Let's try and have a reasonable and level-headed discussion about where Nathan Jones is at. He could be underdone, but I'm not sure that's a great excuse. I'm on record as saying he should have hung up the boots last season and that certainly this should be his last season, but it's worrying to me that he is probably still one of our better leaders.

32 minutes ago, Petraccattack said:

Could see this loss coming a mile away.  Not surprised one bit.

 

Also,  paging  @stevethemanjordan  who has been attacking people all week for daring to suggest we could lose.

He's given himself a self-ban for his stupid comments!

10 minutes ago, A F said:

But see, I'd argue that the lack of system in our forward half and therefore the lack of work rate, enabled Port to waltz out of our forward 50. And with 18 man team defence, the midfield really let us down at times too. It only takes one or two weak links in the chain and your system completely falls over. Our problem was we never worked hard enough to see anything that resembled our system today. More pace in the side wouldn't hurt us, particularly in the forward half (FWIW, I don't think Hunt is the answer to that), but our structures and team defence would stop exits at the source if we were switched on. We weren't.

On Hunt though, I'm hoping he gained a little bit of confidence from today's game because his run from half back or a wing is a great plan B. Hibberd did it once today, but I hardly remember Hibberd showing much dash or rebound in 2018 either. It's certainly a deficiency of our game and list, but I think we can beat any side with our current system if we bring the work rate.

We'll agree to disagree, I guess.

I agree, AF.

I also think Hibberd's lack of run is down to him being asked to play as a third tall, rather than a flanker, which gives him more opportunity to run off the backline.  He isn't given that license when he's playing deep inside defensive 50.

You cant Sugarcoat that performance.

1 hour ago, Purple77 said:

Yeah look, that was a particularly bad last quarter.

Looking back, all signs were pointing to us being underdone for Round 1.

Our JLT performances, our injuries, our interrupted pre-season to most of our stars...

I'm willing to let this ONE slide.

... just THIS one though.

Nup don't buy it Port Adelaide had more valuable outs than us

We are in trouble already!

To a certain degree, the performance didn’t surprise me, but we had to find a way to get the result and we weren’t even close. Bitterly disappointing.

Huge 3 weeks ahead now. Can only lose max 1 of those, but the signs aren’t good based on today.

5 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

I agree, AF.

I also think Hibberd's lack of run is down to him being asked to play as a third tall, rather than a flanker, which gives him more opportunity to run off the backline.  He isn't given that license when he's playing deep inside defensive 50.

But even when Lever was playing, we saw a lack of dash from Hibbo. I reckon his natural attacking game has been squished out of him and it makes him a far less influential player. Do May and Lever's inclusions mean he can be released more? 

Edited March 23, 20196 yr by A F

My god what a day.

After about 20 minutes into the first, we looked absolutely stuffed.

Just some observations:

• Frost has gotten even dumber. Let's just run ourselves into trouble shall we! Then kick the ball away when it's obvious you are caught.............dumb MF.
• Spargo is simply useless. Must suffer from small man syndrome as he plays like he wants to be 195+cm tall. Provides next to no pressure.
• Jones.................................A blind man could've marked that ball. Huge swing in momentum there
• Hibberd is suffering from drinking too much bathwater. Just slams it on the boot with no care where it goes
• Gawn has to be underdone, with the numerous one handed attempts and effort he put in today. He was bullied, had to be the other way around. Not good enough from our VC. Poor coaching decision not to play Preuss = fail by the selection committee.
• Petracca needs to pull his finger out, either that or stick it in his gob to stop him eating. extremely unfit and overweight.
• My god we were murdered through the middle with link up play. Handball is the way to get through our zone (if you can even call it that). They have numbers everywhere outside the contest and when they went out wide before bring it back through the middle
• Our defensive game ground wide for the entire pre-season was a real worry, it's panic stations now.

 

• Goodwin/coaching staff - after 20 minutes in the first (where we seemingly tired ourselves out) they figured out how to play against us, and we just kept on playing into their hands??? We had no answers to counteract it. We didn't even try to change tack. Extremely poor coaching effort today. Goody, like the rest of the team, must've been reading his own press over the off-season. Gameplan A looks good when it works, abhorrent when it doesn't, and we still have no plan B.

Sure we had surgeries and a delayed start to pre-season, but what exactly have we been doing over the off-season? We are so far off the required fitness levels, it's not that they didn't choose to run, they simply couldn't (and it became apparent 20 minutes in to the game ?.

Maybe it's a good thing that Misson is leaving at year's end?

What i found surprising was that we won the free kick count 28 - 20.

 

1 hour ago, KingDingAling said:

We looked slow, were beaten in close by youngsters, killed on the spread, didn't have a plan B for Gawn. Today was a bad day. On the upside, we have May coming back in and Lever also at some point. It's hard to really say what we need. Salem was an absolute standout today and I thought Spargo tried hard with his constant pressure.

Sheeesh we must have been watching different games I thought Spargos insipid kicking skills and Ssssslow running plods were one reason why we were torched on the outside.

He is just not up to standard!

Jack Viney ran like Jack Trengove today. I fear for his foot, I really do.

9 minutes ago, A F said:

Let's try and have a reasonable and level-headed discussion about where Nathan Jones is at. He could be underdone, but I'm not sure that's a great excuse. I'm on record as saying he should have hung up the boots last season and that certainly this should be his last season, but it's worrying to me that he is probably still one of our better leaders.

He was actually okay aside from that insidious drop that ended the game for us. I don't see anyone in the reserves that would do a better job than him, and he's far away from first in line to be dropped.

1 hour ago, DeeZee said:

Watts was good

Watts was Brilliant !Nuff said!

too bloody slow. 

and so unclean with the ball in hand.

 

gawn was a disgrace

6 minutes ago, Caligula's cohort said:

He's given himself a self-ban for his stupid comments!

A shame. There are a lot of times I disagree with him, but at least he articulates his thoughts clearly and makes you think a bit.

I assume he attacked one of the protected species again. 

 

Excuses of starting pre season by 4 weeks... hasn’t affected cats, tigers, pies whilst they lost still looked good, Hawks winning away In Adelaide ... clearly players not ready.. concerning as could be 0-4 & goodnight 2019

1 hour ago, RedButMostlyBlue said:

I hate getting shown up by Westhoff. He's a spud who kicks his goals against spud teams. And fancy bloody Watts showing us up as well. Classic stuff.

Yeah, so Westhoff has played his "Usual Game" against a Spud team!!! US

I would love to have WESTHOFF in our Team!! 

But with our shizenhuisen kicking into the forward 50 he might only kick 3 or 4 Instead of 5 

4 minutes ago, Pirlo said:

He was actually okay aside from that insidious drop that ended the game for us. I don't see anyone in the reserves that would do a better job than him, and he's far away from first in line to be dropped.

He dropped three sitters and handballed to a Port player on the members wing. My concern is that I concur with you somewhat. I'm not sure who else to replace him with. Maybe KK when he's fit, but there's no way that's going to happen because we lack leadership already and you don't drop captains.

Edited March 23, 20196 yr by A F

39 minutes ago, Redleg said:

And here is the post I have been waiting to see.

For those on here who think pace is not a problem, you are just so wrong.

The other thing that hurts us is our decision making. We kick to packs and then don't have a loose man at the outside. We kick to player who have two on them. We kick to players who are behind their man.

We still lack disposal skill. Look at Port's kick outs, they find a man, we never did. 

Given we were out of form and possibly not as fit as others, the arrogance of playing Viney and Jones underdone and maybe injured, was simply breathtaking. We played 2 short today.

Totally agree Redleg. We kick it long down the line to a contest. Common sense dictates the necessity of having crumbers waiting for the ground ball, we had none for the entire game.

Jones and Viney, with interrupted pre-seasons, shouldn't be the focus of our ire today.  Not yet, anyway.

It should be on those that we expect to be fitter and ready to go.  Those that didn't have the interrupted pre-seasons that others had.  Petracca is the one that comes to mind.  If ever there was a match winner then it's him, yet he couldn't get anywhere near it.  It just shouldn't be happening, not at this stage of his career.  We need more consistency from him and we need him to take some games by the scruff of the neck.  It's just not happening enough.

2 minutes ago, A F said:

He dropped three sitters and handballed to a Port player on the members wing. My concern is that I concur with you somewhat. I'm not sure who else to replace him with. Maybe KK when he's fit, but there's no way that's going to happen because we lack leadership already and you don't drop captains.

Time for MFC to grow some Gonads!

Joel Smith out hurt us, he’s a dynamic forward while Weideman and McDonald are very one-dimensional.

Preuss needs to be playing, Gawn can’t compete against two ruckmen every week.

I was skeptical about getting May but Frost and O. McDonald proved me wrong today.

If Hore is the answer we are asking the wrong question.

Spargo has peaked and has no weapons.

Petracca can’t play midfield and needs to strip some muscle to improve his agility.

Once ANB missed that easy set shot Port Adelaide got on top.

Westhoff is a star yet we didn’t seem to plan for him.

Wagner tried but not recruiting a good crumbing forward in the off season will hurt us a lot.

Edited March 23, 20196 yr by Clint Bizkit

Pretty disappointed with the effort today. 

lack of experience, lack of key players, lack of a pre-season all went against us today. 

we still look like we struggle on defensive transition, especially on the G and also when the Port switched the ball they seemed to always have the overlap player. it was too easy for Port to leave defensive 50, they should not be allowed to get sucessive 

Jones looked shaky, Gawny was average, Hore not up to the big time yet, Clarry went missing, Weids and T-mac failed to have an impact and the list continues. 

no-one stood up in key moments. 

interested to see if anyone else thinks that the new 6-6-6 rule is messing with our structure off the bounce and our ability to get clearances. 

not going to burn the membership just yet and not going to call for Goodwin to be sacked but there is much improvement needed. 

3 minutes ago, A F said:

He dropped three sitters and handballed to a Port player on the members wing. My concern is that I concur with you somewhat. I'm not sure who else Is replace him with. Maybe KK when he's fit, but there's no way that's going to happen because we lack leadership already and you don't drop captains.

He is an inside mid who has been pushed to the outside. I have said it before and will say it again. He is an inside mid or nothing.

We have a serious lack of outside mids which is why he gets away with less scrutiny.

Its the same with ANB really. They simply shouldnt be playing in the positions they do but we havent got the outside players to replace them. Its great that we have been recruiting so many 'competitive' type players over the years but we really need to address the outside mid/flanker issue we have.

We cannot simply keep recruiting VFL players to add depth. We see it every year at recruitment time. "Oh good! we have picked up {insert depth players name}, we will really have competition for spots now!" and this is true.... but its Corey Wagner vs Josh Wagner competing for that spot.

We now have Corey Wagner, Josh Wagner, Hore, Lockhart, Maynard,  and others competing for the same depth spots. 

8 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Wagner tried but not recruiting a good crumbing forward in the off season will hurt us a lot.

He was the only small who presented and applied pressure all game.

Also what's with Melksham, i know he loves a snap, but when you're 40 out directly in front you take it on yourself to kick a seemingly easy goal.

1 minute ago, Tom Dyson said:

Pretty disappointed with the effort today. 

lack of experience, lack of key players, lack of a pre-season all went against us today. 

we still look like we struggle on defensive transition, especially on the G and also when the Port switched the ball they seemed to always have the overlap player. it was too easy for Port to leave defensive 50, they should not be allowed to get sucessive 

Jones looked shaky, Gawny was average, Hore not up to the big time yet, Clarry went missing, Weids and T-mac failed to have an impact and the list continues. 

no-one stood up in key moments. 

interested to see if anyone else thinks that the new 6-6-6 rule is messing with our structure off the bounce and our ability to get clearances. 

not going to burn the membership just yet and not going to call for Goodwin to be sacked but there is much improvement needed. 

From what I saw today, the 666 hasn't severely hampered our ability to win clearances, but it may well have impacted the cleanness of those centre clearances. We don't have natural crumbers in our forward half, which hurts when we win a centre clearance. I wouldn't be surprised to see Jeffy recalled next week.