11 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Lockhart has been OK since the Cats/Tigers games. I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon.

Smith is a bust, the guy is useless. I'd rather have Tomlinson out there as bad as he has been.

Tomlinson has had 3 goals in total kicked on him in 4 weeks playing back. 

17 minutes ago, Half forward flank said:

It was a demand, not a discussion. Beyond that you know as well as I do he was coaxed away from GWS on a four year deal to play as a wingman. That was spruiked by all and sundry at the club in the off season.

Oh ok... well let's have a discussion.  How much money is he on?  I'm not being a smart [censored], I genuinely don't know.

Who have we beaten no one in the top 8 bar the pies who’s injury list is huge along with them coming of  playing lots of games with short breaks. The test will be next week against the saints. 

2 hours ago, Forest Demon said:

 

- One point on the umpiring, not sure if it was raised by the commentators, but twice we got pinged for pushing in the back as they were kicking, and that’s fine, but how the hell can they both be down field when they were clealry in the kicking action? Both kicks were shanked due to the push.

 

This riles me unbelievably 

How do the umpires not know this? It's like a50m penalty to them

1 minute ago, Hogan2014 said:

Who have we beaten no one in the top 8 bar the pies who’s injury list is huge along with them coming of  playing lots of games with short breaks. The test will be next week against the saints. 

We just had our test. Saints will kill us the same way they have always done. Membrey will kick 5.it's written in stone 

Let's see if Richardson can earn his money because we know Goodwin won't make one change to combat st kildas strengths

10 minutes ago, grazman said:

Oh ok... well let's have a discussion.  How much money is he on?  I'm not being a smart [censored], I genuinely don't know.

No a discussion on my post would include why we talked him up as a wingman and answer to a pressing need, got rid of frost and are now playing him as a back. 

Mahoney on Tomlinson

 

He’s played a number of different roles for the Giants, but predominantly what we’re looking for is someone who can run up and down the MCG on the wing.

4 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

We just had our test. Saints will kill us the same way they have always done. Membrey will kick 5.it's written in stone 

Let's see if Richardson can earn his money because we know Goodwin won't make one change to combat st kildas strengths

Agree we failed against the dogs ( as usual) season has shown up & down games, if we fail against the saints just reinforces we are very average. 

17 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Not hungry enough 

to beat good sides you have to be ready to fight

We still don’t know if Goodwin can coach against good opposition 

 

not looking good today

 

A half time lead was surrendered very meakly

You don't?  

11 minutes ago, Half forward flank said:

No a discussion on my post would include why we talked him up as a wingman and answer to a pressing need, got rid of frost and are now playing him as a back. 

It would also include what you consider to be 'big money'.  If you don't know what he's on just say it... but it's not unusual for sides to recruit against a known deficiency in their list.  So Tomlinson's not playing wing and AVB is - are you arguing we could have banked on AVB making a recovery and that Frost is actually a better backman than Tomlinson.  There were also other issues at play with Frost being traded?

Edited August 23, 20204 yr by grazman

2 hours ago, Forest Demon said:

I was at the game yesterday and we were pretty comprehensively outclassed, some notes below.

- Pressure from the forwards was terrible, they had so many options bringing it out, it was just a procession

- They applied pressure in the middle to the likes of Petracca - every disposal was under duress and we didn’t cope

- Their mids had great inside/outside balance, they just flicked a couple of handballs and they generated the cleanest of clearances with acres of space

- May was fantastic, his body work always working his forward slightly under the ball before spoiling with real purpose

- Harmes is being wasted, his current position plays to none of his strengths

- Our goalkicking was terrible and we never looked confident, we could have been still in the hunt late if we had kicked straight

- 3rd quarter was abysmal, no more to add

- One point on the umpiring, not sure if it was raised by the commentators, but twice we got pinged for pushing in the back as they were kicking, and that’s fine, but how the hell can they both be down field when they were clealry in the kicking action? Both kicks were shanked due to the push.

Summary: pressure our mids, be prepared to run, and you are a very very good chance of beating Melbourne.

First five minutes the warning bells were on high, as Demons looked flat.

As bad as we were for the day, some points to consider:

- Melksham touched set shot, Fritsch missed everything in 3rd, Kossie two points from early shots, generally poor goal kicking. Make 3 of these shots and maybe a different game

- mids flat for the day, other than Viney, the rest no chasing, went back to dinky football, rather than bold of last week and last quarters of preceding two weeks

- Melksham and Fritsch had opportunities and poor conversion, Weideman made most of limited opportunities, Pickett, Spargo, Hannan didn’t do enough, their opponents seemed to have a free reign. AVB also fitted into this bucket. TMac little influence.
- Bontempelli running free and starring, nothing done, just let go

- team probably played 10 minutes of reasonable football in later part of 2nd quarter

Add all of the above shockers and only lost by 28 points! Makes me think all isn’t lost. Most teams bar Geelong have had at least one if not too underwhelming performances in this season, as Hub life, different game breaks, never getting home games, adds an additional challenge into the year.

The good, the defence under attack for a lot of the game, Due to little or no forward/midfield pressure held Dogs to only 12 goals. May, Lever, Tomlinson, Lockhart, Salem All pretty solid.

Really up to Oliver, Petracca, Brayshaw to lift consistency, take the game on every week, and forwards to chase like their careers depend on it!

52 minutes ago, Half forward flank said:

Who knows. How can it be that with a ruck coach and a good relationship and advice from Gawn that a big strong ruckman and good midfielders not be in synch. They practice this stuff all the time. Who calls the plays. Did you see any form of communication between ruck and mids at critical times like in the third quarter LN

I'm sure there would have been some, hard to tell when watching just on tv these days, but from the somewhat limited view we get there didn't seem to be much communication out there. We really seemed to lack leadership on and off field yesterday.

We still don't have very strong leadership in the organizational sense IMO. We have the effort types, but not enough that can sense what is happening and instruct our players on the field.

Beaten by a better side on the day.  And a better, smarter BTDT coach.

50m penalties cost us two goals.  Kicking into a man on the mark 30 out doesn't help.

Viney one of the bulldogs better players I thought.  Tries to give it the old dusty way too often and as he is the size of a [censored] teddy bear he is not effective at it. Just gets wrapped up.

Like the tigers earlier in the year when we had a chance (albeit slim) to come back our skills went walkabout (lockhart, petracca, brayshaw kicks)

Dogs midfield were better all day, from the first bounce.  Someone always kicks a bag against us or a PB.  Wallis today.

May and Lever pretty bloody decent I thought.  

[censored] of a day.  Didnt take our chances and they took them in the third quarter.  

 

10 hours ago, Deesprate said:

Sitting at the ground today the least problem we had was May and Lever. By far was the complete lack of accountability to stop the Dogs running from defence. There were loose players everywhere plus their disposal skills put ours to shame. Add the way we butcher the ball the score flattered us. After seven years of rebuild we are such an average football club and the management and coaching group need to own that. Hate to be the voice of doom but I can’t see us being any better in the short term

Watching on a very small screen,  What appeared to me was that the backs did a competent job, the problem seemed to be that the ball came out of our i50 or from the centre with relative ease, therefore getting inside their scoring area quickly or accurately. Sometimes both.

Against the pies, our attack seemed to get to the contest, just in time, and win most of the time. Against the dogs, it just did not happen, we got to the contest late. And they were well spread across the ground seemingly without a demon close by.

I will read this and other threads to see what more competent  observers think of our game yesterday. I can't organise my sock drawer and if you saw my business desk you would wonder how I managed my work for last 37 years, I wonder sometimes.

The game style against Collingwood was great, the opposite yesterday,   What went wrong and how do we fix it,  not to blame anyone just how do we fix it.  Repercussions can wait till December.   Go Dees.

33 minutes ago, Half forward flank said:

No a discussion on my post would include why we talked him up as a wingman and answer to a pressing need, got rid of frost and are now playing him as a back. 

Frost completely ruined our defensive system with his unpredictable headless chicken act. Tomlinson is solid back there. We clearly hoped Oscar McDonald would be able to hold down that third spot and that Petty, who will end up being the defender he was drafted as, would have provided an option here.

Tomlinson will play on a wing next year.

As for Frost, anyone that thinks he is a loss doesn't understand the predictability needed in the modern game from the back. Or has wilfully forgotten how unpredictable he was, even in his 8th year. 

There ironically seems to be a correlation between those that think Goodwin should have everything together, but stick up for a defender who was in his 8th season and still couldn't play to system or eliminate brain fades.

We did lose most of the day, but IF in the third we had kicked two goals and managed to stop two of the dogs, we would be talking totally differently, FFS its a 4 quarter game   even if we are only playing 16 minutes....

24 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

I'm sure there would have been some, hard to tell when watching just on tv these days, but from the somewhat limited view we get there didn't seem to be much communication out there. We really seemed to lack leadership on and off field yesterday.

We still don't have very strong leadership in the organizational sense IMO. We have the effort types, but not enough that can sense what is happening and instruct our players on the field.

Disagree. May and Lever show very strong leadership to set up the team from the back. I reckon they'd be filthy on the lack of defensive running in front of them yesterday.

13 hours ago, Vagg said:

Actually, he spent ages before the game with his goal kicking practice.  Was out on the ground long after the rest of the team had gone back in before the game start.  Alas, it didn't seem to help much!  And, to think, in his first year he was a dead eye d*ck...!

He's got the Yips, Mr Seaspray. Maybe one day it will work out better, more consistently but practice is everything in his routine. 

45 minutes ago, grazman said:

It would also include what you consider to be 'big money'.  If you don't know what he's on just say it... but it's not unusual for sides to recruit against a known deficiency in their list.  So Tomlinson's not playing wing and AVB is - are you arguing we could have banked on AVB making a recovery and that Frost is actually a better backman than Tomlinson.  There were also other issues at play with Frost being traded?

Hey graz - you weren't being rude at all with your question to him earlier. Far from it. 

The onus of proof is on him. He claims Tomlinson is on the big money, so it's up to him to back it up. 

10 minutes ago, A F said:

Disagree. May and Lever show very strong leadership to set up the team from the back. I reckon they'd be filthy on the lack of defensive running in front of them yesterday.

Yeah, nearly put in that disclaimer tbh. Both those guys do it, but that's it from what I can see, which is why I put "not enough" (should have clarified). We need it in the middle.

51 minutes ago, D4Life said:

First five minutes the warning bells were on high, as Demons looked flat.

As bad as we were for the day, some points to consider:

- Melksham touched set shot, Fritsch missed everything in 3rd, Kossie two points from early shots, generally poor goal kicking. Make 3 of these shots and maybe a different game

- mids flat for the day, other than Viney, the rest no chasing, went back to dinky football, rather than bold of last week and last quarters of preceding two weeks

- Melksham and Fritsch had opportunities and poor conversion, Weideman made most of limited opportunities, Pickett, Spargo, Hannan didn’t do enough, their opponents seemed to have a free reign. AVB also fitted into this bucket. TMac little influence.
- Bontempelli running free and starring, nothing done, just let go

- team probably played 10 minutes of reasonable football in later part of 2nd quarter

Add all of the above shockers and only lost by 28 points! Makes me think all isn’t lost. Most teams bar Geelong have had at least one if not too underwhelming performances in this season, as Hub life, different game breaks, never getting home games, adds an additional challenge into the year.

The good, the defence under attack for a lot of the game, Due to little or no forward/midfield pressure held Dogs to only 12 goals. May, Lever, Tomlinson, Lockhart, Salem All pretty solid.

Really up to Oliver, Petracca, Brayshaw to lift consistency, take the game on every week, and forwards to chase like their careers depend on it!

Good summary.

The part I highlighted is the important aspect to remember - nothing is ever as bad as it seems after a loss... well, unless we get smashed by 12 goals!  The same can be said for a win, which we've all just found out.  We won three on the trot, which sounds good on paper, but when you look at the opposition it doesn't hold as much weight.

But as you say, all is not lost.  We are playing a similar team in St. Kilda next, so I'm interested to see what, if any, changes are made for it.

3 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Yeah, nearly put in that disclaimer tbh. Both those guys do it, but that's it from what I can see, which is why I put "not enough" (should have clarified). We need it in the middle.

That onus should be on Viney as the midfield leader then. He worked hard, but played his dumb selfish brand of see ball get ball and didn't seem to hold the other guys to account when they weren't running hard enough, because it continued.

Whereas, the defensive unit held up pretty well all things considered.

18 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Goodwin put too much faith in our mids going head to head against their’s. 
 

No negating on Bont. No negating on McCrae. One of our biggest strengths in 2018 was Harmes work as a tagger. Why not try something?

Hibbo has some credits in the bank, but he was shocking today. 

Sorry credits in the bank is what kills us, a player is only as good as his last game, his last 2 games if you are unsure. Hibbo was crap 2day and I would still drop him, because last week he was average. You need to judge his mistakes in the context of the game eg a 15m kick to their player in space at CHF, going across ground instead of looking for someone forward of the ball. He's still making and repeating these errors in the tail end of his career. Time for fresh blood.

9 minutes ago, A F said:

That onus should be on Viney as the midfield leader then. He worked hard, but played his dumb selfish brand of see ball get ball and didn't seem to hold the other guys to account when they weren't running hard enough, because it continued.

Whereas, the defensive unit held up pretty well all things considered.

Yep agree, but that's what I'm saying about the leadership, Viney is one of those effort type leaders but we rarely see him organizing the midfield or instructing/directing. Then we have Preuss, Oliver, Petracca and Brayshaw, none of whom are leaders. Forward line only TMac I would consider any kind of genuine leader but he's too busy concentrating on his own game.

I don't know what the answer is. Perhaps if we had a coach who communicated better and was a stronger leader it wouldn't be something that hurt us so much.

Edited August 23, 20204 yr by Lord Nev

We lost the game because our defensive system was not followed.  I hate it when I see the dees jogging after the contest.  It is my number one indicator that we are going to lose.  With no pressure at half forward, any entry that went in to the 50 at 40-50m out was just waltzed out, switched and put back into the dogs 50 for a shot.  

The lack of pressure from the midfield and the half forwards was pathetic.  The dogs would pressure us and spread from contests and we would invariably have a skill error and they would have options moving into space.  The back 6 had a hell of a day, as ther was no defensive support up the ground to allow them to get into the right positions.  When the switch happened, it happened fast and this gave them all the space they needed.

Did we get ahead of ourselves? Did the conditions have an effect on our disposal more than we thought (it did on some of our kicks at goal).  

A weak defensive effort by a team that looked like it was ahead of itself.  Wanted a shoot-out and needed to stick to its knitting.