8 hours ago, Deespicable said:

Lewis is a smart player who brings plenty to the table with his clever disposal and he's been a huge factor in our rise up the charts (percentage wise at least). But as we have all noticed all year he has been found out for pace and is now up there with the slowest players in the league when it comes to sprinting for the ball - Hodge and Selwood are up there too.

He clearly is needed for this season - it's too late to be making massive changes to our back seven and once we make finals he will be even more important.

But clearly there are some serious talks to be had once the season is completed.

But please give it a rest on the anti-Lewis stuff until post-season. He deserves his last hurrah this season.

 

R23 looking likely

For his nice little 15m chip kicks, he rarely puts his body on the line, pulls out of contests and goes to ground when under pressure consistently. People rate his leadership, but I haven't seen anything that relates to any sort of organisation of the backline other than him playing a loose man. Not to mention he'd be the slowest player in the league atm. Happily collecting his pay I'm afraid.

9 hours ago, buck_nekkid said:

Lewis: with ball in hand he is an elite decision maker and distributor.  Without ball in hand he struggles to get to contests, he struggles to halve contests, and he gets run off.  Depends what you are looking a5 in how you judge him.  We have a place for him when everything else works.

Also, Salem was great by foot, but got lost defensively far too often.

I suppose without Lever and Hibberd, Lewis has to run harder to make more contests rather than receiving and distributing the ball.

@rpfc is correct IMO, our makeshift backline has been impressive. Lever and Hibberd going down really really hurt.

 

Fix f50 entries and we are contenders, even with the injury depleted backline.

11 hours ago, Deespicable said:

Lewis is a smart player who brings plenty to the table with his clever disposal and he's been a huge factor in our rise up the charts (percentage wise at least). But as we have all noticed all year he has been found out for pace and is now up there with the slowest players in the league when it comes to sprinting for the ball - Hodge and Selwood are up there too.

He clearly is needed for this season - it's too late to be making massive changes to our back seven and once we make finals he will be even more important.

But clearly there are some serious talks to be had once the season is completed.

But please give it a rest on the anti-Lewis stuff until post-season. He deserves his last hurrah this season.

 

The fans and the loyal over the years deserve a last 'hurrah' as a summation of the last two seasons and many, many seasons before these - and Lewis' departure from the field may well be that celebratory moment.

I hear you on both those passages. Especially the second one late in the 3rd quarter, massive error getting caught in no man's land there. No doubt it wasn't one of his better games for the club but I guess even the most experienced make mistakes. I know people will probably come back at me with plenty of other examples like the Geelong game but I still think he's serving a purpose overall. 

I think with Lewis and Salem we are trying to make them play positions that don't come naturally to them.

Salem in the last quarter playing in the midfield was the best player on the ground for that quarter.  Lewis, I reckon he has been told stand off the contest they want him to be the out the back handball to set us up.

If Hibberd is ready and I reckon Wagner, we need to move Lewis and Salem into our midfield, these guys need to be kicking the ball into our forward 50m not Jones, ANB, JKH.

The whole team needs a kick up the a%#* If they can not perform on the field as a team, which they are not at the moment, then at the end of the season they need to bring in players who are willing to take this club to the next level.

Sunday was a rabble it was a big step back wards, and even by some glimmer of hope we make finals, we will be out the first week, playing that c*#^.

 

1 hour ago, drdrake said:

I think with Lewis and Salem we are trying to make them play positions that don't come naturally to them.

Salem in the last quarter playing in the midfield was the best player on the ground for that quarter.  Lewis, I reckon he has been told stand off the contest they want him to be the out the back handball to set us up.

If Hibberd is ready and I reckon Wagner, we need to move Lewis and Salem into our midfield, these guys need to be kicking the ball into our forward 50m not Jones, ANB, JKH.

The Doctor is in. Salem was great in the last and a big reason we got back in the game.

I'd also add that Tyson's second qtr when he was on the wing was atrocious and more of a factor in the loss than Lewis. His missed shot on goal went straight down the other end to begin the 7 goal onslaught by the swans then missed tackles on Hannebery and a turnover were instrumental in two more. In the second half he was much better but I think he played inside more, his natural game.

The Swans and Longmire were always going to put time into restricting Lewis and exposing our weakness's. He is a gun premiership coach who constantly gets the Swans up for against the odds wins. We are an immature side still and haven't developed gun leaders yet. Cotchin is the best Captain in the league by a mile and in my opinion Richmonds most important player. But there were two seasons where they were criticised for on-field leadership.

Stop tearing up after every loss and look at the bigger picture. Lewis has been a fantastic addition to our side and as we develop other leaders he will hand over to them.

19 hours ago, Bateman12 said:

I want to highlight two instances yesterday that resulted in direct Swans goals. The microscope is directly over Lewis in both.

1/ 26-26, Swans have just kicked three on the trot. Time to stem the flow. Someone is going to have an opportunity to do this through his actions. Kennedy wins the centre clearance and kicks a high ball to half forward. From the second it left his boot I saw Lewis trailing back on his own, the opportunity was his. As an accomplished, successful player he had the chance to push hard back with the flight of the ball and take a team steadying mark. As it turned out he actually would've taken it uncontested. Instead, he has a quick look then puts in three or four of the shortest steps possible and effectively shat himself. The vision can look to some that he misjudged the flight but i dont buy that, he's too good a player to get it that wrong, and ive played enough footy to be able to tell when someones put in the short ones. Anyway, he doesnt get there, ball bobbles round, falls to Hanneberry....goal. Full panic stations now.

2/ 1 minute to go in the third quarter. Been one of our worst quarters of football for the year but we're still within 22 points and will get our chance in the last with them down 2 on the bench. Cant concede one here, just hold up for 60 seconds. Defensive 50 stoppage.. should NEVER concede in this situation. Another opportunity for Lewis to display his leadership, you would think he would a) Talk to his teammates to ensure we've structured up properly, You'd think a two player outnumber would make sense with 1 minute to go and b) take ownership for their most dangerous player at the contest and put an arm across him. He does neither. As hes ball watching Papley strolls through untouched and kicks a spirit killing goal.

I hope these two bits of vision are shown and discussed heavily and harshly in todays review. 

 

Don't remember the first, but the second was a shocker.

Just too slow.

15 hours ago, Pennant St Dee said:

For the love of God, Salem was on Papley time and time again he was drawn towards the stoppage/ball coming inside 50 with Papley only to lose concentration and body contact with Papley who dropped out the back. Similar to Trac not running hard enough with Heeney when running back to our defensive 50

 

Its reasons like this that I don’t think we’re half as good as the majority seem to espouse. We’re hugely talented, but that’s only half the battle.

We haven’t beaten anyone in the top 8/9? So? What’s the point being made there? Maybe we simply beat the teams we should, and lose to the teams better than us?

I don’t think we’re ready, but we’re still building. We’re not a premiership threat unless we hit a purple patch like the dogs 2 years ago, and even then they got all their key players back from injury at the right time.

I could deal with him being slow, on the grounds that he was providing leadership, maturity and a bit of grit.

But now there is a real question mark on those contributions, and I've found myself wishing he wasn't contracted for next year.

Along with Garlett, who unfortunately seems to have returned to his old Carlton career path of getting new contracts of surges of form and then fading away for a couple of years, with maybe one game in 5 actually being worth mentioning.

Garlett I can actually see us paying out the contract early to clear the decks.

Lewis is a bit more awkward, as a respected true champion of the game and all that.

I wonder, if the writing were on the wall that he would spend most of 2019 at Casey, would he prefer to retire?

 

21 hours ago, Bateman12 said:

I want to highlight two instances yesterday that resulted in direct Swans goals. The microscope is directly over Lewis in both.

1/ 26-26, Swans have just kicked three on the trot. Time to stem the flow. Someone is going to have an opportunity to do this through his actions. Kennedy wins the centre clearance and kicks a high ball to half forward. From the second it left his boot I saw Lewis trailing back on his own, the opportunity was his. As an accomplished, successful player he had the chance to push hard back with the flight of the ball and take a team steadying mark. As it turned out he actually would've taken it uncontested. Instead, he has a quick look then puts in three or four of the shortest steps possible and effectively shat himself. The vision can look to some that he misjudged the flight but i dont buy that, he's too good a player to get it that wrong, and ive played enough footy to be able to tell when someones put in the short ones. Anyway, he doesnt get there, ball bobbles round, falls to Hanneberry....goal. Full panic stations now.

2/ 1 minute to go in the third quarter. Been one of our worst quarters of football for the year but we're still within 22 points and will get our chance in the last with them down 2 on the bench. Cant concede one here, just hold up for 60 seconds. Defensive 50 stoppage.. should NEVER concede in this situation. Another opportunity for Lewis to display his leadership, you would think he would a) Talk to his teammates to ensure we've structured up properly, You'd think a two player outnumber would make sense with 1 minute to go and b) take ownership for their most dangerous player at the contest and put an arm across him. He does neither. As hes ball watching Papley strolls through untouched and kicks a spirit killing goal.

I hope these two bits of vision are shown and discussed heavily and harshly in todays review. 

 

Papley let him know about it as well. Gave him the old ducking the head motion while waiting for the game to restart at back of square.

Lewis funny enough didn't remonstrate???

1 hour ago, Mach5 said:

 

Its reasons like this that I don’t think we’re half as good as the majority seem to espouse. We’re hugely talented, but that’s only half the battle.

We haven’t beaten anyone in the top 8/9? So? What’s the point being made there? Maybe we simply beat the teams we should, and lose to the teams better than us?

I don’t think we’re ready, but we’re still building. We’re not a premiership threat unless we hit a purple patch like the dogs 2 years ago, and even then they got all their key players back from injury at the right time.

Agree a lot of the problems come with greater exposure. There are the odd exception to the rule in terms of coming straight in and making your mark at this level but many Deelanders underestimate the benefits if players reaching the 80+ game mark

23 hours ago, Fifty-5 said:

It's very hard to understand why we didn't have a goal keeper in the square at that end of 3rd qtr stoppage.  Ball went thru waist high.

about three melb  almost-goals were in effect stopped by sydney in exactly this manner

9 hours ago, layzie said:

I hear you on both those passages. Especially the second one late in the 3rd quarter, massive error getting caught in no man's land there. No doubt it wasn't one of his better games for the club but I guess even the most experienced make mistakes. I know people will probably come back at me with plenty of other examples like the Geelong game but I still think he's serving a purpose overall. 

I agree, I actually like him and think he's been generally OK in his time here. 

The frustration is that we continue to fall down in these big games where pressure and expectation are high. You can feel the panic amongst the group watching. He was brought to the club to help with this. That's why the weekend, and those instances in particular, were so disappointing. 

Edited August 14, 20186 yr by Bateman12