19 minutes ago, Demons11 said:

I don't think a change in game plan would have helped.  We were beaten by their pressure

We have a plan? Not sure what it looks like myself On match day.  

Yes if there is zero pressure you can see one in action occassionally, like the one at training where there are witches hats and some assistant coaches with padding. The plan does look good in those conditions I admit. 

4 minutes ago, ILLDieADemon said:

Well I was enjoying the season up until this point. 

I don't know what it is with the Saints but we just struggle to beat them. 

The only thing that would make me feel better after the preference today is if we beat West Coast next week so I can rub it in my wife's face and every other stupid WCE support over here in Perth. 

What do you reckon your chances for a thorough hen pecking are like?  

12 minutes ago, Earl Hood said:

We have a plan? Not sure what it looks like myself On match day.  

Yes if there is zero pressure you can see one in action occassionally, like the one at training where there are witches hats and some assistant coaches with padding. The plan does look good in those conditions I admit. 

Might be time to take a few steps back and think about some of this. If you haven't noticed our clear A plan this year, I can't help you. Our problem is we don't have a B plan or a way of stemming the tide if this go awry the other way.

2 hours ago, leucopogon said:

you going this week?

Nah, the seating that was left when I looked was atrocious. Three rows from the rafters, directly behind the goals, looking into the setting sun etc. That and the WAFC want to charge me an added $60 to take the handbrake along. She wasn't interested enough to fork over that sort of coin for rubbish seating.

I might get down to light training run they usually have.

What about yourself?

21 minutes ago, AdamFphlebeb said:

So it's on me to show evidence when I state an opinion, but it's not on those who disagree to show evidence to back up theirs?

As a rule, I think the onus is on the person making the assertion to back it up, not those refuting it.

Anyway, I deleted my previous post because it came across more aggressive and standoffish than intended.

Just now, Nasher said:

As a rule, I think the onus is on the person making the assertion to back it up, not those refuting it.

Anyway, I deleted my previous post because it came across more aggressive and standoffish than intended.

You've gone soft.

14 minutes ago, Nasher said:

As a rule, I think the onus is on the person making the assertion to back it up, not those refuting it.

Anyway, I deleted my previous post because it came across more aggressive and standoffish than intended.

I didn't see it. But I think it's pretty tough to back this one up either way, unless we're both ready to download some footage, cut it up and upload some examples somewhere, and point out exactly what it is we see.

I tipped the saints and changed my mind. 

Lucki for me I'm old and fogot to change it before the game started. 

Gotta look at the positives I suppose!!

4 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

You've gone soft.

Yeah, probably 

11 minutes ago, Earl Hood said:

We have a plan? Not sure what it looks like myself On match day.  

Yes if there is zero pressure you can see one in action occassionally, like the one at training where there are witches hats and some assistant coaches with padding. The plan does look good in those conditions I admit. 

If you haven't seen the plan then I guess you should go back and watch a few more games.   Disappointing I agree today but not the end of the world.  Tough to come back from Darwin. 

2 minutes ago, AdamFphlebeb said:

Might be time to take a few steps back and think about some of this. If you haven't noticed our clear A plan this year, I can't help you. Our problem is we don't have a B plan or a way of stemming the tide if this go awry the other way.

Adam after watching today's match at Etihad I admit I am not sure what the plan is. Plan A works at training but maybe not game day, if the opposition is serious. Plan B doesn't exist. 

And what worries me more is that we gave up next year's first rounder to get Clarrie and Weeds, thinking we now had enough elite young talent for now, we just need to now develop it. Well games like today are worrying because we have FA leg speed, except for Hunt, we have very few really smart footy players, just athletes who make errors. The Saints made us look second rate for much of the match, so where does that leave us with all our early draft picks? 

Have we improved, yes I think we have but I cannot quantify it. there is no guarantee we have until we get another 2 to 3 wins and play finals. But Don't hold your breath. 

I can't believe how similar this game was to Round 6, which is immensely disappointing on so many levels.

We jump them early, get out to a 3 goal lead, then in the second quarter they lift and we disappear. Our leaders are nowhere to be seen, our kids have off days without any guidance, and the same bloody St Kilda players get their heads up (Membrey, Montagna, Steven, Riewoldt, Gilbert, Armitage). 

Hickey nullified Gawn again. They took the game on again. They hounded and pressured us again and we didn't respond again. Our forward structure disappeared again, our half-backs started bombing it away without lowering their eyes again.

I'm not sold on Harmes. Grimes and White both played shockers (at least White is young). Garlett and Kennedy are out of form. N Jones couldn't lift. Vince wasn't fit enough. Brayshaw in some respects played his best game for the year but was caught by the speed of AFL too many times. Tyson went missing after half-time. Gawn appeared to have learnt nothing from Round 6.

I'm looking for some changes to the team this week for the trip to Perth. Not sure I like all of Grimes, White, OMac, Wagner, Harmes, Kennedy and Garlett in the team right now.

And I think I'm done with the Watts-in-the-ruck portion of the year. He's not that bad at it, but when he's not in the forward line we have so little to aim for other than Hogan. We need another permanent target down there and when he's in the ruck we have to aim for Petracca or Kent and whilst both are good marks that's not sustainable.

2 hours ago, stuie said:

Nah you guys are right, the Saints are just an awesome side and they beat us at our best, we weren't tired at all and fresh legs wouldn't have made any difference...

It's not like we have an example of a time we've won at Etihad when we brought in a fresh, small, quick team and beat decent opposition...

You can't say that this was the key to winning and then refuse to nominate the players you would have brought in to make that happen.

Not only are players like Michie, ANB, Bugg and Newton not quick, they've been shown this year to add little to nothing by way of run when at AFL level.

I don't actually doubt that Darwin has some sort of effect on us. But there is so much more to our loss today than simply selection and tiredness from Darwin. I cannot believe you don't see that.

1 hour ago, Clint Bizkit said:

I don't think we are, the teams we tend to beat are just slightly worse than us.

Even during today's game early on we weren't really playing better than St Kilda, we just capitalised while they didn't. The problem is, they were always going to start to convert so it was only a matter of time before they got on top.

Here we go again, the baby goes straight out with the bathwater.

First, we hadn't improved because we haven't beaten anyone other than teams we beat last year. Now we haven't improved because we only beat teams who are "slightly worse than us".

As we improve, more teams become "slightly worse than us". 

1 minute ago, titan_uranus said:

You can't say that this was the key to winning and then refuse to nominate the players you would have brought in to make that happen.

Not only are players like Michie, ANB, Bugg and Newton not quick, they've been shown this year to add little to nothing by way of run when at AFL level.

I don't actually doubt that Darwin has some sort of effect on us. But there is so much more to our loss today than simply selection and tiredness from Darwin. I cannot believe you don't see that.

 

I've never said it's the only factor or the only reason we lost. But we've consistently made selection errors this year that have contributed to us not winning and Roos has admitted that. You've just got to give yourself the best chance of winning and selection plays a big part in that.

I've explained elsewhere why I haven't nominated specific players, as it will derail the discussion into who's a better player etc which is irrelevant to my point.

We've had success once at Etihad. In that game we went with fresh legs and a small team, but for some reason we keep ignoring that example and making the same mistakes at that ground. In Roos' presser this evening he talked about how much of a different ground it is, just like he did last time we lost to the Saints, so my question would be, why hasn't he learned yet?

2 minutes ago, stuie said:

I've never said it's the only factor or the only reason we lost. But we've consistently made selection errors this year that have contributed to us not winning and Roos has admitted that. You've just got to give yourself the best chance of winning and selection plays a big part in that.

I've explained elsewhere why I haven't nominated specific players, as it will derail the discussion into who's a better player etc which is irrelevant to my point.

We've had success once at Etihad. In that game we went with fresh legs and a small team, but for some reason we keep ignoring that example and making the same mistakes at that ground. In Roos' presser this evening he talked about how much of a different ground it is, just like he did last time we lost to the Saints, so my question would be, why hasn't he learned yet?

I didn't ask you to name replacements, I asked you to name the players at Casey who would have contributed to us being a faster, smaller, quicker side.

You might not have explicitly said "it's the only factor" but your posts certainly read like it (e.g. "we lost it on Thursday night"). It just sounds like you think if we'd picked a different side we'd have won, and I do not agree with that at all.

The one game we've won at Etihad was against a side with no finals hopes in a dead rubber. We didn't win it solely because of being a small and/or quick side.

I agree with the learnings point but that extends beyond selection and into a lot of other things, none of which you have discussed.

Well i feel Cheated. My dream of Booting Nought out of the 8 will not happen. 

Some other rubbish club will now have that honour....

[censored] it. 

14 minutes ago, Earl Hood said:

Adam after watching today's match at Etihad I admit I am not sure what the plan is. Plan A works at training but maybe not game day, if the opposition is serious. Plan B doesn't exist. 

And what worries me more is that we gave up next year's first rounder to get Clarrie and Weeds, thinking we now had enough elite young talent for now, we just need to now develop it. Well games like today are worrying because we have FA leg speed, except for Hunt, we have very few really smart footy players, just athletes who make errors. The Saints made us look second rate for much of the match, so where does that leave us with all our early draft picks? 

Have we improved, yes I think we have but I cannot quantify it. there is no guarantee we have until we get another 2 to 3 wins and play finals. But Don't hold your breath. 

* I'd argue Plan A has certainly worked on game day at least 7 times this year. And it's worked in patches in almost every game we've played. Our young list is incapable of playing it consistently for four quarters though. And our leaders often fail to reverse the deficit when the going gets tough.

* We gave up this year's first rounder for Weeds. He's now had a year in our system like Hogan did. He'll be cherry ripe for next year, knowing the role he's supposed to play and the expectations the footy club has of him. The club knows it isn't job done. They're well aware of the deficiencies our list has. Pace and more A grade midfield talent and some experience in defence is required. Enter free agency. 

I think Gawn is pretty hard done by in this thread. Yes he was nullified but illegally in my opinion. I lost count of the number of times he was basically pushed from the contest so the third man up could get a clean hit. That has been paid many times this year, just watch Goldy ruck and you will see it 

What annoyed me was that it washappening so much and none of our players thought to go up aga8nst the third man up, with the exception of Watts on a couple of occasions. 

2 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I didn't ask you to name replacements, I asked you to name the players at Casey who would have contributed to us being a faster, smaller, quicker side.

You might not have explicitly said "it's the only factor" but your posts certainly read like it (e.g. "we lost it on Thursday night"). It just sounds like you think if we'd picked a different side we'd have won, and I do not agree with that at all.

The one game we've won at Etihad was against a side with no finals hopes in a dead rubber. We didn't win it solely because of being a small and/or quick side.

I agree with the learnings point but that extends beyond selection and into a lot of other things, none of which you have discussed.

To be honest, almost any of them would have made us faster and fitter given how tired we looked today.

Don't discount that Etihad game. Sure it may have been a "dead rubber", but it's the only time we've won there in 25 games and it was a very different lineup for us, so I think it's worth looking at and learning from.

 

The 'third man up' at the rock contest needs to be outlawed from the game.  The ball ups and throw ins should be contested by the ruckmen, and the ruckmen alone.  

2 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

The 'third man up' at the rock contest needs to be outlawed from the game.  The ball ups and throw ins should be contested by the ruckmen, and the ruckmen alone.  

One of the things we lose by Watts being backup ruck is he used to be great at being 3rd man up.

 

5 minutes ago, stuie said:

To be honest, almost any of them would have made us faster and fitter given how tired we looked today.

Don't discount that Etihad game. Sure it may have been a "dead rubber", but it's the only time we've won there in 25 games and it was a very different lineup for us, so I think it's worth looking at and learning from.

I don't discount it at all. But I don't agree with your characterisation of it as being a game we won solely because we picked a fast and small team. There were other reasons. Just like today, there was more than one reason for our loss.

Based on what we've seen this year, I don't agree that Michie, ANB, Newton or Bugg would have made us faster, and there's also little evidence based on the year to suggest they'd have made any difference with ball in hand, either.

Just now, titan_uranus said:

I don't discount it at all. But I don't agree with your characterisation of it as being a game we won solely because we picked a fast and small team. There were other reasons. Just like today, there was more than one reason for our loss.

Based on what we've seen this year, I don't agree that Michie, ANB, Newton or Bugg would have made us faster, and there's also little evidence based on the year to suggest they'd have made any difference with ball in hand, either.

As I said earlier, I don't put wins and losses down to simply one factor, but there are a few things that have massive impacts on games and selection strategy is one of them.

All four of those guys (two of which I want gone from our list big time) would have run the game out better today than most of our players.

2 minutes ago, stuie said:

As I said earlier, I don't put wins and losses down to simply one factor, but there are a few things that have massive impacts on games and selection strategy is one of them.

All four of those guys (two of which I want gone from our list big time) would have run the game out better today than most of our players.

Your posting does not reflect that at all. Not at all. All you have said today is "we lost at selection" or "we needed to pick a faster, smaller, quicker side", no other commentary on the other facets of the game that, regardless of fitness or personnel, were lacking today.

Selection is definitely important, and we have made (too many) mistakes this year, but was not the sole reason we lost today.

2 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Your posting does not reflect that at all. Not at all. All you have said today is "we lost at selection" or "we needed to pick a faster, smaller, quicker side", no other commentary on the other facets of the game that, regardless of fitness or personnel, were lacking today.

Selection is definitely important, and we have made (too many) mistakes this year, but was not the sole reason we lost today.

With this game, I feel that the selection failure was enough to tip the balance that we lost.

We SHOULD have won this game.

15 minutes ago, stuie said:

With this game, I feel that the selection failure was enough to tip the balance that we lost.

We SHOULD have won this game.

So selection cost us six goals? Come on, mate. Yes, we should have won this game, but they consistently beat us, because we lie down as soon as they bring a bit of pressure.

I felt like our defenders instigated our mini fight back at the end of the third with a few bruising tackles and just generally an attitude of 'we're [censored] sick of this, let's do something about it'. The mids responded and we hit the scoreboard. But playing ANB, Michie and Newton would not have tipped the balance, so I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to argue here, unless you are arguing that those guys would have been the difference...?