On 01/04/2019 at 23:16, A F said:

I'm not entirely sure to be honest. Salem is rarely a player I notice, although I love his attributes.

The rain was pretty oppressive and made ball-handling difficult. Playing an outside role needed real gut running and I'm not sure any of our guys have that yet. I don't think Salem has anyway.

Did it only rain when we had the ball? Didn't seem to bother Geelong.

  On 31/03/2019 at 21:40, jnrmac said:

We have always leaked like a sieve. Nothing new there.

Simply not true. Last season. from about round 13, right to the second last game we played we were close to the best defensive team in the AFL and teams struggled to get close to 100 points.

But don't let facts get in the way of your axe grinding 

But to  be clear our defensive unit was only one part of the reason we were so hard to score against in that period. Our all team pressure was off the charts. Which it wasn't in the first half of the season, and certainly hasn't been this season (no doubt as function of our fitness to a large degree), which is why we have been easy to score against.

Edited April 2, 20196 yr by binman

  On 02/04/2019 at 00:18, ManDee said:

Did it only rain when we had the ball? Didn't seem to bother Geelong.

They were a lot cleaner and better structured. That's why they won the game.

  On 02/04/2019 at 01:12, A F said:

They were a lot cleaner and better structured. That's why they won the game.

What does a lot cleaner mean? Did they stand in more rain than us? 

You said "The rain was pretty oppressive and made ball-handling difficult. "  I assume you were offering an excuse for our players, but in the same rain they were cleaner. Why was our ball handling  poor and there's was not, surely not the rain. I posit that their pressure was better than ours.

  On 02/04/2019 at 01:43, ManDee said:

What does a lot cleaner mean? Did they stand in more rain than us? 

You said "The rain was pretty oppressive and made ball-handling difficult. "  I assume you were offering an excuse for our players, but in the same rain they were cleaner. Why was our ball handling  poor and there's was not, surely not the rain. I posit that their pressure was better than ours.

A lot cleaner means they hit up targets and were clean in possession. What do you think it means?

I was referencing Salem being used as an outside player and that without gut-running and clean ball-handling, a player like won't be much use. 

Of course their frontal pressure was better than ours in off the square and in the midfield, and in our forward 50, where they constantly pushed us wide or made us kick to contests that could easily be spoiled or halved. I've said all this before.

You're clearly taking umbrage to the rain comment, which was made in reference to Salem''s ability to be clean by hand in order to receive on the outside. I made no reference to any other players...

  On 02/04/2019 at 01:51, A F said:

A lot cleaner means they hit up targets and were clean in possession. What do you think it means?

I was referencing Salem being used as an outside player and that without gut-running and clean ball-handling, a player like won't be much use. 

Of course their frontal pressure was better than ours in off the square and in the midfield, and in our forward 50, where they constantly pushed us wide or made us kick to contests that could easily be spoiled or halved. I've said all this before.

You're clearly taking umbrage to the rain comment, which was made in reference to Salem''s ability to be clean by hand in order to receive on the outside. I made no reference to any other players...

Sorry AF, I am still reeling from our losses. 

I observed Geelong with better ball handling and disposal where ours was often substandard. I assumed you were being generous to our players allowing an out by way of the rain. 

I cannot understand why our players in the first 2 rounds fall over so much and fumble the ball more than our opponents. 

A few good wins (pun intended) will make me less cranky. Cheers

  On 02/04/2019 at 02:02, ManDee said:

Sorry AF, I am still reeling from our losses. 

I observed Geelong with better ball handling and disposal where ours was often substandard. I assumed you were being generous to our players allowing an out by way of the rain. 

I cannot understand why our players in the first 2 rounds fall over so much and fumble the ball more than our opponents. 

A few good wins (pun intended) will make me less cranky. Cheers

We're all frustrated mate. I think as a few have no observed, fitness is playing quite a part in this. The ability to keep your feet is reduced if you're not fit enough.

It's painful to point us things like fitness because it never seems to effect other teams like it has us, but @rjay posted a good article the other from Clarkson in 2009/2010. The article talked about the difficulty of having so many pre season operations at the end of their premiership year and he said that it impacted their ability to back up their title defence. I'm sure we hoped we'd be able to be around abouts, but at this stage 2019 does not look like a realistic year for a premiership tilt. But who knows. Collingwood (with a simple draw mind you) came back from An ordinary start to last year too.

We'll know if finals is a possibility this Saturday morning.

I had a miserable time at Kardinia Park last Saturday night. Not only did I sit in the rain for two hours watching my team being humiliated, I was "egged" (a victim of an egg thrown at me from a passing car), on my way back to my car(which I had trouble finding!)

 

It reminded me of the abject despair I felt after round 12, 1998, when we were down 15 goals to one at half time against Geelong, and ended up losing by 95, on the MCG!    We improved the next week, only losing by 85 pts in torrential rain to St Kilda, again on the MCG.

   BUT........ later that year, we won two finals, beating  the eventual premiers(Adelaide) by 48 pts in the qual final. We should have been premiers, despite morale earlier having been  at absolute rock-bottom, as it is at present.  No-one could have guessed  we'd do so well after round 13, when a lot of membership cards ended up in microwaves!

I feel confident we can turn it around soon. The guys tried their guts out on Saturday, but NOTHING went right. Their confidence dropped as Geelong's rose. Our best players showed some form(except TMAC...but it wasn't a key forward's night.....even that grinning visigoth, Hawkins didn't kick a bag in an 80 pt win.)

Don't give up, Dees fans.  Let's get started by pumping the pharmacists on Friday night.

  On 02/04/2019 at 00:38, binman said:

Simply not true. Last season. from about round 13, right to the second last game we played we were close to the best defensive team in the AFL and teams struggled to get close to 100 points.

But don't let facts get in the way of your axe grinding 

But to  be clear our defensive unit was only one part of the reason we were so hard to score against in that period. Our all team pressure was off the charts. Which it wasn't in the first half of the season, and certainly hasn't been this season (no doubt as function of our fitness to a large degree), which is why we have been easy to score against.

Yeah yeah Mrs Oscar. 

We were 9th last year from memory for defence. You are seriously deeluded about our defensive capabilities: 4 entries for 4 goals in the third quarter in 10mins. Great effort.

If we were soooo great in defence why have they spent a fortune to get Lever and May?

  On 02/04/2019 at 05:21, jnrmac said:

Yeah yeah Mrs Oscar. 

We were 9th last year from memory for defence. You are seriously deeluded about our defensive capabilities: 4 entries for 4 goals in the third quarter in 10mins. Great effort.

If we were soooo great in defence why have they spent a fortune to get Lever and May?

You really don't have clue about modern football do you.

Also as i have pointed out before, you have a serious comprehension problem. You made the point we have always leaked like a sieve. Which, as i pointed out is factually incorrect.

Why were we 9th last year in defence? Well one because for the first half of the year our all team defence was terrible. A point Goody made on a number of occasions. And we were likely 14 or 15th worst defence at round 13. Ironically that coincided with Lever being in the side. 

We then significantly improved our all team pressure and for the rest of the season were the first or second best defensive team in the AFL. So for 10 rounds and two finals only Sydney got to 100 points and all other teams struggled to score against us. Ergo we did not leak like a sieve in that period. Ironically that coincided with the period of Lever being out of the team. 

If i applied your superficial lens to that statistical reality i would say Lever was the reason our defence was so poor. I mean we were defensively poor when he was in the side and much better when he wasn't. So he must be the problem right?

By the by the Cats' ridiculous goals to inside 50 ratio was down to our appalling ability to trap the ball in the front half and our inability to stop them moving the ball quickly down field. But sure blame the defenders. But if you do don't blame OMac and Frost. Frost had a good game and OMac did his job -  unlike may, hibberd, hunt and Jetta. 

Why did they get Lever and May? Well i would have thought that was obvious. On paper they improve our defence. Both gun defenders who if they ever get on the park should in theory make our defence better.  

Edited April 2, 20196 yr by binman

Sorry to digress here, but why can't we edit posts anymore?

  On 02/04/2019 at 07:06, A F said:

Sorry to digress here, but why can't we edit posts anymore?

You can....but only for a short while after posting. ..maybe 5 mins

You can't delete.

Why... dunno...not my place

Edit edit edit

And... again lol

Edited April 2, 20196 yr by beelzebub

Turning back to some discussion on football, I saw a clip from Footy Classified last night where Lloyd or Judd pointed out three or four instances of us winning a clearance and Oliver/Brayshaw/Viney/whoever kicking long when a shorter option was available (one in particular had TMac leading up into a gaping hole 40m out directly in front but whoever had the ball went 20m past him to nothing but Cats).

Is it as simple as our mids lowering their eyes? I feel we've conditioned the mids to wanting to get the ball and bang it inside 50 because we expect to either mark it or bring it to ground and the resulting congestion in there is what we want. Or is it more that Geelong read us better than other sides might? Or are the forwards doing the wrong thing by pushing too far up the ground when we really want them to stay deeper and ensure we have targets?

  On 02/04/2019 at 11:38, titan_uranus said:

Turning back to some discussion on football, I saw a clip from Footy Classified last night where Lloyd or Judd pointed out three or four instances of us winning a clearance and Oliver/Brayshaw/Viney/whoever kicking long when a shorter option was available (one in particular had TMac leading up into a gaping hole 40m out directly in front but whoever had the ball went 20m past him to nothing but Cats).

Is it as simple as our mids lowering their eyes? I feel we've conditioned the mids to wanting to get the ball and bang it inside 50 because we expect to either mark it or bring it to ground and the resulting congestion in there is what we want. Or is it more that Geelong read us better than other sides might? Or are the forwards doing the wrong thing by pushing too far up the ground when we really want them to stay deeper and ensure we have targets?

That was Brayshaw,  who ran onto one of only a few good taps, from Gawn...  brayshaw3 then ran with the footy out of the sqare,  turning onto his left boot then blazed away to the

forward-pocket region. Tmc had lead staight out from the goal square to around 35 - 40 out and was vitually on his own. it just needed the ball chipped over too him.

Our player missed at least 15 - 20 options, from the wing and forward, to chip the ball to a waiting teammate.   We butchered the ball all game...   even when our efforts started to rise.

 

I just finished watching the replay. and Weide actually did quite a few good things,  I think unnoticed by many.  And so did Frost.

I started with a view that Frost was ordinary,  and while he made a couple of mistakes, he was quite good and stopped the Cats from scoring a few times,  and intercepted the ball often... stopping them from Marking.

 Oscar was ordinary in the 1st Qtr, but he also improved his contesting.  Frost was the better imv.

 I liked Lockharts efforts.

 Tracca tried a few times and did a  couple of nice plays. but was generally out of form.  And his weight did hinder his athletic ability.

 

Oli was vvery good.

KK was very good. 

TMc tried hard but is not a F/F... Deep Forward. 

Gawn was beaten around the ground by Stanley, and was ineffective at the hitouts...  got many but were not effective.  Stanley won that duel.   Even IF Scott wants us all to think the opposite.

Hunt should not start as a defender.   He aided the confusion amongst our defenders   IMO he has to start deep forward.   He's one of our deep forwards  (should be)

 

  On 30/03/2019 at 21:26, Dr. Gonzo said:

Maybe because the supporters throw in the towel at the first sign of difficulty?

I would agree with that if I had not experienced 50 years of failure. The sign for the club are very ominous that not throwing in the towel it reality.

I came away from the game thinking Petracca needs a stint at Casey.

But after watching the replay, I thought he did a few constructive things. It was just the two bad errors....the dropped chest mark near goal at quarter time, and the intercepted pass later inthe game costing a goal ,that stuck in my mind.

I hope he's given another chance against the Peptides....he's ready to have a good game, I reckon, and it'll make a big difference to the forward line,

  On 02/04/2019 at 00:18, ManDee said:

Did it only rain when we had the ball? Didn't seem to bother Geelong.

composure v anxiety  +++ homeground advantage.