Still haven't beaten anyone good and still haven't beaten anyone we didn't defeat last year. Worse, we still have the losses to both average and thoroughly average opponents. It would not surprise me in the slightest to lose to Fremantle next week (in the NT, where we've never won a single game) then follow it up with a loss the week after (we've never followed up an NT match with a win the following week, either).

I've tried to remain as optimistic as possible but sadly I think you need to take a more realistic approach to the situation we're in. Our improvement on last season is looking increasingly less impressive with every week. We can forget about reaching 10 wins at this point; a 3 win improvement on last year was an absolute minimum under Roos to prove our improvement has been tangible, but we still do not know how to run out or win close games and we still get ahead of ourselves when we have no right to.

1 hour ago, stuie said:

Crucial moment too. Kennedy was selfish and dumb today.

He was good for the first half actually.

Whereas Dawes made one nice handball for the day.

How anyone can not see the improvement is beyond me. Looking somewhere else?

Well, at least we aren't Richmond.

3 minutes ago, SaberFang said:

Still haven't beaten anyone good and still haven't beaten anyone we didn't defeat last year. Worse, we still have the losses to both average and thoroughly average opponents. It would not surprise me in the slightest to lose to Fremantle next week (in the NT, where we've never won a single game) then follow it up with a loss the week after.

Sadly, the improvement on last season is looking increasingly less impressive with every week. I think we can forget about 10 wins at this point; a great shame as most here would agree that a 3 win improvement on last year was an absolute minimum under Roos to show tangible improvement as a club.

I don't think that's correct. Didn't we beat Port there a few years ago?

1 hour ago, Demi Dee said:

I'm interested if anyone knows if we have won a game with Razor Ray as head umpire? 

That billy stretch holding the ball was disgusting. Cost us a goal and killed all momentum when we were up

1 minute ago, bing181 said:

How anyone can not see the improvement is beyond me. Looking somewhere else?

We have the same amount of wins as St Kilda, Collingwood, Richmond and Carlton, and most here would agree that 3 of those teams are pretty much rubbish.

2 minutes ago, Undeeterred said:

Well, at least we aren't Richmond.

Ahh, thank you, that feels better! 

3 minutes ago, SaberFang said:

Still haven't beaten anyone good and still haven't beaten anyone we didn't defeat last year. Worse, we still have the losses to both average and thoroughly average opponents. It would not surprise me in the slightest to lose to Fremantle next week (in the NT, where we've never won a single game) then follow it up with a loss the week after.

Sadly, the improvement on last season is looking increasingly less impressive with every week. I think we can forget about 10 wins at this point; a great shame as most here would agree that a 3 win improvement on last year was an absolute minimum under Roos to show tangible improvement as a club.

For the love of God, can someone explain to me why we are playing Fremantle in the NT. Team that up with the Alice Springs 'home' game and playing two games at Etihad  v StKilda and it's an appalling decision with no eye on the long term benefit of actually winning games on one's own patch. We're saying goodbye to 12 points before we even start the season.

Sorry to go off topic.

Very disappointed about today,especially in  some senior players who were just missing. You need 22 working against the top sides and we just didn't have that. Garlett got the message and it should certainly happen to another couple this week . On the other hand just rapt in young Hunt. Two weeks in a row has impressed against top 8 sides.   

I went to the game after watching first 40 minutes at Punt Road. On that note, Hulett is solid but fades out of game for significant periods. Weiderman is far more impressive for mine. He has excellent hands and a good leap & good boot on him. I would get him in before Hulett, even though the latter has an AFL build. Brayshaw and Oliver are very good, as you would be aware. Brayshaw is ready for a return.

Now for the main game... Lost it , asleep at the wheel in the first 5 minutes of third corner. Abysmal effort after such a hot second quarter! A few observations...

Gawn's hits to the back were regularly mopped up by Adelaide at centre bounces and the tactic needs serious re-appraisal. We missed Wagner. Petracca and Hogan took marks in our forward 50 that were called "play on". Hogan was then robbed of a free kick when he had his head pulled off from the player who was attempting to spoil. Razor Ray made a terrible mistake with that free against Stretch for holding the ball. Hogan needed to convert the gift free for deliberate hitting it through. However, his slick hands on at least two other occasions resulted in brilliant goal assists. Hunt's dash is electrifying and he is also courageous. Jeff proved why a player of his ilk does not have to star at VFL level before getting a recall (the hysteria about I'm not earning his spot was ludicrous... shame on you! You know who you are!). Overall, a very good indication of where we are at... now able to match fancied top eight teams who are on a winning streak! Those that wonder if we have improved need look no further than our percentage... almost another 100 point game today!

1 hour ago, Demi Dee said:

I'm interested if anyone knows if we have won a game with Razor Ray as head umpire? 

Never. Number 18, razor Ray was appalling. It really felt like he had an active bias against us today for three and a half quarters, then pulled one or two late to make it feel less one sided. 

1 hour ago, stuie said:

It's the overthinking for mine. Too many first options ignored because the players have to think too much about what they're meant to do.

 

The most important part of learning is being allowed to make mistakes. Fear of making a mistake inhibits learning. Roos and co are aware of this and will working on minimising the errors. It's frustrating but it's part of a strategy to build long-term success.

Just now, deestar said:

That billy stretch holding the ball was disgusting. Cost us a goal and killed all momentum when we were up

Im not blaming our loss on him, but, he has a real knack of giving us acouple of soft free's early, plenty of benign free's for us in no mans land and balances the ledger with free's against the flow of play and questionable freebies in extremely dangerous positions. He has mastered the craft of camouflaging his favouritism or is it his contempt for the red and blue. 

3 minutes ago, The Reverend said:

The most important part of learning is being allowed to make mistakes. Fear of making a mistake inhibits learning. Roos and co are aware of this and will working on minimising the errors. It's frustrating but it's part of a strategy to build long-term success.

Ecclesiates 3: 1 - 8

Just now, chook fowler said:

Ecclesiates 3: 1 - 8

Teaching 101.

Disposal is the main problem, always one too many handballs, but disposal by foot can be dodgy too. Reckon Tom Mac, who played well today except for disposal, kicks get touched or smothered at least 2-3 times a match, he either tries to do too much or runs to close to man

I think it was a very good effort today and when we play our free flowing open game we are very exciting to watch. Chris Judd acknowledges us as one of the most exciting teams in the comp. The extremely disappointing aspect of the games was Adelaide's 4 goals in the first 6 minutes of the third quarter. That was the difference in the end as it gave them back momentum which we had by half time. No doubt the coaches would have talked about the importance of holding the Crows in the first half of Qtr 3 and I expect there were instructions on how to try to do this. Either the instructions were not that good or the execution was poor.

We are two classy midfielders, one with leg speed, away from being a very good team apart from a CHF. The fade out in the first few minutes of Qtr 3 has to be 'in the head. ' Not good enough especially from our onfield leaders whom we are short of. Similar story in the first quarter where we need to regularly be better at. Too often we are giving away a 3 to 4 goal start at quarter time. 

The big question over the next few years is whether Salem, Brayshaw, Oliver and Weideman are going to make a difference. Hopefully they will but I would like to see us nab another class mid with 6 or 7 years experience. Sadly I think Trengove and Grimes are not going to take us up the ladder. Dunn and Garland are past it and  Michie, Newton and Pederson not good enough. Another two good years from Lumumba would be very handy if he has it in him. I would like to see Neal-Bullen given more games to develop him and see if he can be a good footballer.

11 minutes ago, mdemonski2 said:

Never. Number 18, razor Ray was appalling. It really felt like he had an active bias against us today for three and a half quarters, then pulled one or two late to make it feel less one sided. 

Chamberlain worst ump in game, having said that, the other umps today were pretty pathetic too

N. Jones disposal is B-grade grade. Has been for a long time.

13 minutes ago, SaberFang said:

We have the same amount of wins as St Kilda, Collingwood, Richmond and Carlton, and most here would agree that 3 of those teams are pretty much rubbish.

Oh come on. This time last year we were sitting on 4 wins with a percentage of 78% - a percentage which went down to 77% by the end of the season. We're currently sitting on 6 wins with a percentage over 100%. At this stage last year (Round 13) we'd managed a grand total of 897 points. This year, it's 1351 points.

Night and day.

36 minutes ago, stuie said:

Ok, so again, how's Pedo's VFL form? This all just reeks of absence making the heart grow fonder a bit...

 

VFL form seems to have little to do with Selection stuie. Dawes had average form and in he comes, Grimes has been in the top three for weeks and cannot get a game. 
Dawes has had one reasonable game and two very ordinary ones. 

Dawes is a poor player at this stage of the career and should not be playing IMO.

3 minutes ago, bing181 said:

Oh come on. This time last year we were sitting on 4 wins with a percentage of 78% - a percentage which went down to 77% by the end of the season. We're currently sitting on 6 wins with a percentage over 100%. At this stage last year (Round 13) we'd managed a grand total of 897 points. This year, it's 1351 points.

Night and day.

6 wins is still 6 wins, even if we've improved our offence (which was embarrassingly below par last season -- if anything we've just got it up to mid-tier AFL standard now).

We still aren't pinching tight wins or wins against genuine opponents, even if we're well and truly still in the game at the final change (which makes the eventual capitulation all the more frustrating).

Today was a very entertaining game where the better side won, by about the right margin considering the difference between the sides.

Let's not forget that AFC are a well drilled side and worked their game plan better than we did.

When we got the ball they crowded us (as every side knows to do) and did it very well. That is what forced the handball handball handball high floating kick sequences that we saw.

And when they got a turnover, they always got a man or two loose. Very quickly. Really, they were good to watch to see how they did it. That's what we should aspire to.

Those goals at the start of the third were the deciding factor. To win this game we needed to get in front early and stay there, to force them to play catch up. If they got in front, it was going to put awful pressure on our leaky defence, who, as it turned out, lived up to expectations and let through too many easy goals.

Instead, they got the jump on us twice, once in the first quarter, and again in the third. Easy walk in goals that can kill confidence.

What was our response? It was pretty good. We didn't drop our bundle in the first, kept the margin manageable, and fought back. Scintillating second quarter. That's why we come to the footy. At the twenty minute mark of the second quarter, the scores had exceeded the full time scores of the previous night's unwatchable game between two "Big Snore" clubs.

We turned the tables on them and forced them off their game. (Just couldn't do it for long enough.)

In spite of their superior execution of game plan, in spite of the c0ck ups and turnovers, forced errors, blind kicks, Tracc invisible, OMac overwhelmed, Kent/Bugg/Kennedy/Harmes off their game, etc etc, there we were, right in it against one of the premiership favourites. I call that encouraging.

Twenty minute mark of the last, we were still in it.  Needed a mighty effort, one to keep the footy journos w@nking themselves for a week, but still do-able. Because these days we have the scoring fire-power to pull it off.

Which brings us to ...

Dawes. Fewest possessions of any player on the ground. Someone said he is a "defensive forward". This must be a new thing in footy. Like a cricketer being a non-scoring batsman. Or a non-wicket-taking bowler.

Fact is he has always been that rarest of things, a key forward who can't mark the ball. Today he even had trouble getting into the marking contest. Let alone getting his mitts on it.

It really is like playing one short.

We all know Pedo is the key forward that John West rejected. But he at least takes some marks. He at least kicks some goals. He at least brings the ball to ground so our mids and small forwards have a chance of grabbing it. He's not the future. He'll never get better than he is now. But he's a better option than Dawes, every week.

What about TMac? He's becoming a whipping boy. Frustrating as hell. He can do beautiful things in defence. But for every good thing he does, he seems to nullify it (and very soon after, it always seems) with a horrible error. We've seen enough to know that that is what he brings. He isn't going to get better than he is now. Frost may have passed him. But we still need another KPD if we want to be a top side.

But that's the thing. TMac can do good things.

Dawes seems not to do anything much.

36 minutes ago, Ted Fidge said:

Carlton last year. Essendon last year. St Kilda last year. Essendon this year.

Haha I felt despair after those losses. After this loss I felt regret after a genuine missed opportunity.