13 hours ago, Wadda We Sing said:

Yeah we are superman!......red and blue

So Ken 'Krypronite' Hinkley was channeling Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor that explains everything!

58 minutes ago, stevethemanjordan said:

Yes, we know. 

Richmond still managed to win. Geelong beat Collingwood.

Comparisons are silly at this point. 

The reason we lost to Port was simply down to skill level and decision making when moving the ball forward. They punished us time and time again on the counter which resulted in us doing so much unnecessary two-way running, it ultimately took its toll.

It's a problem area.

So are Oscar and Frost when they're the only two key defenders playing for us.

I’ve watched every game this weekend and yes our skills were poor. But so have everyone else’s skills. Even the teams that won, their skills were well below par. It’s round one & teams will be very rusty. it really is as simple as that. 

14 hours ago, chook fowler said:

Goodwin is blaming the surgeries - well OMac and Frost didn’t have surgery unless craniotomies were performed on the sligh. That may explain their performance. Likewise Trac had a full pre-season so no excuse there. The loss was attitudinal and due to poor work rate pure and simple.

The loss was attitudinal and due to poor work rate pure and simple.

That is very similar to what Mick Malthouse said. And don't we just know it??

All I hear them talk about is load.

We got the work into them and they have had enough load.

What a load of crap.

DId Viney and Jones have enough load?clearly not.

So what the hell are they on about if they don’t follow their own rules??

2 minutes ago, DeeZee said:

All I hear them talk about is load.

We got the work into them and they have had enough load.

What a load of crap.

DId Viney and Jones have enough load?clearly not.

So what the hell are they on about if they don’t follow their own rules??

yeah. that annoyed me. Very convenient for Goodwin to talk about load etc. after a loss. Never mentioned it after we looked terrible in the jlt and had only half our list training at times. 

2 minutes ago, Dr.D said:

yeah. that annoyed me. Very convenient for Goodwin to talk about load etc. after a loss. Never mentioned it after we looked terrible in the jlt and had only half our list training at times. 

Yep its a load alright a load of ?

Its obvious the team is well behind in conditioning prepared to some others, the boys couldn't get out of first gear after quarter time we looked absolutely gassed. Few more weeks of pain could be coming until we get match hardened...

9 minutes ago, sisso said:

Its obvious the team is well behind in conditioning prepared to some others, the boys couldn't get out of first gear after quarter time we looked absolutely gassed. 

Yep. Spot on. This was the key factor, no question. 

Went to the G, read this post. A few observations...

Max was barely getting off the ground at centre bounces. He was waiting until the opposition launched, then getting a hand to it. It wasn't so much that he was being beaten, it was more a case of timing. Instead of meeting the ball at his highest point, he was delaying the tap, hitting the ball when it was at his standing height. He got plenty of taps but the delay meant that Oliver and Brayshaw were less effective at the quick break.

Fritsch was having a blinder from half way through the first quarter until things started to go awry nearing half time. At that stage I thought he was up there with Salem as our best. Unfortunately, not as effective in second half, but far from a passenger.

I thought Cory Wagner worked his way into the game and could take ANB's slot if he can continue to improve... not afraid of body contact and can run both ways.

Sparrow showed signs of fitting in at this level. Seems to use the ball well. I think he holds his spot.

Most everything else I noticed has been covered very well by others.

 

Upon reflecting on the game, I'm actually struggling to find even ONE thing , one positive , to take from it.

What a complete and dismal stuff up.

A long winter ahead.

1 hour ago, Redleg said:

All the teams that won and the Blues who lost added pace. The losers were slower and that shows up.

Our game is built on contested possession and if we don’t win that other sides take the ball away with their outside players and then you have what happened yesterday, a loss where we look extremely slow. 100 more uncontested possessions is the cream for a drawn or winning contested possession game against us. The opposition have worked us out. Look at the way Max was targeted to affect our winning contested possession.

Our game plan B is to do better at A as we have no other plan to fall back on. 

Therefore we need to recruit skilful runners as I have said for a number of years and in the meantime we have to get back to winning contested possession to stop other teams from spreading and destroying us.

It's round 1. Contested footy will win out through the winter months over a long season. Contested footy stands up in finals. Of course you need a bit of pace and skill too but it doesn't call for a dramatic change in style.

Can't wait for Titus's take on the game ?

1 minute ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

It's round 1. Contested footy will win out through the winter months over a long season. Contested footy stands up in finals. Of course you need a bit of pace and skill too but it doesn't call for a dramatic change in style.

It's a bit ridiculous, IMO.

"We need to get back to winning CPs to stop teams spreading" but also "we need to spread more because we're not winning CPs".

We're a side built around winning clearances and CPs. We showed last year that when we do that successfully, we score heavily and win games. I find it silly that after one bad loss, the gameplan needs to be thrown out the window.

The issue isn't our focus on CPs, it's our inability to execute that plan.

After all the preceding comments, surely we have to be asking ourselves 2 key questions:

1. Is Goodwin the right guy?

2. WTF did we sack Jack Watts?

Seriously though, it’s loses like yesterday’s that has prevented our membership numbers from growing substantially. 70K is a pipe dream until this type of perfomance is eliminated. You have to trust in something before you want to belong to it.

2 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

It's a bit ridiculous, IMO.

"We need to get back to winning CPs to stop teams spreading" but also "we need to spread more because we're not winning CPs".

We're a side built around winning clearances and CPs. We showed last year that when we do that successfully, we score heavily and win games. I find it silly that after one bad loss, the gameplan needs to be thrown out the window.

The issue isn't our focus on CPs, it's our inability to execute that plan.

agree with this 100%, we only look slow and get cut up on the outside when we are losing the contested possesion battle

3 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Upon reflecting on the game, I'm actually struggling to find even ONE thing , one positive , to take from it.

What a complete and dismal stuff up.

A long winter ahead.

It was a poor game and not the result we wanted but no need to over react with such a small sample size.

Positives - Sparrow and Wagner fit in well and looked like they could be good players, Salem was sensational (the best game I have ever seen him play), we didn’t get absolutely blown away even though after quarter time it looked as though we would.

I suggest everyone takes a deep breath and relaxes a bit. We clearly have some problems but so do West Coast and other contenders. West Coast lost their first game at home last year also. We played about as bad as we could and I think many will be better for the hit out.

Another positive - Frost to go back to Casey next week and run around like a headless chooks there for the rest of the year. Bring on May!

45 minutes ago, Die Hard Demon said:

I’ve watched every game this weekend and yes our skills were poor. But so have everyone else’s skills. Even the teams that won, their skills were well below par. It’s round one & teams will be very rusty. it really is as simple as that. 

I'm talking about forward 50 entries and our general 'chaos-ball' approach.

I've been wanting to see much more care and thought in regards to forward 50 entries. It hasn't improved and it must if we're any chance of being a genuine threat this year. Full bore and chaotic forward thrusts can't be all we rely on. It's not sustainable.

The difference between some of Port's kicks to their forwards advantage vs ours was alarming yesterday.

14 hours ago, america de cali said:

So is our lack of experience compared to the opposition when we lose. Someone has to mention it every time we lost since 2009. Drew 0 games, Duursma 0 , Rozee 0 and Butters 0 all say Hi. 

It gets mentioned because it's relevant, ADC.

Sparrow 0 games, Hore 0 games, Wagner 8. They had rookies and inexperienced kids, so did we.

But one of the main differences was that their key players, their leaders and their A-graders, the ones they look to to lift them when they're down, are all far more experienced than ours.

Many of our key players have barely played 50 games.

It's an important issue, and it's equally frustrating to people like me to read posts like yours that say "well our opponent had some kids so I don't want to hear anyone say we're young".

But in saying that,  it's not the only issue (our ability to make a prelim last year shows it doesn't have to be a barrier).

5 minutes ago, sisso said:

agree with this 100%, we only look slow and get cut up on the outside when we are losing the contested possesion battle

Which starts with Gawn, and means we have to look into his poor performance yesterday.

Whether it was his fitness, or facing two ruckmen, or Lycett just playing really well, or a combination of those things, our gameplan relies (too much, possibly) on Gawn dominating the ruck. We just can't afford for him to have as little impact as he did yesterday.

2 minutes ago, The Swimming Dee said:

It was a poor game and not the result we wanted but no need to over react with such a small sample size.

Positives - Sparrow and Wagner fit in well and looked like they could be good players, Salem was sensational (the best game I have ever seen him play), we didn’t get absolutely blown away even though after quarter time it looked as though we would.

I suggest everyone takes a deep breath and relaxes a bit. We clearly have some problems but so do West Coast and other contenders. West Coast lost their first game at home last year also. We played about as bad as we could and I think many will be better for the hit out.

Another positive - Frost to go back to Casey next week and run around like a headless chooks there for the rest of the year. Bring on May!

Far from over reacting. It's a clear impression from THAT game. The game is its own context surely.

We were comprehensively beaten. In fact the scoreboard somewhat flatters us. Had they kicked a little straighter.....?

How can we be cooked 15 mins into the first game of the year ??????

Much is made about our contested play style...but we hardly got to much of the contest yesterday...they ran circles around us.

 

The positives for me were Salem Wagner and Sparrow. Salem is a star in the making in my eyes. I cant wait until he reaches the 100 game mark. Looks incredibly fit and is set for a big year.

Wagner worked his way into it with some nice tackles and used his speed well. I would like to see him line up on a wing once we get Garlet back because he has the speed and gut running we definitely need on the outside. There's definitely something to work with there.

Sparrow was the surprise packet for. His JLT games were pretty unimpressive and i just thought he wasnt ready. But he showed great compure and hardness and surprisingly used the ball well. Solid lad for sure, i would like to see him rotate through the midfield at some stage once he gets some games under his belt.

3 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Far from over reacting. It's a clear impression from THAT game. The game is its own context surely.

We were comprehensively beaten. In fact the scoreboard somewhat flatters us. Had they kicked a little straighter.....?

How can we be cooked 15 mins into the first game of the year ??????

Much is made about our contested play style...but we hardly got to much of the contest yesterday...they ran circles around us.

 

We were poor. Saying you cannot find one positive is over reacting.

We cannot be that poor next week imo. That is also a positive 

7 minutes ago, The Swimming Dee said:

We were poor. Saying you cannot find one positive is over reacting.

We cannot be that poor next week imo. That is also a positive 

I saw no positives. 

You seem to be relying on double negatives

1 minute ago, beelzebub said:

I saw no positives. 

You seem to be relying on double negatives

Refer to my previous post - actual positives. 

All good, I can agree to disagree

10 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

As for the game today, I fully accept that the teams that do well in finals are often a bit slower starting the season and then peak in the second half.  I do wonder if we're not seeing another shift in the dominant tactics though.  For a long time it's been the hard contested ball winning sides that dominated.  Even before the AFL made their latest raft of unnecessary rule changes we were seeing a bit of a [censored] towards more pace and outside run again.  The sides that have done really well this round have all embraced that style and worked really had to outrun their opponents (kind of like the side Dean Bailey was trying to put together). 

I think this is a common early-round occurrence and is raised most years - in hot and sunny conditions on dry decks with teams at different levels of fitness, often the outside game dominates and the fitter, faster, harder-running sides do well.

But I reckon in every season, once teams are on more of an equal-footing with regards to fitness, the cooler weather kicks in and teams are more match-hardened and with their skills/decision making refined, the better contested teams start to shine through. And there's absolutely no doubt that come finals time, it's contested footy that wins the day.

Having said that, it doesn't mean we don't need to improve our outside game (particularly with regards to our defensive spread in transition). We were poor at times in this area last year and have been again so far this year. Clearly teams have identified this as our weakness. But I wouldn't be changing our primary game plan focus on contested footy and winning it inside as season after season has shown that this is a successful formula.