I've documented this a few times but man did last Friday feel different to this Friday. 

10 minutes ago, Diamond said:

Did anyone else notice in the past few weeks the players would often hand ball back to a player who had just handballed it to them when they were in a poor position, as if to say "here it is back to you- it's a hot potato and you can get tackled with it rather than me even though you're in a worse position"? Almost like revenge for putting them under pressure rather than looking for a better option for the team and the game.

this has been a low light of our play for years.

I can only justify it by thinking that the disposing player is at least avoiding the possibility of being called for holding the ball.

The ring around the rosie handball works sometimes but more usually it leads to a ball up or a possible turnover.

Similarly in the modern game the 50/50 kick to space is seen as too risky.

Would love to see the stats on how many times we use handball to effectively free a player. I think I have seen more effective tap ons by players than handballs in recent times.

Overall a wasted season with minimal optimism for next year... due mainly to our last half season performance even when we had the bulk of our best 22 on the park.

Hopefully they prove me wrong.

Still feel very disaffected and disillusioned. I would not be happy receiving a call from the Club selling raffle tickets, memberships etc. at the moment. A torrent of bile may be unleashed.

30 minutes ago, Diamond said:

Did anyone else notice in the past few weeks the players would often hand ball back to a player who had just handballed it to them when they were in a poor position, as if to say "here it is back to you- it's a hot potato and you can get tackled with it rather than me even though you're in a worse position"? Almost like revenge for putting them under pressure rather than looking for a better option for the team and the game.

Yes!

This is another example of reverting to 'comfort zones' and selfish/self preservation play.  Rather than take the tackle, players are randomly hand balling it.  It is pre Roos stuff.

Better to take the tackle, get a ball up than turn the ball over and give the opps an easy run thru our zone defence because our players are still 'at the contest'. 

That first quarter was real hands off football.  Didn't want to tackle, didn't want to take tackles.  So Collingwood walked the ball thru our defence to kick 6.3 in the first quarter from turnovers.  We gifted it to them on a silver platter!

2 hours ago, Wiseblood said:

Your first comment on your earlier post was 'our first quarters have been garbage all year'.  Those stats, from round 15, are pretty poor (even though we still won a few of them, albeit not many), but does not take into account the whole year.  Nice job changing the goal posts and cherry picking the stats to suit your argument.

For you: 

Saints 8 shots to 5

Blues 4 shots to 5

Cats 7 shots to 6

Free 5 shots to 7

Tigers 7 shots to 4

Ess 4 shots to 6

Hawth 9 shots to 2

Adel 5 shots to 4

Kangas 13 to 7

Suns 9 to 3

Coll 5 to 7

Dogs 1 to 6

West Coast 7 to 4

Doesn't bolster your argument at all. Our first quarters have been shite all year. Look at the two bottom clubs at the time Hawthorn and North. Disgraceful. Want to deny there are mental problems that aren't being addressed about our starts?

Nice pot shot. Try again.

43 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

For you: 

Saints 8 shots to 5

Blues 4 shots to 5

Cats 7 shots to 6

Free 5 shots to 7

Tigers 7 shots to 4

Ess 4 shots to 6

Hawth 9 shots to 2

Adel 5 shots to 4

Kangas 13 to 7

Suns 9 to 3

Coll 5 to 7

Dogs 1 to 6

West Coast 7 to 4

Doesn't bolster your argument at all. Our first quarters have been shite all year. Look at the two bottom clubs at the time Hawthorn and North. Disgraceful. Want to deny there are mental problems that aren't being addressed about our starts?

Nice pot shot. Try again.

I'd say it's something we need to work on, especially against lower sides, but across the year we still won our fair share. It's average, at best. Garbage? Nah. 

And no, I don't want to deny any mental problems with some of our starts. 

Nice to discuss this with you, though. Normally you take a cheap shot and run away with your tail between your legs, never to reply again. Well done for sticking around this time. 

Been an interesting read..Wise/Jnr discussion on the starts. As always theres something to learn and take away.

So just as an interesting exercise I thought  Id look at all our games and just suppose  we were equal after qtr time..  or iow...lets dismiss the 1st qtr and see how the season would pan out if we just looked at the last 3/4 throught the year

 

game  1   melb v saints   16.9  v 6.4  WIN    game 2   melb v carl   10.8 v 7.8  WIN   game 3  melb v geel  11.15 v 15.4  LOSS

game  4   melb v  fero    13.9  v  13.8  WIN   game 5   melb v  rich   8.5 v 9.15  LOSS   game 6  melb v  ess  15.6 v  8.12  WIN

game  7  melb v  haw   13.6 v  9.6   WIN  game  8   melb v  adel   15.3 v  8.8  WIN   game  9  melb v north    11.7 v  9.7 WIN

game 10  melb v suns    16.13  v 9.4  WIN   game 11  melb v coll 11.11 v  12.8  LOSS   game 12 melb v  foot  13.9 v 7.7 WIN

game 13  melb v  eagles 12.8 v  12.7 WIN  game 14   melb v  syd  3.8 v  10.11 LOSS   game 15  melb v carl 13.4 v  8.7  WIN

game 16     melb v  adel 9.7 v  10.12 LOSS  game  17  melb v  port  9.6 v  9.8 LOSS   game  18 melb v north  8.12 v  7.6 WIN

 

game 19  melb v  gws 7.2 v  6.7   WIN  game 20  melb v  saints 8.9 v  9.11 LOSS   game 21 melb v  bris 13.5 v  12.4  WIN

game 22  melb v  coll 11.8 v  8.10 WIN  

 

Now I know this isnt a true picture  but it's an interesting picture.  If we look through the result I think theres only  1 or 2 games we'd now lose   on basis of the latter 3/4 effort ( having actually won it ) 

overall WINS 15  LOSSES 7

Well ladies and gentlemen doesn't this paint a story !!!

Don't turn up to play, take too long to get going..throw season away.

All of the above was epitomised for all of us who watched that last game...it summed it up all too accurately.

Those that put up with my dribble over the course may recognise a constant suggestion: That for me there's only ONE Statistic that matters, the Scoreboard. Well that Scoreboard can tell you a lot if you look  and as the above 'look' suggests  we are probably an OK side despite all of our glaring faults ( and we know them in the main ) .

HOWEVER  our starts cost us EVERYTHING

Had we not cocked them up we'd probably be sitting on TOP of the ladder !!

but where are we????

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 20178 yr by beelzebub

21 hours ago, Akum said:

Yeah hard to know exactly what it means, isn't it?

I suppose in general terms, we just really need to improve in uncontested footy. We are very very good at contested ball and pressure acts etc, but improving this even more isn't necessarily going to get us further up the ladder. To do that, we need to work on dramatically improving what we do with the ball once we've won it. 

 

Once we have won the ball, we need to make sure we either get a free kick by having an arm, head or a leg pulled off, patting the umpire on the bum or saying to everyone that you want to be left alone so you can kick a goal etc.....

This would make for a pleasant change from this year, where inexplicably, umps looked at each other, and said, we either report him for having the ball, we give a free kick against him for a Medieval rule from the Doomsday Book or we ignore him until he dies......

2 hours ago, chook fowler said:

Still feel very disaffected and disillusioned. I would not be happy receiving a call from the Club selling raffle tickets, memberships etc. at the moment. A torrent of bile may be unleashed.

I'm running a raffle for AFL Umpires Trip Away fund at the moment, but they only have enough to get half way up ##it Creek.......

Just now, willmoy said:

I'm running a raffle for AFL Umpires Trip Away fund at the moment, but they only have enough to get half way up ##it Creek.......

Works for me

1 hour ago, willmoy said:

Once we have won the ball, we need to make sure we either get a free kick by having an arm, head or a leg pulled off, patting the umpire on the bum or saying to everyone that you want to be left alone so you can kick a goal etc.....

This would make for a pleasant change from this year, where inexplicably, umps looked at each other, and said, we either report him for having the ball, we give a free kick against him for a Medieval rule from the Doomsday Book or we ignore him until he dies......

So many areas we can still improve 

Very interesting and damning analysis BB.

Raises so many questions including why our coaches have not developed a strategy to address this shortcoming.

15 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Very interesting and damning analysis BB.

Raises so many questions including why our coaches have not developed a strategy to address this shortcoming.

Ahhhhh.,...,. Hmmmm .mmmmm

2 hours ago, beelzebub said:

but where are we????

 

Somewhere in the 1990s. Set back 20 years.

 

There was a time under Daniher when we alternated between making finals and missing them.

Why was that? Why finals/no finals/finals/nofinals, etc.

 

Mental weakness.

 

At least we could make them then. But even in our good years with Daniher, how often did we flub the end of the season? Sitting high then losing games all of a sudden.

 

Mental weakness.

 

Daniher didn't have the answers. How deep seated is this problem?

 

Now it's back. More like it never went away.

 

Maybe our game plan is too demanding. Maybe we are young and developing. Maybe Oscar isn't up to it. Maybe he is. Maybe we need a second key forward. Maybe this. Maybe that. And what about the injuries?

 

All irrelevant because we would have made the finals except for mental weakness. Even with all the above.

 

 

It should now be obvious that the one thing, the most important thing to work on is mental. It stood out at the end of last season. That should have been enough. Now it's glaring.

 

 

I fear that it won't be worked on. Modern footy coaching groupthink, where a player who kicks a goal and is on a high, gets to go to the bench ... where players aren't allowed to practice goal kicking because it wears out their delicate bodies ... will not allow such an outlier approach.

(It's like basketballers not being allowed to practice throwing baskets. It's like boxers not being allowed to practice punching. It's like a golfer not being allowed to practice putting.)

 

They will practice faster, slicker ball movement, harder/faster running both ways, and of course, injecting a dose of whatever the eventual premiers do best. (Because that must be their "secret".)

 

The obvious failing, mental squibbing, won't be addressed.

 

How deep seated is this problem?

 

 

 

Sh##, i'm going to go straight home and make out my will....

Dear Will#####,

You have to wonder.

We've neve been ... THAT ...far from it....yet been miles from it.

Why ?...even why now ?

There for the offering...no thanks !! 

Someone with the patience to go through the stats may be able to prove me wrong but I feel like one of our biggest issues this year is not that we don't win enough quarters or are competitive enough, it's that when we do switch off we switch off badly. We allow a team to dominate a quarter to the point that it is lost in that one quarter. 

The fact that we won 3 out of 4 quarters on the weekend but still lost is ridiculous. From quarter time we were playing catch up and the Pies were able to keep us at arms length the whole time afterwards. 

Given almost the week to ponder it I'm able to breathe again and look at things calmly (don't get me wrong I still have fits of rage/devastation about it). For me it's too easy for us to point to the old "oh we're a young team" deal, this starts from the leadership group and they are very culpable for what happened in the last 3-6 rounds. I say 3-6 rounds because each of those games were opportunities, I'll give the boys the GWS game as they are a good team but Port, North, Saints, Lions, and of course the Pies all had opportunities that were given up because we weren't ruthless or hungry enough. Each game we just needed to do enough to get the job done, and in the North & Pies case it wasn't even that. 

That comes from the leadership group not pushing the standard. Collectively we were 10.9 to 3.3 at quarter time against teams who theoretically "didn't have anything to play for" and we were supposed to be better than. That is an out and out disgrace, and that above everything else needs to be rectified immediately. 

My only hope from this utter debarcle is that the players will use it to drive them forward, not hold them back. 

Unsure if this has been posted elsewhere.

 

Edited September 1, 20178 yr by McQueen

2 minutes ago, McQueen said:

 

Thanks for posting that 'Steve'. 

We let you down in the end this season:  At least somebody gets it!  Jones is a champ in so many ways.  He really feels the pain.

But how does his heartfelt message reach all members and fans?  It is on twitter (and might make it to the club website or fb).  But thousands of dee fans would not access those forums very often, so Nathan's message isn't being heard by the faithful.

If only the club had emailed something like that to members last Monday morning - much heartache would have been saved.  It isn't too late for the club to come out and make its own statement directly to all members.  Better late than never.

Well, thanks chunk..

Rest of club sill silent.

Wont be hard to spread the respect around then.

5 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Well, thanks chunk..

Rest of club sill silent.

Wont be hard to spread the respect around then.

Agreed. I still can't believe I haven't heard Mitch Kings thoughts on our end to the season. Baffling. 

8 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Agreed. I still can't believe I haven't heard Mitch Kings thoughts on our end to the season. Baffling. 

Mitch King is just in it for the dollars and fame. Couldn't give a stuff about the fans.

22 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Agreed. I still can't believe I haven't heard Mitch Kings thoughts on our end to the season. Baffling. 

Checkers Chuckie Flash and Daisy are conspicuous by their absence also

9 hours ago, Pates said:

Someone with the patience to go through the stats may be able to prove me wrong but I feel like one of our biggest issues this year is not that we don't win enough quarters or are competitive enough, it's that when we do switch off we switch off badly. We allow a team to dominate a quarter to the point that it is lost in that one quarter. 

......

Much of this is actually the first quarter invariably. We've been jumped any number of times. If you have a squiz at my revised outcomes  above ( uses only LAST 3 qtrs of games )  you can see how that would have vastly affected/changed for the better our outcomes.

It also makes something of a mockery on the reliance by some..even  in the game, on this notion all is going well ...we're winning more quarters. Thats far too simplistic almost to the point of irrelevance.  Many a time a team wins just the ONE quarter..sometimes they only lead for 5 mins...It's whos at the finish line first. The statisticians have made an industry and a livelihood out of selling snake-oil

All you really need to do is play football to your ability for over than 100 min journey. Do that properly and all the minutae will look after itsself for those that can be bothered.

Im reminded of F1 and the teams who's cars and drivers are quite competitive...but they just cant get off the line quick enough..Race over really.

Since I saw the result (couldn't watch) of the Adelaide West Coast game I have not read, watched, listened to, anything to do with AFL footy, let alone getting on here or the Dees website.  And I am not reading any of the previous 600 odd posts on this thread.  I just have to remind myself that we were so bad, so so ordinary that all I ever wanted was a team that gave themselves a chance each year.  Based on that I am satisfied and can come to terms with the end of our season.  Truth is we weren't good enough. Or smart enough.  I am also satisfied with that and comfortable in the knowledge that the coaching staff understand this.  

Still though, an absolute ball breaking way to bow out.  BALL BREAKER!!!!!!