On 3/9/2017 at 11:38 PM, Demon Jack said:

A few things

- I know no one wants to hear this as an excuse as it's been the norm for the last decade, but the core of our list is still incredibly young and inexperienced. Guys like Brayshaw, Petracca, Salem, Stretch, Hunt, Hogan, OMac, Weideman and Oliver (who was absolutely brilliant) have barely played 150 games between them. I still expect them to fluctuate in form during the year. Saying that, it's clear that Weideman and OMac are still a bit out of their depth. A year or even a few months of development in the VFL would be great for their confidence and would let more experienced players such as Peterson and Frost have a good crack in the seniors.

- We are desperately missing Jetta (anyone know why he's not playing at the moment?) and a small forward (Kent/Garlett). That in itself cuts about 3-4 goals off the final margin.

- Watts and Spencer both showed a bit. Probably enough to justify a round 1 selection

- Willing to give Tyson the benefit if the doubt. Tonight was his first real run at it since coming back from injury. He started fairly slow in the first few matches last year and ended up placing fourth in our B&F. 

 

Hopefully we don't see a repeat of the Essendrug match in his first up game last year vs the Saints DJ. Can ill afford to have players go missing on day 1

On 3/10/2017 at 0:05 AM, rjay said:

We need a more flexible game plan...running a basic zone when Hurn is kicking in is a recipe for disaster.

He shredded our defence every time he kicked in.

If it aint working...fix it.

 

As you said if it aint working...They tend to lay off the defender hoping for the intercept or a chop out to assist, but we still lost the intercept possession stat by 11.

I rate StKilda at Shitihad at least as difficult as the trip out west. Hopefully we don't go with more of the same on this zone (or one and a half nonsense against quality defenders by foot) or we might seal our fate to a nasty first round disappointment.

On 3/10/2017 at 0:58 AM, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

I'll take others word that Weed is a player for the future based on what he has shown at VFL level, but for pretty much all of the preseason comp he has given us less than Chris Dawes did last season.

Given he hasn't got a game at top level yet this year I'm guessing Pedo isn't a realistic Rd 1 option.  Based on output during preseason, I'd play Pencil as the additional tall option ahead of Weed.

Yes please Balls

6 hours ago, ProDee said:

Just watched the game again. 

The mistakes and turnovers were incredible.  The amount of goals they kicked from our basic disposal errors was amazing.  They also had 3 shots at goal from deliberate out of bounds.  And 2 of those were rubbish decisions. 

Our kicking and decision making into our forward 50 was also the pits.  It makes you wonder why the game was relatively close.  

Obviously we did some things well, but I'd argue we almost couldn't play any worse.  

It's easy to pick one the usual suspects like ANB, Harmes and the McDonalds, but Lewis, Viney, Vince, Watts, Jones, and especially Tyson (understandably rusty) had some horific disposal errors where they couldn't spot up easy 20-30 metre targets. 

That said, most of that stuff is quite easily rectified. 

I would also like to add Trac to that list PD. He had a mare.

With regard to the highlighted section i have yet to see an MFC team that does this consistently well on a regular basis throughout a season or for seasons on end.  IMO this has been one of the major causes of much of our woes and sub par performances for decades.

If you are saying this will easily be rectified (at least for those who aren't very good at it at the moment) by Goody this year then i will declare him a genius and either:

1. Streak around your house 3 times!; or

2. Shout you a 6 pack of your favourite beer

Either way i hope i'm wrong and am forced to honor one of the above. Would result in a finals berth in 2017 IMO if we can!

Edited March 11, 20178 yr by Rusty Nails

The other factor is that we couldn't have done any more to play into their hands.

The WCE game plan is built to suit their long narrow Subi ground, which is another reason they're harder to beat there.

Their defensive strategy is to play for turnovers across their HB line - it's not an accident, they plan for them. The "Weagle web" together with the 20m less width of the ground make the difficult task of accurate delivery into the i50 "funnel" almost impossible.

Then when they move it forwards, they do it quickly and have 20m or so more ground in which to get it over the back.

We played into their hands by going far too tall in the forward line, and by playing an extreme zone defence, giving the likes of Le Cras & Kennedy far too much latitude. And we seemed to be totally unprepared for their "slingshot" rebounds, they ran it through the middle unopposed so many times.

So if their game plan worked so well, helped by the usual extremely generous home-town umpiring, we must have got a fair bit right to get so close. Perhaps our style of play is highly efficient, in that it doesn't have to be done brilliantly the whole time in order to bear fruit.