31 minutes ago, Deeko2 said:

You may have missed our ginger headed All Australian and Bluey Truscott winning midfielder.....

Yes I did Deek.

But my point stands.  We are below the likes of the Blues,  on future talents already on lists.  They;'re list is stronger than Ours which will show in another couple of seasons...

Unless we get back to the draft and pickup more skilled talents. (with attitude) we went for Tracca ahead of Degoey...  who is a quick running player with some height and is a strong marking player.

 

Exactly the type  we are in sore need of. 

 

Tracca could be anything,  but seems content to just be an AFL player getting games each week.

Edited April 22, 20196 yr by DV8

Oliver is miles ahead of any other player in his draft year

carlton's list is utter dreck when the likes of marc murphy, kade simpson, liam jones, daisy thomas, matthew kreuzer, ed curnow, and levi casboult still running around as key players for them, and all are on the wrong side of 29

gimme our core players over theirs any day

Edited April 22, 20196 yr by whatwhatsaywhat

13 hours ago, DV8 said:

Weideman was not a mistake. BuT Weide is about all we got from the draft that year.

The Blues IMO cleaned up that year with Curnow, McKay, Weitering,

Well he was, I'd happily trade him from 9 out of the next 10 players selected after him. Two of them are mobile talls who we elected not to bid on. 

Trying to get a sense of how Hawthorn and Geelong set up defensively from kick ins.

Looks to me like Hawthorn are playing something closer to man-on-man? It certainly seems like their last line of defence isn't pushed up as far as ours usually is (but it's admittedly very hard to tell from TV).

1 hour ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

Oliver is miles ahead of any other player in his draft year

carlton's list is utter dreck when the likes of marc murphy, kade simpson, liam jones, daisy thomas, matthew kreuzer, ed curnow, and levi casboult still running around as key players for them, and all are on the wrong side of 29

gimme our core players over theirs any day

Simple,  2 hands,  two legs,  one mind.

 

How many goals assists does he have in 2019...  and where is he on the leagues goal assists averages.?

Gee v Haw

One on ones all over the field today, no defender taking the easy zone off option. 

Take note MFC...

1 hour ago, Watts the matter said:

Well he was, I'd happily trade him from 9 out of the next 10 players selected after him. Two of them are mobile talls who we elected not to bid on. 

You might,  I certainly would not.

He is just beginning his afl career.  As a 22 Yr old.   No player can hold a whole forwardline up,  at 22Yrs of age.

 

Even Carey couldn't.    He just started his strong run, at 22yrs of age.   And we know Carey was a once in a generation type player... playing in a strong footy club after recent AFL successes.

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/pc-adelaide-crows--wayne-carey

 

 

Edited April 22, 20196 yr by DV8

The cats are looking seriously good and will be there late in September..... again.... 

Not flinching and backing themselves into hold Kelly was ballsy but could pay off with a flag the way they are looking. Plus getting some genuine speed in Rohan and Dahlhaus is paying huge dividends.

I’m so sick of them but worse, I’m incredibly jealous of them. 

The umpires doing their best to get Hawthorn up.  Amazing.  Last free on the boundary was invented.

good to see sellwood is allowed to throw the ball without any repercussions 

Just now, Rusty Nails said:

The umpires doing their best to get Hawthorn up.  Amazing.  Last free on the boundary was invented.

Was just about to post the same. Did he pay that as a push? Kidding me, right?

Just now, Dee Zephyr said:

Was just about to post the same. Did he pay that as a push? Kidding me, right?

He did.  Half his body was already over the line and he was given the slightest of shoves into the top of left shoulder.  Ump called it without hesitating.  The umps call things (or don't) very differently for the top clubs and players vs the also rans like us.  Winning against any of the top 4 Vic clubs and clubs playing out of Marvel is an amazing achievement at any point in the calendar.

5 minutes ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

good to see sellwood is allowed to throw the ball without any repercussions 

The kicking in danger earlier also for the Cats overlooked by 4 umpires.  They would call that against us 9 out of 10 times.

5 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

He did.  Half his body was already over the line and he was given the slightest of shoves into the top of left shoulder.  Ump called it without hesitating.  The umps call things (or don't) very differently for the top clubs and players vs the also rans like us.  Winning against any of the top 4 Vic clubs and clubs playing out of Marvel is an amazing achievement at any point in the calendar.

Those little shoves happen 20-30 times a game without a free kick being awarded. The look of confusion on the players’ faces says it all really.

Edited April 22, 20196 yr by Dee Zephyr

30 minutes ago, Deeko2 said:

The cats are looking seriously good and will be there late in September..... again.... 

Not flinching and backing themselves into hold Kelly was ballsy but could pay off with a flag the way they are looking. Plus getting some genuine speed in Rohan and Dahlhaus is paying huge dividends.

I’m so sick of them but worse, I’m incredibly jealous of them. 

Scott learnt their deeficiencies from our finals game... and they took immediate steps to rectify their lack of speed.

It payed them Immediate dividends.

I hope that our players were required to watch the Cats v Hawks game in its entirety,  though I guess if our coaching staff are too arrogant or too far up themselves to have reviewed, and learned from, our PF loss then they were probably told to relax and eat a batch of Easter eggs, and turn up for their paychecks on Thursday regardless  

Delivery into 50 was for the most part precise and looked as if there was actually a plan, with a bail out plan as well ....... still I guess with our team having so many entries into 50 they may feel we don’t actually need a plan or any skills either.

How absolutely gutting to watch these two teams, who we convincingly booted out of the finals only 8 or 9 games ago, thinking they were on the slide, fighting back whilst we just roll over and meekly capitulate in what has sadly become our style.  

Edited April 22, 20196 yr by monoccular
Add meekly

9 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Easter Monday... hard to imagine that not that many years ago this along with QB were the rounds of the season.

Now it just seems to be one more game at the end of a very long round.

Perhaps five days of football is too much.

Combine it with the games on Wednesday, Thursday and the coming weekend we have football on ten days out of eleven.

And NOT enjoying any of it.

4 hours ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

good to see sellwood is allowed to throw the ball without any repercussions 

Don't forget the new self invented Gary, looked like an unusually large ball of muscle and throwing, ducking and weaving to his hearts content. No bandages, no nothing.

I attended Geelong vs Hawthorn yesterday courtesy of the corporate box. Though I drank a fair bit, here's my observations and thoughts:

- We beat both these teams in finals only 7-8 games ago. Both these teams are a mile ahead of us now. There were rule changes over summer that we have not adapted to, where as these clubs have. We beat Geelong by 5 goals, and 4 games later they belted us by 80 points. WTF was the club doing over summer to allow a 100+ point turn around happen?!

DEFENSIVELY
- Both usually setup to play one on one, no more zone [censored]. They also keep at least one player back in their defensive 50, or at least closest to goals by a fair way. They will not let their deepest player get sucked up the ground to the contest. We do not do this, and still play a zone defence. Our zone defence plays far too high, getting sucked up the ground and means when the opposition in the ball and move forward they have a paddock of space to utilise and our defenders are placed under enormous pressure. 

- With the one on ones, that means there's less big pack situations. When there is a pack though, both teams will always have a player stay down for the crumb, as the likelihood of a big pack mark is low. For whatever reason, our players defy logic and all fly for the same ball with no-one waiting down. You'd think it's common sense not to do this, but apparently not!

- When a team loses possession and the oppositions free player gets the ball out on the wing, both teams were happy to concede this and instead their midfielders in the corridor push back harder to flood the backline with an extra one or two players. While the ball carrier is then under little pressure, their kick inside 50 rarely hits a target as they are outnumbered. Our mids have been abysmal in pushing back to provide defensive support. This is purely down to lack of effort and foot speed.

- Both teams utilise the new kick in rules after a behind. They are happy to run the extra distance they are now given and move the ball quickly all the way to the middle of the ground/wing in one kick. If these positions are too crowded, they will run the ball out with less pressure as the man on the mark is pushed further away from the kicker under the new rules, and a teammate will block them anyway to allow the kicker to sometimes run nearly all the way to the 50 metre arc unopposed. Sicily did this multiple times and was super effective yesterday.

- Our team has not adapted to the new kick in rules. We rarely run the extra distance and utilise the additional space. We kick it the same flank over and over hoping Max will mark it (which he rarely has this year). Teams know we do this and now crowd that flank. When this happens, we chip to the point and then stop waiting for options. We never run the ball out, and we never try kicking long to a different spot. What we are doing with kick ins is not working, and we have not adapted.

OFFENSIVELY
- 6-6-6 means that forward lines are crowded. All this rule has done is shift the congestion from the middle of the ground to the forward lines, essentially creating an artificial flood of sorts. When a team wins a centre clearance and streams forward, they either have a shot from outside 50 or kick it to a pack of 6-12 players. It's the reason that scoring is the lowest it's been in over a decade. Due to the amount of players crowding forward lines, big forward aren't able to marks the ball this year and small forwards are excelling as they're having more opportunity to crumb artificially created packs. 

- With that in mind, both teams have several smaller forwards with pace and use these players as their main scoring avenues. 
Geelong had Ablett, Rohan, Miers, Dalhaus etc. all doing damage. All of them kicked goals, with Ablett and Rohan kicking 3-4 goals each. They also all rotated up the ground and found ball. Miers and Dalhaus in particular played great linking roles, utilising their pace to break lines across the wing and through the corridor. 
It didn't work for the Hawks yesterday due to Geelongs brilliant defending, but they had Puopolo, Wingard, Bruest and others down there. Those three players can all kick bags, and could have if the delivery was a tad better and they'd kicked straighter (Bruest and Wingard both missed multiple shots and only registered behinds).

- Our small forwards are slow, do not hit the scoreboard and rarely help to link up play e.g. Spargo has not scored AT ALL from 4 games now, and is averaging 9 disposals and less than 1 tackle a game. He must be the least effective player in the AFL at present. We have bugger all options, and it's why most of us are now screaming out for Garlett to return, as he'll likely thrive in the current AFL gamestyle. It frustrates the hell out of me seeing us pass on guys like Petrucelle at the draft, then watching them use their speed and have an impact at other clubs.

- Both teams have big blokes who can take a contested mark. Roughead, Hawkins, Rat, Gunston, Lewis, Blicavs etc. all took strong marks yesterday. Our big blokes, though receiving poor delivery, are not marking the ball at all. Last year we were one of the best contested marking teams with TMac and Gawn marking anything that came their way. This year we are ranked second last in the league for contested marks. When our gamestyle is the bomb the ball into 50, not marking it and then having no speedy crumber around is a recipe for disaster. This alone is the reason why we will finish bottom four this year. It's a fatally flawed plan, and blame rests with the coaches for not addressing it and coming up with alternatives.

SPEED
- It's obvious, but our foot speed is currently amongst the worst in the league. It's pure ratshit. Geelong is full of old blokes on the cusp of retirement, yet they currently run rings around us. Hawthorn are the same, with Smith, Poppy, Bruest, Impey, Scully, Worpel, Wingard etc providing good run and speed. Our team is lacking speed all across the park, but particular through the midfield and up forward. We should seriously consider trading one of our big bodied midfield types (Petracca?) to secure a good running outside-leaning midfielder in the Ed Langdon mould. It frustrates me seeing other clubs land players like Treloar and Shiel while we twiddle our thumbs. We need to offer up big and land Coniglio as a free agent. Until we fix our speed issue, we will continue to get burnt on the outside by most teams and continue on a road to nowhere. 

EXCUSE THE LONG POST. NEEDED TO VENT!

Edited April 23, 20196 yr by Lord Travis