As usual the lazy bathwater criticisms being trotted out , as though its only attitude that's the problem. I'm afraid its much more than that.

Just switch the [censored] footy.for some reason we kick down the line every time.

We have Brayshaw, Oliver and Viney who are more likely to win posseession and  get it more often than whoever they oppose.

But when we switch we create options.

keep them guessing.

33 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Is that something we simply have to accept?  I always felt it would take us a little bit of time to get going with the amount of injuries and so forth we had over the summer.  Today was proof of that.

I'm not worried, just accepting of the fact it might take us a few rounds to get the ball rolling.

You’re making excuses mate. 

Today was worrying. 

Just now, loges said:

As usual the lazy bathwater criticisms being trotted out , as though its only attitude that's the problem. I'm afraid its much more than that.

I think we all know it’s part of the problem. As we can all see we have a few of them based on today’s game. 

4 minutes ago, DemonOX said:

I think we all know it’s part of the problem. As we can all see we have a few of them based on today’s game. 

Probably about 1% of the problem.

That was insipid.

skills, decision making, effort, run.  All poor or worse.

so many stalwarts had absolute mares.  It was horrendous.

we make Westoff and Pepper pig look good.

man, there needs to be a serious video review of that.

23 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

I also think we'll take time to adjust to the new 6-6-6 rule.  Someone else mentioned it earlier too, but I think our gameplan is hurt the most by this.  We have probably needed to make the most changes because of it.

Couple that with injuries and underdone players and you get what we served up today.

But we easily won centre clearances so 6-6-6 didn’t seem to impact.  Our forward pressure was abysmal because we have no forward or stoppage structure and chased the ball like schoolboys again. Same as JLT. Every team in the league knows our forwards don’t defend well.  It shouldn’t be too hard for our coaches to fix it and go man on man and become a forward 50 pressure team.  If we do fix it and lock it in, we need to sort out stoppages. Port scored 30 more points from stoppages than us today.  That’s the game just as much as being hurt on the outside.

The contrast between the way they kicked in after points and the way we did was ridiculous.  We just conceded and let them run it to 20-30m and go bang.  But Port didn’t give us an inch after their points.

You’re never as good as you think you are after a win, and you’re never as bad as others think you are after a loss. Prediction, we’ll beat Geelong.

4 minutes ago, McQueen said:

You’re making excuses mate. 

Today was worrying. 

Worrying signs were coming from the JLT game.

So many excusee and cop out on here which is pathetic.  We were completely out ran and bullied by a bunch of kids who wanted it more and were willing to work harder.

1 minute ago, McQueen said:

You’re making excuses mate. 

Today was worrying. 

I'm with you there Macca. Late start or not the way we decided not to run flat chat and just let Port run away from us is worrying. Could name at least 6 players that looked disinterested and jogged around about 20 yards off the ball doing nothing. Goodwin needs to put a rocket up most of them. Also our IQ is poor. Need to do some basic paper work Monday instead of training. Some of those players had blank empty faces out there and did not know what to do.

15 minutes ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

They had a 4 week head start -  how can you put the blame at our fittess staff.  It's the penalty we paid for making finals last year. 

I'm happy to leave my assessment on that until the end of the 2019 season.

Good call. At the risk of criticism the heat at the ground in the stands was uncomfortable.  I hate to think what it was like playing. No water carriers until goals. Midway through 2nd 1/4 gus was in trouble and attended by the doctor. Max was off for slabs of time. 

Not an excuse but the 4 week gap in training program against port always meant these conditions were to be an issue. 

If it's possible to become a poor man's Brent Maloney, then Petracca is it. Time for a spell.

22 minutes ago, A F said:

It'll be interesting to see how we recover next week. Dreading the trip down to General Admin at the Cattery. I reckon it might just be a maulling.

With our pre season, we were always in a bit of trouble. The JLT was enlightening and anyone who wasn't disturbed by how easily we conceded inside50s and scores doesn't understand football. That trend continued today with a clearly underdone Jack Viney (a real lack of leadership to declare himself fit when he so clearly isn't - I saw him limping around during the warm up on Instagram - the guy can hardly move) and Melksham seemed to be sore too, hence many miskicks and not wanting to take basic shots on goal.

Our midfield is such a one way running midfield. I thought we'd got past this, but it seems to be a combination of fitness and desire. The heat today didn't help either, but Port seemed fine.

The other aspect that was unacceptable was that Tom McDonald (who did the same thing during the JLT) and Gawn, each went for multiple marks one-handed. Gawn seemed to be in self-preservation mode for much of the game. He refused to go back with the flight at one point too. Not to mention, he was thoroughly outplayed by Ryder and Lycett. 

The positives were few and far between, but Corey Wagner and Tom Sparrow did nothing to harm their selection for Round 2. Brayshaw was good in the clinches but was run off his feet on the rebound, as was Clarry and Harmes. Salem was probably our best, but not much to take away from today other than that we are so overhyped it's ridiculous. List wise we don't have many holes, but there has to be a question mark over our tall forwards and whether they can deliver and our lack of pressure forwards is notable when you look at Collingwood and Richmond. We're not even close to their pressure.

How we bounce back next week will tell is everything about whether or not we're a premiership threat. I have a feeling we're nowhere near it.

Calm down dood.

9 minutes ago, McQueen said:

You’re making excuses mate. 

Today was worrying. 

Possibly, but I'll wait for a larger sample size before I act like a five year old after the first game of the season.  That's not directed at you mind you.

12 minutes ago, A F said:

It doesn't mean the coaching staff didn't review it and take lessons from that game to incorporate into our system going forward.

My post is just referencing an earlier post from a poster who says we didn't AF....see above

Thankfully, we didn't have an interrupted preseason.

4 minutes ago, Return to Glory said:

If it's possible to become a poor man's Brent Maloney, then Petracca is it. Time for a spell.

Not a bad comment, though Trac plays far less midfield time than Beamer did. Hopefully Trac fires up and wins a BnF like Beamer did at some point. It’s so frustrating to see a player of his talent be uninvolved for 95% of the match.

35 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

I also think we'll take time to adjust to the new 6-6-6 rule.  Someone else mentioned it earlier too, but I think our gameplan is hurt the most by this.  We have probably needed to make the most changes because of it.

Couple that with injuries and underdone players and you get what we served up today.

Absolute rubbish. We have the best midfield in the comp. Should be to our advantage.

We lost it because we played like a 2nd rate side and allowed them nearly 100 more uncontested possessions. Aside from Salem no-one else showed up. We were pathetic.

As for our lame defence. Its just as well May comes back in next week.

2 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Possibly, but I'll wait for a larger sample size before I act like a five year old after the first game of the season.  That's not directed at you mind you.

On the contray, I wasn't in the game day thread because I was watching the game, but the post game discussion seems quite reasonable to me. No one has acted like a five year old.

No excuses, just completely outplayed, didn't deserve to win

54 minutes ago, Jack son 5 said:

Que the "it's ok,  it's only RD1"  demonland brigade.

Well I mean, it is only round 1. 

We're missing two key backmen. Viney is badly underdone. We lacked experience in the defensive 50. We were younger overall vs them.

Eagles were average round 1 last year. We all know how that turned out. Pies were making similarly mindboggling mistakes last night. Richmond hardly blew people away on Thursday.

You gotta take the bad with the good. We were very average but reality is we have 21 games to make amends. 

It was a poor performance. Oliver Viney Gawn Brayshaw Mcdonald had little to no impact. We only lost by 23 points. Would have been closer if Jones wasn't such a spud.

Let's get real hear. Two of the aforementioned have decent games and it's game on, we potentially win. And that's with three defensive generals missing.

you just can't kill yourself over a round 1 loss. Would you rather this loss now, or leading into finals?

Edited March 23, 20196 yr by praha

7 minutes ago, Docs Demons said:

I'm with you there Macca. Late start or not the way we decided not to run flat chat and just let Port run away from us is worrying. Could name at least 6 players that looked disinterested and jogged around about 20 yards off the ball doing nothing. Goodwin needs to put a rocket up most of them. Also our IQ is poor. Need to do some basic paper work Monday instead of training. Some of those players had blank empty faces out there and did not know what to do.

Name them. 

It is possible that this club isn't good enough.

 

If we’re going to progress, we need to stop dropping these types of games.

Losing to bottom 8 interstate teams at home has to stop. We should be able to bank these games without breaking a sweat at this point. Very disappointing.

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.

Even the Port supporters were louder than the Melbourne supporters, really bad day.

At least Winx won