2 hours ago, bing181 said:

We did not lose today because of selections. We lost because we let them get a run on, especially their mids, in one poor quarter. Perhaps we got ahead of ourselves. For all the bitching about Weideman and even the forward line, we still managed to kick a winning score - 15:14. But we let Mundy and Neale get 7 goals between them. That's where we lost it.

I never said we did lose because of that selection, although that said when the margin is 2 points , who knows. All we do know is the Weid did nothing, was playing injured of course but when he got a free in front, missed. Smith may have picked up the tempo with another game and kicked the odd goal or just applied some forward pressure. 

Some of the crap on this site is unbelievable.

were not that good people - yet. Get used to it. We will lose games we should win, and win games we are not expected to.

we lack quality leaders - but can oliver, Petracca, hunt, Viney ect be these guys when they have played 100 games? 

Weiderman hasn't got the tank or strength to be a reliable key forward- yet. I wonder if he will. But then I saw him work his guts out to provide a leading option on the members wing with about 5 minutes to go when he was stuffed - and now at least I think he has the desire to make it.

ANB and harmes have issues with disposal now - but they are progressing as really good depth mids ( our 5-8 best). Compare them to what Geelong have in the same position - if they are still making the same mistakes after 50 games then get worried.

i m [censored] of after watching us get big heads and play like millionaires in the first 10 minutes of the 3rd quarter.

But then I think about the last 45 years where we had no hope and look at the following in two years time.

fwds - watts, hogan, weiderman, Garlett, Kent, pertracca, 

mids Gawn, spencer, Oliver, Viney, brawshaw, Tyson, stretch, Anb, harmes, jones, lewis, ( yes we need more depth here!), Salem

backs tmac, omac, frost, nev, hunt, hibberd, smith, and depth like melksham and vince.

not perfect - but not many I would swap with.

what I want to see, and I'm expecting, is to see us show how much this hurt by putting the tigers to the sword.

and a final comment - for all those who think finals are over when we have a 2-2 record, are you serious? 

22 minutes ago, jumbo returns said:

Does Petracca need a spell at Casey?

Fine. I'll bite. Surely you're just stirring? Some very important contested grabs on the wing today in the absence of a roaming tall and is kicking the clutch goals when we need them. 

Edited April 15, 20178 yr by Skuit

2 minutes ago, Earl Hood said:

Smith may have picked up the tempo with another game and kicked the odd goal or just applied some forward pressure. 

Or not.

3 minutes ago, Skuit said:

Fine. I'll bite. Surely you're just stirring? Some very important contested grabs on the wing today in the absence of a roaming tall and is kicking the clutch goals when we need them. 

Is he doing enough?

1 minute ago, jumbo returns said:

Is he doing enough?

Compared to who?

46 minutes ago, Deevout said:

FWIW, I walked passed Hogan leaving the ground and he looked as ashen faced as me. I am sure he is fully aware of what his undisipled act has cost us. Not cigarette ash btw.

Hope people said to him we could have used you these past 2 weeks. Would want to have a good one next week. 

Oh and another thing when we did hit the front why didn't we just kick it down the line to at least get the ball out, instead of the ridiculous chip kicks in our back line. 

Just now, Skuit said:

Compared to who?

Don't be obtuse....compared to his obvious talent

Just now, jumbo returns said:

Is he doing enough?

For a bloke being asked to play a third tall role, yes.  He may not be hitting the scoreboard as much as we would like, but to suggest he needs a run at Casey is a little baffling coming from you jumbo.

1 minute ago, jumbo returns said:

Is he doing enough?

20 possessions, 2 goals. And was basically starved at half forward for 2 of the quarters before spending some time in the middle. Short answer he is not playing at Casey any time soon. 

1 minute ago, Wiseblood said:

For a bloke being asked to play a third tall role, yes.  He may not be hitting the scoreboard as much as we would like, but to suggest he needs a run at Casey is a little baffling coming from you jumbo.

As much as we would like, is the moot comment, wise...

8 minutes ago, bing181 said:

Or not.

Or yes! 

Anyways. Four of our last five losses (the fifth being the dead-rubber vs. the Cats 16’) have seen us go down with a greater i50 count and equal or more scoring shots (two of the best predictors of outcome for fairly obvious reasons). I’m not sure exactly what to read into that, but I suspect it's why Roos and now Goodwin have seemed relatively unfazed with the direction of their young charges after a loss like this.

3 hours ago, Vogon Poetry said:

I rarely read this thread but it was a gutting game and I wanted to get peoples take. 

Let's be clear.  We didn't lose because one player made one mistake, we lost for macro reasons.  Freo are much better than people have given them credit for, they've got back a wonderful ruckman and one of the game very elite players.  Those players feed another strength which is their outside run and this is where we lost today.  They ran harder and spread harder than us and could easily go from one end of the ground to the other.  We couldn't.  For those kicking Vince I'd guess most of you weren't at the ground.  For almost all the game Freo had us covered both down the line and stopped us switching.  Yes Bernie made some mistakes but it seems that people always want to pick on the mistake in a 25 disposal game and not balance that with the good he did.  All day we had few if any easy options coming out of the backline and the final quarter was no different.

Weed missed a simple goal but so did a number of others when there was much less pressure.  He's not ready and I'm yet to see him play an AFL quality game other than his first which may have passed.  He was very ordinary in the JLT and hasn't fired a shot in three games.  But I doubt Smith would have done better particularly when you look at the way the ball was delivered.

And of course there is the pretty obvious reason that while 22 were toiling away on the field two of our best players, one irreplaceable, were sitting in the stands watching.  Lewis you can almost cover but we are awful up forward without Hogan particularly when Watts relieves in the ruck. We also desperately missed Hogan coming out of defence as a lead up target and to be honest I didn't realize how much until today. These two have cost the club big time, by the end of the season it may well be a finals spot.  How they can look their teammates in the face I don't know.

But forget the micro incidents, we lost for macro reasons.  What is evident is we lack a player able to turn the game and if we've half a brain we should be chasing Fyfe or Martin (or both) with every effort we can muster.

Good post. Freo ran all over us and played the game on their terms. They were much bigger than us around the contest too.

Freo clogged up our forward line successfully with most players inside 50 then broke forward once they had possession so they had players goalside when they went forward. It was poor gut running by our players. They moved the ball from defense to offense in seconds while we got stuck chipping the ball across half back.

3 hours ago, Vogon Poetry said:

I rarely read this thread but it was a gutting game and I wanted to get peoples take. 

Let's be clear.  We didn't lose because one player made one mistake, we lost for macro reasons.  Freo are much better than people have given them credit for, they've got back a wonderful ruckman and one of the game very elite players.  Those players feed another strength which is their outside run and this is where we lost today.  They ran harder and spread harder than us and could easily go from one end of the ground to the other.  We couldn't.  For those kicking Vince I'd guess most of you weren't at the ground.  For almost all the game Freo had us covered both down the line and stopped us switching.  Yes Bernie made some mistakes but it seems that people always want to pick on the mistake in a 25 disposal game and not balance that with the good he did.  All day we had few if any easy options coming out of the backline and the final quarter was no different.

This is absolute rubbish IMO. Bernie was terrible again. His kicking is rarely taking the game on and often he makes stupid little mistakes. Brainfades. No other term for it. If he was taking the game on, then I'd have a little more patience for it, but dinky little kicks inside defensive 50 (he does this regularly and has done for the past season or so), are not only momentum killers, but are clearly not evidence of leadership.

3 hours ago, Vogon Poetry said:

Weed missed a simple goal but so did a number of others when there was much less pressure.  He's not ready and I'm yet to see him play an AFL quality game other than his first which may have passed.  He was very ordinary in the JLT and hasn't fired a shot in three games.  But I doubt Smith would have done better particularly when you look at the way the ball was delivered.

And of course there is the pretty obvious reason that while 22 were toiling away on the field two of our best players, one irreplaceable, were sitting in the stands watching.  Lewis you can almost cover but we are awful up forward without Hogan particularly when Watts relieves in the ruck. We also desperately missed Hogan coming out of defence as a lead up target and to be honest I didn't realize how much until today. These two have cost the club big time, by the end of the season it may well be a finals spot.  How they can look their teammates in the face I don't know.

But forget the micro incidents, we lost for macro reasons.  What is evident is we lack a player able to turn the game and if we've half a brain we should be chasing Fyfe or Martin (or both) with every effort we can muster.

I'd argue Oliver is a player who can turn a game. Why we didn't have him in the guts (after 10 clearances) at the second last centre bounce I'll never know. Our problem is I think we need another one. Stop Oliver and you go a long way to stopping Melbourne at the moment. 

Viney needs to lift, Tyson needs to improve his disposal by foot and Jones needs to stand up in those moments where we really need him. That third quarter today was a perfect example of where historically, Jones has gone missing. I know he shoulders a lot of our leadership responsibilities, but if the younger guys like Oliver, Salem and Petracca can take the initiative, then surely Jones can.

3 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Kudos to Jake Spencer!

He more than did his job today.  Was competitive.  Took important marks.  Kicked 2 goals.  One of our most consistent and best today.  No Max was not the reason we lost.  Loved the way the players got around Jake when he kicked his goal. 

That game would be a real confidence boost for him.  If he does no more than today he will be an asset for us.

Thought Jake was really good in all the quarters except the third. He had an absolute bath in that quarter and Sandilands killed him. But to Jake's credit he bounced back hard in the fourth. Hopefully he can build on this. Handy if he can keep kicking multiple goals.

3 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

Tyson's making a lot of mistakes, sure, but who is his replacement. Brayshaw?

I'm genuinely serious about this - what was the good Vince did? I was there and I honestly cannot say I felt Vince added anything good to the game. And as for the mistakes, it's one thing to lay off ANB with his backwards turnover last week but not only is Vince a leader, but he made a similar mistake last year against Gold Coast. He should know better and IMO it's completely fair to criticise him for those fourth quarter errors.

As to the Hogan/Lewis thing, whilst there's obviously no doubt their absence hurt us, we should have won both games we played without them. We did more than enough today to win the game and, whilst clearly it might have been more of a certainty or easier with them, we should have been 6+ goals up at half time and we should have held onto our lead in the fourth.

Absolutely spot on. A grade post.

50 minutes ago, jumbo returns said:

Does Petracca need a spell at Casey?

No but you might

The Goodwin plan is looking average.   No players are going better.  Viney, Jones, Tyson, Vince are all down on form.

This 'system' ignores what individual attributes players offer.  Jones is strong inside, but now he's floating.  Bernie can lock down and then attack, now he's pure defence on nobody.  Viney isn't playing at all.

Roos lacked intensity to win, but he was incredible at assigning roles to players.

Too many not performing well to blame it only on the players themselves.

1 minute ago, DubDee said:

No but you might

Awesome

Will be amused as usual when most of the doom-and-gloom merchants are back on board following our fourth consecutive win over the Toiges .  Tipping 12 wins for the season and any price above evens for the eight looks value .

 

3 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

Obviously we lost for a number of reasons and it's probably unfair to highlight one or two players, but I'm going to do it anyway. 

Right at the end, we were in a dominant position.  We were attacking, Freo were tired and we were only three points down.  All it needed was a little composure and patience to work the ball around and find a target who was in a position to kick that last goal and we were there.  So what happened? 

1. Bloody Bernie Vince breaks out of a pack and kicks a blind long-bomb for an uncontested mark to their spare defender.

2. James Harmes decides he's going to be a hero and kick a goal from 60+ rather than take the easy lateral kick to the man in space. 

Now I know that there were any number of issues leading us to this point, but right then we had a chance to win the game, and these two lacked the composure and common sense to do the right thing and it cost us the win.  I really hope they get called on it during the review process, especially Harmes. 

Did Harmes have anyone on? I can forgive his a little more, at least he had a genuine chance to score, he may not have known how long was left (30 secs?) so may have been worried the siren would go, he had the crowd willing him on and the forward line was crowded so difficult to pick out a teammate.

Vince's torp was unacceptable 

Just now, No10 said:

The Goodwin plan is looking average.   No players are going better.  Viney, Jones, Tyson, Vince are all down on form.

 

Jones has been playing exceptionally well up until today, Tyson missed a chunk of preseason injured and has been historically slow to get rolling, and Vince's form has been mostly down for a fair while now. 'And no players going better' is simply incorrect. Any decent thesis you may have wished to raise is lost right here.

3 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

 

 

3mBrett Anderson‏ @BAndersonSEN

Riewoldt; Cripps & Murphy; Selwood & Dangerfield; and now Fyfe, Neale, Sandilands & Mundy. Opposition stars having big impact vs. Melbourne.

Breaking news! Good players play well 

1 hour ago, jumbo returns said:

Does Petracca need a spell at Casey?

You're kidding....right? 

To top it all off - we are probably back in the 8 tonight....

1 minute ago, Deemented Are Go! said:

You're kidding....right? 

Stop getting emotional

Is he playing well enough, based on his obvious talent and ability?