a team that was evidently tired.
• We don't match up well on the Saints in the same way we always match up very well against Richmond. Their midfield is quick (ours is not), their forwards are mobile and their backmen are experienced. To those who say that we should be able to play the same way against any team - an extremely simplistic view that fails to consider the variation of players/teams across the league. Anyone who has played any sport knows that there are always certain types of players/teams that you struggle against. Not to say we should just accept defeat - but needs to be understood.
• The saints only really scored on the counter/over the back - it isn't as if we were soundly beaten in every single area of the ground. We had one key deficiency they exploited, but we still kicked 100 odd points with about 10 passengers. This is progress and a simple fix.
• Until we have 100+ games into Trac, Brayshaw, Kent, Harmes, Viney, Tyson, Gawn, Kennedy, Oliver, ANB, VDB, Hunt, Wags, Frost, Salem etc. - we can expect to see this type of inconsistency. We will continue to have good weeks and bad weeks. The competition is very even and we saw today that a few passengers makes it hard to win. Our experienced players were poor, yes, and this is the most disappointing part. Don't forget that TMac and Lumumba were a big part of our good footy the last two weeks.

The overreactions on here, and particularly Facebook are not warranted. We did NOT lose because the players spoke of confidence and finals. What do you expect? If we are ever going to improve, we will need to learn to deal with increased expectation and positive media. It is part of the journey and to those saying that we should never say these things again - you are effectively wishing for another 10 years of misery at the bottom.

The reactions by our supporter base are a significant part of the problem with this club and believe it or not we do have an impact on each other and on the perception of the club. For us to be successful we need long periods of coaching stability and low player turnover, and the worst thing we can do as a supporter base is cry foul and force changes in this regard. There will be good weeks, there will be bad weeks, and we know there will be good media and a fair amount of bad media.  

I would think after 15 years of pain most would be pleased we are finally playing a reasonable brand and scoring. Apparently not. People need to understand that the majority of good sides never win a flag, and in all likelihood this side won't either. My hope is we become good enough for perhaps a 5 year period where we are top 4 and respected and I will enjoy this time if it comes. In the meantime I'm going to enjoy the ups and the downs and regardless of our performance, the moments and incidents that make the game and being an AFL supporter great (like Hogan's 7 today).

We are improving. Shut out the noise, stay the course and keep calm.

[Gator 17,449]

I hate being told to "keep calm".

 

[dieter 3,325]

The other point is that in past years the Demons would have been blasted off the park after the 3rd quarter. Melbourne actually outscored the Saints in the other 3 quarters. 

[Webber 10,538]

Nice work fr_ap, but the short turnaround was the same for both teams, bar a few hours. We looked absolutely cooked out there, and the Saints were the complete opposite. Selection would have gone a long way to remedying this, something Roos acknowledged they got wrong, but it still doesn't explain the disparity in energies between the two teams. 

[Ethan Tremblay 30,966]

8 minutes ago, ProDee said:

I hate being told to "keep calm".

 

Telling someone to calm down has the opposite effect. 

Anyway, we're a relatively young team and we're going to have some stinkers thrown in amongst the good games.

We'll have a win or two against the top teams this season and all will be forgotten. 

[Mazer Rackham 14,971]

9 minutes ago, fr_ap said:

We are improving. Shut out the noise, stay the course and keep calm.

Hey frap, panic and overreaction are the standard currency around here.

On demonland, "calm" is the short break of hyperventilation that occurs between foaming at the mouth with rage, and helpless weeping.

[Skuit 10,031]

I wish someone had told me to keep my clams before the match. Don't ever gamble on short-priced Demons.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Skuit

[Willmoy1947 4,140]

Hey, come on, we all read this site for intellectual repartee.

[MadAsHell 4,215]

Sound and smart post. Loss was very disappointing, but far from end of the world. I think with supporters it's more the opportunity lost then the loss itself.

To move into the 8 and finally beat St Kilda would have been great, but we'll get another crack at them later in the year.

Confident we'll bounce back next week to keep the pressure on the Suns.

[MadAsHell 4,215]

12 minutes ago, Webber said:

Nice work fr_ap, but the short turnaround was the same for both teams, bar a few hours. We looked absolutely cooked out there, and the Saints were the complete opposite. Selection would have gone a long way to remedying this, something Roos acknowledged they got wrong, but it still doesn't explain the disparity in energies between the two teams. 

This is true, however we played quite a physical game against the Tigers and most Saints fans will tell you that their players never turned up against the Giants.

[Moonshadow 17,677]

Wish I had $10 for every time Roos said they got it wrong at selection. That line is wearing increasingly thin.

[Satyriconhome 10,879]

2 minutes ago, Moonshadow said:

Wish I had $10 for every time Roos said they got it wrong at selection. That line is wearing increasingly thin.

Roos never said there was a selection issue, some have misinterpreted as such

[Coq au vin 755]

24 minutes ago, dieter said:

The other point is that in past years the Demons would have been blasted off the park after the 3rd quarter. Melbourne actually outscored the Saints in the other 3 quarters. 

No they didn't. The saints out scored Melbourne in the second and third quarters (and the Dees only outscored the saints by three points in the last). 

[titan_uranus 25,043]

20 minutes ago, Webber said:

Nice work fr_ap, but the short turnaround was the same for both teams, bar a few hours. We looked absolutely cooked out there, and the Saints were the complete opposite. Selection would have gone a long way to remedying this, something Roos acknowledged they got wrong, but it still doesn't explain the disparity in energies between the two teams. 

It was our first 6 day break for the year (the Saints' second), I wonder if some of our players didn't prepare properly or know how to prepare properly (compared to our standard 7 or 8 day breaks). 

I'm a little disappointed in selection. We went in very young an inexperienced (20 fewer games per player and a whole year younger per player) and, relatively unsurprisingly, St Kilda seemed to deal with the short turnaround better than us.

[Moonshadow 17,677]

16 minutes ago, Satyriconhome said:

Roos never said there was a selection issue, some have misinterpreted as such

"We spoke after the game about changing the team a little.... Had we rested three players today would it have made any difference? Probably not, but you learn from every loss and every experience...."  - Roos after game.

Seems to me he's indicating otherwise. Obviously can be read many ways.

Certainly he acknowledged playing Gus a few weeks ago was an error.

[dees189227 12,398]

Yep unfortunately now we are starting to win we get caught up in the excitement especially when the media get caught up as well and start talking finals. But hey its better than 4 years ago when every week was just depressing. 

Stkilda are also a good team. 

If we get thrashed next week against GC then I will be more mad. 

[McQueen 17,867]

I expected the coaches to select 'fresh-legs' given the short turnaround. Had they done that, I believe the outcome may have been different.

There's been some clear selection blunders this year and when you see vision of the coaches box full of highly experienced stunned mullets it rather irks me.

[jnrmac 20,185]

1 hour ago, ProDee said:

I hate being told to "keep calm".

 

Its like being told to stop being a racist

[Sir Why You Little 37,126]

The OP says we have had 15 years of Pain and Suffering. 

It's 52 years now... And efforts like that by the entire club should not be expected or tolerated. 

[rpfc 28,776]

6 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Its like being told to stop being a racist

Er...ok...

 

Reactions are reactions - our supporters are going to read into that 3rd quarter all that they want after the last decade.

Again, this team hasn't earned anything more than that.

I hope they don't do wholesale changes, and I am sure they won't. 

That's where the calm needs to be - down at AAMI park.

[mauriesy 7,356]

Good post fr_ap, pity you are being trivially criticised for the title and not the content.

We could match up against the Saints at Etihad if we had much better defensive organisation. We were far too loose, and lacked another tall player to counter the marking of Reiwoldt and Bruce. Conversely we were too tall and lacked run in other parts of the ground. Plus our normal good runners such as Kent and Garlett were non-existent.

I think at Etihad you've got to make defence a lot more of a priority, rather than all-out attack. It's a shorter, narrower ground than the MCG, and hard to counter a quick transition when the whole side zones so far up towards the forward line. We were killed by turnovers and the fast transition.

We stopped it to some extent in the last quarter by not pushing up as far, and playing a loose man in defence, something we should have done in the 2nd quarter to (at least temporarily) stop the rot. Sometimes zoning just doesn't work.

[Dappa Dan 2,188]

Great post. I didn't see anything that [censored] me off or scared me. I saw riewoldt kick 8 against us in a losing side in the early 2000s before the saints had their dynasty. We won and went to finals and they didn't. But they walked out of the g happier than us. We should all feel the same. No roo, while different game. And our kids are younger and have less games. Everyone needs to relax. 

[jnrmac 20,185]

1 hour ago, fr_ap said:

Don't post here a lot - long time reader.

Reading some of the reactions to the game yesterday both on here and in particular the club's Facebook feed, I feel compelled to post as I'm just so sick of this club's supporters. And yes, I've been through it all so don't say I haven't done the hard time.

Today was an entirely predictable result and the sky is not falling in.

• We came off a 4.5 day break and errors were made at the selection table for not refreshing the squad. Young teams struggle with short turnarounds. It was clear to all watching that from mid-way through the first quarter after the adrenaline had worn off that we were not covering the ground either in offence or defence. Lots of hands on hips/heads at the breaks.

Really? We came off a 6 day break. The same as the Aints.

• Our new game style is high risk, high reward, and extremely taxing. We played a team that had the speed to exploit this on their fast home track. Our short turnaround resulted in us looking sluggish and disinterested (I don't think this was actually the case and the effort was there).

So is the Aints game plan. Highly taxing. They just did it better than us.

• Our fortunes rise and fall with Max Gawn and he has often struggled against Hickey in the past. Mobile, tall tap ruckmen are his weakness, and Hickey is very much in this mould. Max is far more effective against the brutes/undersized rucks like Maric and Grundy (coincidentally when he starred). He's played 40 games and if he continues with his rate of improvement, it wont be long before he has no weaknesses at all.

Its actually ruckmen who infringe by jumping into Max before he leves the ground that is the problem. And the their man up while Max is knocked off the ball

• Our team is extremely young and one of the youngest in the league. Our half back line relied on two players who have played less than 5 games and they look to a 30-gamer (Salem) for leadership.

Bullshoit excuse. Take out two players from the Aints and they are the same.

• We played 3 players with less than 5 games each which is a lot to carry when our 'experienced' players are 50 gamers. Petracca was overawed - hard for a first gamer to play in a team that was evidently tired.

Gresham has played 3 games, Acres 14, Minchington 14, Membrey 14 - Its another rubbish excuse, 

• To those who say that we should be able to play the same way against any team - an extremely simplistic view that fails to consider the variation of players/teams across the league. 

So why try? Reiwoldt, Steven, Newnes and Montagna kill us every time. How about a game plan that can be adapted to different teams? How about a plan B when plan A isn't working?

• The saints only really scored on the counter/over the back - it isn't as if we were soundly beaten in every single area of the ground. We had one key deficiency they exploited, but we still kicked 100 odd points with about 10 passengers. This is progress and a simple fix.

I call bullshoite to a simple fix. If it was simple why dodn't they do it during the game? The coaching box had no idea what to do.

• The reactions by our supporter base are a significant part of the problem with this club

People like you that don't demand better performances are part of the problem. We have been fed utter rubbish for a decade, The club are lucky we are still here. Don't you dare blame us.

 

[Ethan Tremblay 30,966]

23 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Its like being told to stop being a racist

Ummmmm

[rpfc 28,776]

JnrMac - Plan B is a misnomer.

The only thing a coach can change from one week to the next are tactics around the edges - gameplans don't change within seasons.

The only thing that changes week to week is our ability to execute the gameplan.