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Glaring weakness in defence

jnrmac
jnrmac
in Melbourne Demons

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Posted

I have said all year our defence leaks goals. Yet again we got taken to the cleaners.

The elephant in the room are our key tall backs. Hibberd has had a great year. Jetta is outstanding, Hunt has done well but OMac and Frost while doing some good things have been toweled up by bigger bodied tall fwds like Brown, Roughhead, Walker, Daniher, Reiwoldt, Casboult, Hawkins etc

We desperately need a Lever.

Facts are:

1. teams score 53% of the time they enter our fwd 50 - last in the AFL

2. We lose 35% of defensive one on ones - last in the AFL

You cannot win finals with a defence like that. In fact you will struggle to make finals.

OMac is simply a liability. May become a footballer one day but gets outbodied regularly, has no urgency or intensity and frankly plays a lot of dumb football. He flies to spoil and either misses the ball or or hits it straight into a dangerous spot like the corridor. Plenty on here bang on about what a massive improvement he has made this year but I maintain if we had a decent tall back he wouldn't be playing.  

Frost has some great attributes but makes a lot of errors spoiling. leaving his man, fumbling and taking on more than he can chew.

We cannot take a contested mark to save ourselves. We rank 17th in contested marks. Clearly we have had to move TMac to the fwd line and so rob our defence but the evidence is pretty clear that he makes a good forward and so won't be returning any time soon.

Until we fix our defence we aren't going anywhere. Throw the kitchen sink at Lever.

Edited by jnrmac

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    No !!!

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    Totally agree, definitely missing a big bodied defender and a couple of players with top notch skills when kicking it into the forward line.

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    We have been smashed all season by big forwards

    And this week, General Patton and Jeremy Cameron await. Oh and Rory Lobbe.

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    • Shocked 1
    2 minutes ago, Petraccattack said:

    We have been smashed all season by big forwards

    And this week, General Patton and Jeremy Cameron await. Oh and Rory Lobbe.

    Bit longer than that .

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    Brown always kills us, surprised we didn't start TMac on him though once Hogan went off we didn't have that luxury. 

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    I was a bit surprised TMac wasn't played in defense when we were going into the wind. We were playing tempo footy and basically trying to limit their scoring ability, so why not put your most experienced KPD on one of their 3 talls. Fair enough to maximise the wind advantage with him forward in the other 2 quarters. I thought it was a bit odd.

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    WE were completely outcoached and showed north no respect

    Oscar tries but is a long way of being good enough

    WE had no proper plan to win and with so many down we couldnt even conger a win very poor coaching in my opinion

    Do we have to teach these guys the basics again so frustrating watching

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    Something desperately wrong with a defence setup that ever requires Nev to have to take on Brown !!

    Not sure who were worse...players or coaches.

    Neither up to the task yesterday. Smacked botties all round i think.

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    Yes how Jetta ended up on Brown or Waite was bizarre, obviously a tactic by North that we reacted poorly.

    Im all for getting Lever and keep Oscar as a backup. OMac tries his guts out but he is not there yet.

     

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    • Like 1
    3 hours ago, Jibroni said:

    Yes how Jetta ended up on Brown or Waite was bizarre, obviously a tactic by North that we reacted poorly.

    Im all for getting Lever and keep Oscar as a backup. OMac tries his guts out but he is not there yet.

     

    Said before a few times the game plan and the coaching was shite and a few should really look at their indivigual performances

    Wont name names but havent seen so many one arm markes or tackles in  long time

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    Oscar really cops a lot of crap and I think it's unjustified. He's played 33 games and is 21 years old and people expect him to be dominating monsters week in week out. He's made pretty good strides and is generally pretty good by foot if you actually step back and to the side and look at the facts. If he fills out he is going to be an absolute monster size and strength wise. Key posts don't always materialise with a magic draft pick ... They need to be developed.

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    Those stats are hard to argue with but the query is do we think developing the two kids that have 88 games between them is the answer or do we need more., Lever is a jet but as I have stated where is the examples of him playing on and beating number 1 forwards or even the second tall? He is played as an intercept and usually Adelaide leave Talia and Hartigan or Kelly to the two main jobs. 

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    Agree whole-heartedly but your observations will be falling upon deaf ears.

    The 'improvement levels' of Frost and Oscar are both hugely exaggerated on this forum. 

    I saw a first gamer today play for Adelaide who showed greater attribute diversity in his first game than Oscar has in his latest. Speed, intensity, decision making, spoiling ability.

    Oscar and Frost are both just really average and limited players presently. And that's really all I care about. Clearly we need better quality and experienced key posts if we're to take another step. 

    Edited by stevethemanjordan

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    • Like 2

    I couldn't agree any more. Frost has been good, and Oscar is improving, but we are definitely short a bigger bodied key defender.

    I know May is off the table, but he would have been ideal. He isn't tall, but he is strong as an ox. And I don't think Lever is the player we need.

    Edited by Forest Demon

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    3 minutes ago, stevethemanjordan said:

    Agree whole-heartedly but your observations will be falling upon deaf ears on this forum.

    The 'improvement levels' of Frost and Oscar are both hugely exaggerated on this forum. 

    They're both just really average and limited players presently. And that's really all I care about. Clearly we need better quality and experienced key posts if we're to take another step. 

    It's actually ridiculous how much you have to walk on egg shells on DL when it comes to OMac.

    Edited by Forest Demon

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    • Like 3

    Glaring weakness all over the field as far as I am concern. We need a quality mid,FB and CHF and a ruck/forward, a cool $4 million will do.

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    We are consistently outmarked.  If I was coaching against us, I would seek to keep possession through marking, and have an outlet mark just outside 50, and a High HF marking CHF option.  The Dees fail against these targets by not killing the contest way too often.  We have focused on improving our ground ball game, and I believe we have taken huge steps here.  The next thing we need to tackle is the contested marking at the key posts.  Afte that, we then need to clean up forward 50 entry.

    A lot of our defensive issues come down to structure.  When we have time to set up behind the ball, we do OK.  WHen we are too cute for our own good further up the field (another glaring problem), our structures are caught out, and Nev has to defend whatever he can, even if it is sideshow bob, Franklin or Hawkins.  It is just the structure.  When we can move the ball more assuredly (without being overly cute) we can avoid the damaging turnovers that mean that Oscar and his defensive mates have little or no chance of even making a contest, let alone having the body shape or capability to win/halve it to advantage,

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    We were out marked because North waited behind the pack with the wind and in front of the pack with it.

    Windy footy 101.

    The effort looked ok- the energy levels low .

    I'm not about to set myself on fire over this weeks loss.

    We got out scrapped in the last half and allowed them to run down the clock.

    Very ugly game-too many stoppages.

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    A year ago, who would have predicted Tom McDonald would be playing AA footy... as a forward?

    Probably as important to our defense as Rance for Richmond.  But when a guy can just go forward and play the way he has, in a year where Hogan has stagnated, and Kent has gone backwards; we have no choice to bank on McDonald forward.

    Those stats don't surprise.

     

    North took a risk by playing 3 tall forwards.  They don't clunk it, then defenders run it out easy.  They gambled.  They won.

     

    We just need to stick fat with Frost (who should keep taking them on) and Oscar.  If Watts doesn't impact forward, he will be the next one thrown back IMO.

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    • Author
    23 minutes ago, Biffen said:

    We were out marked because North waited behind the pack with the wind and in front of the pack with it.

    Windy footy 101.

    The effort looked ok- the energy levels low .

    I'm not about to set myself on fire over this weeks loss.

    We got out scrapped in the last half and allowed them to run down the clock.

    Very ugly game-too many stoppages.

    We are 17th for contested marks. There are no excuses. We aren't very good at it.

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    1 hour ago, Forest Demon said:

    It's actually ridiculous how much you have to walk on egg shells on DL when it comes to OMac.

    Given that Tom has had to play forward with Jesse's numerous outages, and will unfortunately probably have to continue to do so, we don't have another option.

    Yes of course we should look at Lever, but do we have enough to offer for him?

    Edited by monoccular

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