POST MATCH DISCUSSION - Round 3

[TeamPlayedFine39 8,154]

11 minutes ago, Dees2014 said:

I would hope that when Max returns, we will accept the need to play both Gawn and Spencer at the same time. Imagine how we would view ourselves if what happened on Saturday, happened in the grand final? However good Max is - and he clearly is very very good, he will inevitably eventually get exhausted as the season goes on, and therefore become much less effective if he remains our single ruck option when he returns. I simply don't buy the argument that Spencer is not a forward therefore we should not play him. Gawn potentially could be our Paul Salmon, particularly if he puts more time into improving his forward skills, and could become a very powerful high marking forward, as well as great ruckman. I favour have max play ruck and forward, and Spencer ruck and bench. This means Spencer will ruck 60+ % of the time. 

It is not as though we are talking about a second rater with Spencer - he actually has played some very good games for us as first ruck. Still I guess over the next month or so he has the opportunity to prove his worth, and we could end up with both big ruckmen playing in the same side, which IMHO will greatly add potency to our side. 

In the long term this may prove a blessing in disguise, although I admit one hard to take.

Don't really agree.

We were in a position to win by a significant margin if our kicking for goal were better.  It was our run and pressure that put us in that position and two ruckmen reduces our ability to do this.

 

We didn't lose this match because we didn't have two ruckmen, we lost because we squandered two outstanding quarters without one.

[Dees2014 2,377]

9 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

We could also go in 4-6 if we lose the 50/50's. 

I know bad kicking is bad football, but I think we should remember we were creaming the Cats before Max went down and it was only our bad kicking which prevented us from posting an unassailable score. Even after that when Watts was fresh we were still well in the game. Bad kicking has not generally been a problem for us and hopefully this was just an abberation. 

I don't think our form at the moment is at all bad, and we should turn at the bye well and truly in the eight, but we would not want too many more injuries to key players. 

One thing we can say is the competition appears to be turning itself on its head. It seems very few teams are powerhouses with the possible exception of Adelaide. Ones we thought would be powerful this year (Dogs, Hawks, Sydney, Eagles, Port, Dons) appear to have gone back to the pack. I think our form is better than all those. It is there for us if we chose to take it. 

[Dr. Gonzo 22,415]

8 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

There have been a few comments on the Watts Goal (which deserves the capital G).  I just want to point out the defensive work he did to start that passage.  He was the one who managed to get a hold on Dangerfield and hang on just enough to make him fumble a handball instead of bombing long.  That in itself would have won him some points, but he continued to chase and harass up the field until the team defence forced a loose ball.  To me that's as big a statement from him as the aggressive one-handed pickup, break away pace out of congestion and the goal itself. 

Watts was immense on the weekend, he had a deal determination about him. 

[Dr. Gonzo 22,415]

21 minutes ago, Dees2014 said:

I know bad kicking is bad football, but I think we should remember we were creaming the Cats before Max went down and it was only our bad kicking which prevented us from posting an unassailable score. Even after that when Watts was fresh we were still well in the game. Bad kicking has not generally been a problem for us and hopefully this was just an abberation. 

I don't think our form at the moment is at all bad, and we should turn at the bye well and truly in the eight, but we would not want too many more injuries to key players. 

One thing we can say is the competition appears to be turning itself on its head. It seems very few teams are powerhouses with the possible exception of Adelaide. Ones we thought would be powerful this year (Dogs, Hawks, Sydney, Eagles, Port, Dons) appear to have gone back to the pack. I think our form is better than all those. It is there for us if we chose to take it. 

We also almost rolled over against Carlton last week and have been losing key players left right and centre. Not saying we won't be looking good, our midfield should keep us in most gAnes, but I won't be counting any chickens just yet

[Hellaintabadplacetobe 4,089]

Will be very interesting selections this week.

Spencer will play I have no doubt. As good as Watts played he was understandably spent in the last and he just has to spend majority of the time forward with Hogan out and he would be of no use against Sandilands all day. He will still give Spence a chop out when required though. UNLESS. Pedo replaces Weid which would allow Watts to stay forward however I can`t see that happening as a) Pedo seems out of favour and/or not tearing the house down and b) Watts is doing a great job as a chop out ruckman.

I do feel though that The Weid experiment has not gone to plan, he just isn`t ready. Hogans suspension has kept him in and will likely do so against Freo.

I doubt there would be too many other changes unless Bernies toe keeps him out.

[KysaiahMessiah 725]

Sounds over simplistic but it had nothing to do with Hogan, Lewis, or even Max going down.  It was 100% about the conversion.  Game plan and personnel stacked up, when you convert the way we did and they pull them out of their a#se thats what happens.  Lots to take from it.  I have seen every minute of every game this year from the stands and we will worry, and beat, lots of sides, even with our injuries stacking up.  No 4 points, but at the end of the day we were CLEARLY the better side, anyone questioning that either wasnt at the game or is just waiting for a chance to stick the knives in.

[iv'a worn smith 1,979]

1 hour ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

Don't really agree.

We were in a position to win by a significant margin if our kicking for goal were better.  It was our run and pressure that put us in that position and two ruckmen reduces our ability to do this.

 

We didn't lose this match because we didn't have two ruckmen, we lost because we squandered two outstanding quarters without one.

I keep saying, if a goal is kicked rather than a point, then the subsequent play obviously becomes an entirely different scenario.  The ball goes back to the middle.  As a result, you obviously cannot say that you would necessarily get another shot or same number of shots on goal.  Yes, bad kicking does not aid the cause, but you can't say the game would not have the same result, had we had kicked that goal or even goals.  The "bad kicking" issue is a moot point really.

In the end, Dangerfield and Selwood stood up when it counted.  This factor alone sheets home how bad it was to lose Lewis and Hogan for this game. 

Pedo in for Gawn for mine.

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by iv'a worn smith

[Mazer Rackham 14,969]

Look at the scorelines from this round's matches. Compare goals to behinds.

One is an outlier. Stands out like the dog's proverbials. (Cat's proverbials?)

The other thing to note is, half the teams cannot kick more goals than behinds.

Four of the losing sides could have won just by kicking straighter.

It's a mystery why this supposedly top-flight league does not put more emphasis on goal kicking.

[TeamPlayedFine39 8,154]

14 minutes ago, iv'a worn smith said:

I keep saying, if a goal is kicked rather than a point, then the subsequent play obviously becomes an entirely different scenario.  The ball goes back to the middle.  As a result, you obviously cannot say that you would necessarily get another shot or same number of shots on goal.  Yes, bad kicking does not aid the cause, but you can't say the game would not have the same result, had we had kicked that goal or even goals.  The "bad kicking" issue is a moot point really.

In the end, Dangerfield and Selwood stood up when it counted.  This factor alone sheets home how bad it was to lose Lewis and Hogan for this game. 

Pedo in for Gawn for mine.

 

This is true, and there were repeated shots on goal as we were able to lock the ball in quite well.  However, while not a precise science, the number of behinds gives an indication of who had control of the general play for two and a half quarters.

[Diamond_Jim 11,747]

2 minutes ago, Ted Fidge said:

Look at the scorelines from this round's matches. Compare goals to behinds.

One is an outlier. Stands out like the dog's proverbials. (Cat's proverbials?)

The other thing to note is, half the teams cannot kick more goals than behinds.

Four of the losing sides could have won just by kicking straighter.

It's a mystery why this supposedly top-flight league does not put more emphasis on goal kicking.

agree ... and remember we were the other team in the windless roofed dome and a lot of those misses were from set shots.... unbelievably bad on our part

[iv'a worn smith 1,979]

2 minutes ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

This is true, and there were repeated shots on goal as we were able to lock the ball in quite well.  However, while not a precise science, the number of behinds gives an indication of who had control of the general play for two and a half quarters.

I agree with that.  But we chased for most of the day.  In the end, the required "grind", coupled with Gawn going down, took its toll.  And, as I said, two champs stood up for the opposition when it counted.

Edited April 10, 2017 by iv'a worn smith

[DeeSpencer 23,129]

1 hour ago, Dees2014 said:

I would hope that when Max returns, we will accept the need to play both Gawn and Spencer at the same time. Imagine how we would view ourselves if what happened on Saturday, happened in the grand final? However good Max is - and he clearly is very very good, he will inevitably eventually get exhausted as the season goes on, and therefore become much less effective if he remains our single ruck option when he returns. I simply don't buy the argument that Spencer is not a forward therefore we should not play him. Gawn potentially could be our Paul Salmon, particularly if he puts more time into improving his forward skills, and could become a very powerful high marking forward, as well as great ruckman. I favour have max play ruck and forward, and Spencer ruck and bench. This means Spencer will ruck 60+ % of the time. 

It is not as though we are talking about a second rater with Spencer - he actually has played some very good games for us as first ruck. Still I guess over the next month or so he has the opportunity to prove his worth, and we could end up with both big ruckmen playing in the same side, which IMHO will greatly add potency to our side. 

In the long term this may prove a blessing in disguise, although I admit one hard to take.

Disagree.

Where we are vulnerable is that we didn't have a 3rd tall defender playing (ie. a Wagner or Smith) so we couldn't move Tom McDonald (or Oscar) in to the ruck. Didn't have a 2nd tall forward bigger than Bull Smith playing so couldn't use them. And the coaches didn't want to try Weeds in the ruck.

In many ways it's a bit of a freak circumstance to lose Gawn in a week where we didn't really have options out of the forwards/backs but most of the time we should. 

Hindsight is 20/20 and the hindsight move to me would've been to play Spencer ahead of Weeds against Carlton and to give Gawn a lighter week that week and hope that helped his back recover so he didn't end up doing a hammy to begin with. That said, given how much recovery and physio they get it's not like extra time forward would've guaranteed anything.

Either way the lack of rucks only hurt us in terms of fatigue not in terms of how we played during the 2nd and 3rd quarters.

[Vagg 2,422]

7 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

agree ... and remember we were the other team in the windless roofed dome and a lot of those misses were from set shots.... unbelievably bad on our part

Maybe nobody told our guys the roof was shut, and that they didn't need to allow for the wind...!  LOL

[ArtificialWisdom 3,852]

18 minutes ago, Ted Fidge said:

Look at the scorelines from this round's matches. Compare goals to behinds.

One is an outlier. Stands out like the dog's proverbials. (Cat's proverbials?)

The other thing to note is, half the teams cannot kick more goals than behinds.

Four of the losing sides could have won just by kicking straighter.

It's a mystery why this supposedly top-flight league does not put more emphasis on goal kicking.

I think our sport cops it more than most just due to the way we record near a miss. But looking at other elite sports the scoring isnt much better. Just look at the likes of soccer they struggle to score at all a keeper makes it difficult but theres alot of shots that are just off target. Basketball if you get 50% they say you're shooting well. Rugby and NFL sure have pretty high conversion rates but both are similar scenarios. I'm sure that if we got to designate Watts to kick every shot our conversion rate would probably be pretty high too.

I'm not excusing the woefull kicking on Saturday because it was abnormally bad, but the thought overall that we are wildly inaccurate compared to other sports I've always thought is a bit unfair. As a club though, we have been among the top accuracy for the best part of the past 2 years... I'm not going to panic after 1 really bad day.

[Mazer Rackham 14,969]

18 minutes ago, ArtificialWisdom said:

I think our sport cops it more than most just due to the way we record near a miss. But looking at other elite sports the scoring isnt much better. Just look at the likes of soccer they struggle to score at all a keeper makes it difficult but theres alot of shots that are just off target. Basketball if you get 50% they say you're shooting well. Rugby and NFL sure have pretty high conversion rates but both are similar scenarios. I'm sure that if we got to designate Watts to kick every shot our conversion rate would probably be pretty high too.

I'm not excusing the woefull kicking on Saturday because it was abnormally bad, but the thought overall that we are wildly inaccurate compared to other sports I've always thought is a bit unfair. As a club though, we have been among the top accuracy for the best part of the past 2 years... I'm not going to panic after 1 really bad day.

I'm not saying we (as a sport) are useless at kicking for goal. (Maybe we are or aren't, but that's not my point.)

Teams can have bad days. (This last round was a bad one for more than just us.) Also rushed behinds can distort a team's accuracy.

What I am saying is: what a difference if teams would take the effort to improve their goal kicking.

Even the best golfers are only 50% chance to sink a ten foot putt. But, knowing the difference it can make, they spend a lot of their practice time on the putting green.

I don't understand why players are often not allowed to spend time practicing goal kicking.

[Redleg 37,582]

1 hour ago, iv'a worn smith said:

  But we chased for most of the day.  In the end, the required "grind", coupled with Gawn going down, took its toll.  And, as I said, two champs stood up for the opposition when it counted.

Interesting view.

I thought we were well on top until 3/4 time. As Roos and Hudson ( a Cat's supporter ) said on Fox Footy during the game, we should have been 8-10 goals up then.

The 2 champs stood up only  when Max went off and their 6'10" ruckman, playing against a non ruckman 5 inches shorter,  was able to hit the ball straight to them and the clearances changed from us up 5 at the last break to down 5 at the end.

No Hogan, Lewis, an injured Vince and then Gawn off, them not missing kicking 18 straight and us kicking at goal worse than I can ever recall,  was the reason for the loss.

Inside 50's , 53-38 our way.

We were the better side on the day and lost.

That is the game I saw.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Redleg

[ArtificialWisdom 3,852]

3 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Interesting view.

I thought we were well on top until 3/4 time. As Roos and Hudson ( a Cat's supporter ) said on Fox Footy during the game, we should have been 8-10 goals up then.

The 2 champs stood up only  when Max went off and their 6'10" ruckman, playing against a non ruckman 5 inches shorter,  was able to hit the ball straight to them and the clearances changed from us up 5 at the last break to down 5 at the end.

No Hogan, Lewis, an injured Vince and then Gawn off, them not missing kicking 18 straight and us kicking at goal worse than I can ever recall,  was the reason for the loss.

Inside 50's , 53-38 our way.

We were the better side on the day and lost.

That is the game I saw.

Spot on. Play like that every week and we will win more than we lose. 

[iv'a worn smith 1,979]

7 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Interesting view.

I thought we were well on top until 3/4 time. As Roos and Hudson ( a Cat's supporter ) said on Fox Footy during the game, we should have been 8-10 goals up then.

The 2 champs stood up only  when Max went off and their 6'10" ruckman, playing against a non ruckman 5 inches shorter,  was able to hit the ball straight to them and the clearances changed from us up 5 at the last break to down 5 at the end.

No Hogan, Lewis, an injured Vince and then Gawn off, them not missing kicking 18 straight and us kicking at goal worse than I can ever recall,  was the reason for the loss.

We were the better side on the day and lost.

That is the game I saw.

Other than the 3rd quarter, we were behind for most of the day, playing catch up.  As good as the 3rd was, you can't keep coming from behind against a team of the calibre of Geelong

[Redleg 37,582]

37 minutes ago, iv'a worn smith said:

Other than the 3rd quarter, we were behind for most of the day, playing catch up.  As good as the 3rd was, you can't keep coming from behind against a team of the calibre of Geelong

I'va, we were behind because we couldn't kick a goal from 20 out, straight in front, multiple times, not because Danger and Duckmyheadwood were hurting us. When Gawn went off, Danger was on 6 possies.

I agree it is hard to come from behind against Cats, but we should have been 8-10 goals in front at the last change.

 

[iv'a worn smith 1,979]

Read above.  You kick one of those goals and the ball goes back to the middle.  No-one can predict what the next play will be in that scenario.  To keep saying; 'if only we had kicked straight' is moot.  We didn't and we cannot know what the next play would have been if we slotted even one of those misses.  The loss of Lewis, Hogan and obviously big Max hurt us more than anything else.

In the end, we lost by 5 goals.  Enough said.

Edited April 10, 2017 by iv'a worn smith

[loges 6,026]

5 minutes ago, iv'a worn smith said:

Read above.  You kick one of those goals and the ball goes back to the middle.  No-one can predict what the next play will be in that scenario.  To keep saying; 'if only we had kicked straight' is moot.  We didn't and we cannot know what the next play would have been if we slotted even one of those misses.  The loss of Lewis, Hogan and obviously big Max hurt is more than anything else.

In the end, we lost by 5 goals.  Enough said.

Your ignoring the state of play, which we were well on top in and no doubt would have kept on creating chances.

[iv'a worn smith 1,979]

2 minutes ago, loges said:

Your ignoring the state of play, which we were well on top in and no doubt would have kept on creating chances.

You can only hypothesise on that.  As I said......goal...... ball goes back to the middle ............ centre clearance goes which way?  But when a point is scored, you have more of an opportunity to set your zone for the subsequent kick in.

Edited April 10, 2017 by iv'a worn smith

[loges 6,026]

Just now, iv'a worn smith said:

You can only hypothesis on that.  As I said......goal...... ball goes back to the middle ............ centre clearance goes which way?  But when a point is scored, you have more of an opportunity to set your zone.

No, we were well on top, no matter what the scenario, for nearly all the third quarter , fact !

[iv'a worn smith 1,979]

2 minutes ago, loges said:

No, we were well on top, no matter what the scenario, for nearly all the third quarter , fact !

Behind at quarter and half times and lost the game by 5 goals!!!! No-one on this planet can say the outcome would have been different, even if we had slotted any one of those misses.

Edited April 10, 2017 by iv'a worn smith

[old55 21,303]

If we can make finals I'll be keen to see us up against the Cats again.  We're better than them.