Even with all the horrendous umpiring, horrendous turnovers and having several of our key players way down, we still should have won it.

Losing the hitouts 67 to 28, our mids did an incredible job to win the clearances, though they beat us by at least 6 in the 2nd half. But we had to also stop them getting high-quality clearances, which we couldn't do in the 1st & 3rd, especially at centre bounces, and that gave them the advantage.

In the 3rd, this was partly because they got Cunnington back (and we made the mistake of tagging Higgins and not their lynchpin Cunnington). But it was partly because Scott changed their mids set-up. They all started one side of the stoppage, then all ran through to the other side, where Goldstein just tapped it in that direction, while our mids were caught on the other side of the stoppage where they'd started from.

Scott had this advantage and he worked out how to use it. Each time it took us a quarter and 4 or 5 goals to work it out. It took me a quarter and a half, but I'm not paid 200K or whatever to work it out.

Playing T-Mac in the forward line at the beginning of the game was a massive mistake. With Gawn & Hogan out, T-Mac is our greatest asset, and we need to know how best to use him. Today, that wasn't it.

Our brains trust also needs to understand how desperate Scott the lesser is to not lose to us, and how much he prepares for us.

And the Scotts are masters at knowing how to play dirty and snipe while staying on the right side of the umpiring. We play a very naive game, thinking that other sides are just going to let our superior talent run free.

So disappointed with the day. I'm yet to see us play a decent game live this year.  4 games...even seeing a win against Carlton, where we were awful until the last.

On top of that I was surrounded by dick head Melbourne supporters today in the MCC who clearly don't know the rules. Got the point of having to tell them to pull their heads in, yelling out absolute relentless garbage! 

1 hour ago, Biffen said:

That's all over .

I'm going to break both his ankles with a sledgehammer and dump him on Gils door like the lost dog he is.

Biffin this response is sorely lacking in perspective! What if his ankles heal?

Edited May 21, 20178 yr by TRIGON

1 hour ago, danielE288 said:

Out Bugg in Harmes

Melksham will probably get a run for Wagner too

Local footy type umpiring

Again losing to an average team, shattered

Local footy umpires actually pay frees when stuff is going on off the ball to stop punches, fights and melees happening. 

Scott is sooking over jumper punches and has laid the ground work to make sure the MRP don't site his players. 

North Melbourne coach Brad Scott says the match review panel must now be consistent and tolerate 'jumper punches"  after a volatile win over Melbourne was marked by a succession of fiery incidents in the second quarter.

Several players, including North's Ben Cunnington, could be scrutinised after the spiteful encounter.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/north-melbourne-kangaroos-coach-fires-up-over-nasty-game-20170521-gw9rdd.html

 

As an aside the Ch7 News Sports report said that Bernie had over acted when he was hit in the stomach.  Its one thing for real time game commentators to be biased, its another for News editors and reporters to be pedalling such rubbish.

24 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

Ok, so maybe I missed the point? That we need a lead up full forward? We have one of those and I'd take him over Brown everyday.  Prior to the draft Brown was seen as a ruckman and we had Gawn and Spencer in that bucket too.

Or was his point that literally every other club let Brown go too because there was concerns over how much work was required to get him to AFL standard as a mature age big man?

Hindsight is 20/20, but you have to be a genius passed pick 40 in any draft.

On this: Brown wasn't seen as a pure ruckman prior to the draft. He had a clear forward-ruck profile. There were several clubs into him, but I think the draft opened up a bit and he ended up slipping when teams jumped at other options.

It's right to question our club's recruiting strategy - not in the specific sense of Brown, he was still a punt at the time - but that we didn't look ahead to cover a big-bodied KPP deficiency, and more specifically, another forward-ruck when Clarke walked and Fitz didn't look quite there.

Yes, they don't grow on trees, but that's why a punt in the bottom end of the draft is a reasonable option. Brown was the exact sort you should look at - mature/good body shape and steady improvement. He also strikes me as highly coachable and you can see how technically sound he is.

We may have had more pressing deficiencies, but while we've stocked up in the middle and half-back, in the past year they'd identified half-forward as a target area rather than KPF. Never mind injuries etc., the 195cm+ KPFs on our list consist entirely of Hogan, Watts, Weideman. I understand we're drafting to the game-style we have in mind, but surely the club should have been able to foresee the potential issue here. 

Goodwin "We're a footy club with a fairly poor past".

Sad

True

This is why we need angry men. Poise just doesn't cut it.

@Chook leading from the front isn't going over the top and throwing round houses. Love how he does push the limits but he too often gets over excited and goes beyond, you seem to like that.

3 minutes ago, Akum said:

In the 3rd, this was partly because they got Cunnington back (and we made the mistake of tagging Higgins and not their lynchpin Cunnington). But it was partly because Scott changed their mids set-up. They all started one side of the stoppage, then all ran through to the other side, where Goldstein just tapped it in that direction, while our mids were caught on the other side of the stoppage where they'd started from.

When you rely on sharking  another ruckman's hitout and that ruckman can tap it wherever they want, it's quite easy for them to stay a step ahead. Took us a quarter each time. 

3 hours ago, Moonshadow said:

Went through the fixture. Think we are likely to win 9-10 for the season. Underwhelming. 

I wish people would stop doing this. 

We will win games we aren't expected to and lose games we are expected to win.

There's no point in looking at a fixture and saying we'll win these or lose these. We can beat anyone on our day and we showed as much last week. We just need 8 or 9 of those days for the rest of the season and we'll make finals.

3 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

We didn't lose because of the umpiring, but there were critical decisions missed that impacted on the game and it didn't help us at all.

We know we are capable of playing finals level football. Last week showed that. But we started the game pathetically. Smashed in the middle, beaten in CPs and out-tackled. The work-rate was not good enough and that's the root problem of these losses after good wins - we don't work hard enough the following week.

I'm not sure what is worse - not starting the first quarter with the right intensity, or, after dominating the second quarter and starting the third only two points behind, not starting the third quarter with the right intensity. Just not good enough.

The leaders were down (Viney disappeared after HT, Jones was just sucking up cheap possessions and didn't even care about his turnovers, Lewis had no influence), some of the kids were down (Oliver, Petracca, Hunt), and our weaknesses were therefore exposed (Weideman, Kent, Wagner, no ruckman).

Need to drop Kent - inexcusable performance.

Hannan was good. Pedersen was great, the midfielders were the problem, not Goldstein.

Just so, so disappointing.

Great post. In complete agreement.

3 hours ago, Toorak said:

I cant understand why there isn't more urgency to dispose the ball. On 5 occasions  players were tackled from behind. 

When I played soccer, team mates 

would call "Man On" when a player was about to tackle you from behind. It frustrares me when a player thinks he has unlimited time to dispose of the ball. Only to be caught in posession.

Me too, mate. Our lack of communication today again points to the fact that we weren't switched on. 

3 hours ago, Moonshadow said:

At this rate Hibberd will go close to Bluey.

The kid's name is Clayton Oliver and he's miles ahead.

Edited May 21, 20178 yr by A F

Pretty hard to win a game with no ruckman playing against Goldstein and three biased umpires.

 

2 minutes ago, Ron Burgundy said:

Pretty hard to win a game with no ruckman playing against Goldstein and three biased umpires.

 

The ruckman wasn't an issue really.

A lot of other elements went awry.

Spot on re the maggots though.

33 minutes ago, praha said:

Let's think about this rationally. 

We're 4-5 and *should* hit the halfway point at 6-5. That'll be a good record having played without a ruckman or KPF.

We have a tougher second half of the year and it'll test us but our percentage will help us. 

Our wins haven't been "ugly", they've been tough hard fought games where our deficiency has been exploited well by the opposition. Today was always going to be a tough game. There is a consistent theme in our Roos, Freo and Hawks losses, and that's that their talls absolutely destroyed our lack of aerial ability. We have been fighting an uphill battle since round 3 and to still be in the finals hunt halfway through is encouraging. Drop the next two, however, and it's lights out.

That said, we have been in winnable positions in every game, and in every loss, our leaders have been majorly disappointing.  Jones plays like a perennial loser. Lewis sometimes seem to be checking his retirement pay. Vince is close to pushing daisies.

We're not "weak" anymore.  We battled so hard. These losses hurt because they mean so much. Today [censored] me off because Norf is a nothing club and I just want to pound them for once. 

Will we turn the corner this year? We still have a lot of time to.

Today was not winnable. 

bitterly disappointed yet again. 1-4 watching live this year. Draining stuff.

a classic recipe for a MFC choke this week and you could tell we were off from the first bounce today. 

Too deflated and resigned to be angry.

bleagh 

34 minutes ago, Diamond said:

I suggest you all watch the replay and watch how many times Jones bombs the ball without looking or handballs to the opposition. Turnover king. Lost us the game. Lower your eyes Jones, pick out a player on our side who is alone and transmit the ball to him by hand or foot. 

Diamond this year when he lowers his eyes he more often hits up opposition players anyway.  His bombing is a reflection of his lack of confidence in his shorter target kicking me thinks but also the intense pressure he is under coming through the middle on occasions.

Part of long bomb issues by the likes of Jones and Vince etc will be solved once we find a key forward who can play at CHF and clunk marks/kick goals from the 40/50 meter area with shallow or crappy bomb kicks which we tend to do alot of.  Unfortunately players like Buddy don't grow on trees but that's exactly the style of player this club needs.  We tried it with old iron hands and failed.  We were hoping we might have one in Mitch Clark.  Wieds certainly isn't up to it (or any role at this point) and neither is Watts.  We could try Hogan on his return and to me that's where he must be groomed and played 80% of the time if we are to ever play finals.

Lastly, no AFL team can carry more than one player into a match who isn't at AFL level and win very often against anyone in the top 14 or so IMO.  Today there were at least 4 passengers that were not up AFL level and hardly gave a yelp or just weren't where the ball was (or their direct opponent) far too often.

Edited May 21, 20178 yr by Rusty Nails

So much for a home ground,we've been terrible at the G this year

When was the last time we started so well and could sit there comfortably knowing we are in control? Nth now know they own us. 

I just look at the ladder and see a team in freo sitting 5th and us down to 11th having been able to move to 6th if we won. Essenscum are above us and thats annoying. 

13 minutes ago, frankie_d said:

Goodwin "We're a footy club with a fairly poor past".

Sad

True

This is why we need angry men. Poise just doesn't cut it.

We have angry men.

Poise is exactly what we need right now.

It irks me to say it but we were out-gunned.  There are excuses galore (no Gawn, no Hogan, crap umpiring etc. etc) and they are valid points, but the bottom line is they played today, like we did last week.  They wanted it more, nullified our strengths and exploited our weaknesses for probably 65% of the game, and you can't win with that differential. Very, very disappointing, and even more so against that mob.

1 hour ago, A F said:

3 of his attempts I can recall were 20m out pretty much directly in front.

I'm glad he's a fringer, because he's the biggest down hill skier you'd ever see.

Just shows how a loss can stir you up. None of his kicks were directly in front, all,on a bad angle for a left foot kick. Didn't play well but didn't shirk it, didn't give up. Is a good forward line mark for his height .

12 minutes ago, A F said:

I wish people would stop doing this. 

We will win games we aren't expected to and lose games we are expected to win.

There's no point in looking at a fixture and saying we'll win these or lose these. We can beat anyone on our day and we showed as much last week. We just need 8 or 9 of those days for the rest of the season and we'll make finals.

Great post. In complete agreement.

Me too, mate. Our lack of communication today again points to the fact that we weren't switched on. 

The kids name is Clayton Oliver and he's miles ahead.

But "making finals" is irrelevant if we can't follow through and win the big one,

I was at the New Members Function before the game. Brendan McCartney was there and wouldn't stop talking about the Adelaide win. He brought up how Oliver is 15 percent the player he will be, Trac is 10 percent, Viney a third... And the win against Adelaide is an indicator of that etc. Even when Trengove and Stretch came out, their first bunch of questions was about the Adelaide win. I get it was a great win, but 4 points is 4 points...

What we saw from Melbourne today was the exact same performance we gave against Hawthorn. Everything went according to script. The team was not switched on. In every single game we've been starting favorites this year, we haven't turned up. Yes we beat Carlton, but compared to what we showed against St Kilda in the first round, we were not On that day. And we weren't today. 

This was a problem last year as well. 

We don't play the MCG well. Our best MCG performance was probably vs the Tigers but we don't seem to spread well enough to take advantage of the space. 

This is a serious concern as it's our home ground! 

10 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

The ruckman wasn't an issue really.

A lot of other elements went awry.

Spot on re the maggots though.

Rubbish. You weren't there! The advantage North gained from Goldstein ( particularly around the ground) was overwhelming.

Was Pedersen injured before 3/4 time? Tom MCD rucked for the first 20 minutes of the last quarter, then Watts for 5 before Tom took over again. Something very odd about all of this.

Goodwins response was that we are still s developing team and North were simply the better team on the day.