23 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

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.

The biggest change required is to match them or better them in terms of work rate. Do that and spread hard from contests offensively and defensively and we win IMV.

I reckon we need to slow the game down more too and not get sucked into playing fast the whole time. I'd like to know what our play on numbers were like yesterday in comparison to previous weeks. Also think because our mids didn't work hard enough yesterday, we couldn't get it on the outside enough.

1 hour ago, Half forward flank said:

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.

I’m still laughing at Mahoney. Tomlinson played his best footy at CHB or CHF for Giants.  That’s why he needs to play CHB for Dees. 

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

This riles me unbelievably 

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

Yes, I asked this question during the match day posting, I thought the rule must have changed ( another one ).

1 hour ago, A F said:

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.

My intent was not to push the point on Frost.You are cherry picking. The point was the Club made a point of going out and getting a wingman on a substantial contract. They then told the Membership they had recruited a wingman for the MCG. He isnt playing that position because he is not a wingman,even in the knowlege it is a major weakness. If you cannot understand it is poor recruitement then thats your issue but it does not solve our wing and outside run problem.

47 minutes ago, Half forward flank said:

My intent was not to push the point on Frost.You are cherry picking. The point was the Club made a point of going out and getting a wingman on a substantial contract. They then told the Membership they had recruited a wingman for the MCG. He isnt playing that position because he is not a wingman,even in the knowlege it is a major weakness. If you cannot understand it is poor recruitement then thats your issue but it does not solve our wing and outside run problem.

Couple of points on this.

1) how do you know we've offered him a 'substantial contract'?

2) he is playing well in defence. You're annoyed he's playing well? Who cares where he was recruited to play.

3) his versatility has been very handy to plug holes due to injury (Petty) or failure to come on (Oscar).

4) we will recruit a KPB to take Oscar's spot on the list or Petty will move back and Tomlinson will move onto a wing in 2021.

I'm not sure why you're feeling so sleighted by the club here, because Tomlinson is performing his role well and is apart of a markedly improved defensive unit. Clearly the big team positive out of this year.

Edited August 23, 20204 yr by A F

1 minute ago, A F said:

Couple of points to this.

1) how do you know we've offered him a 'substantial contract'?

2) he is playing well in defence. You're annoyed he's playing well? Who cares where he was recruited to play.

3) his versatility has been very handy to plug holes due to injury (Petty) or failure to come on (Oscar).

4) we will recruit a KPB to take Oscar's spot on the list or Petty will move back and Tomlinson will move onto a wing in 2021.

I'm not sure why you're feeling so sleighted by the club here, because Tomlinson is performing his role well and is apart of a markedly improved defensive unit. Clearly the big team positive out of this year.

1. Do you concede the Club recruited him as a wingman and marketed that idea to Members to fill a glaring hole

2. Omac hasnt come on? Are you saying the club thought he would improve this year. If so no wonder we are where we are.

 

Just now, Half forward flank said:

1. Do you concede the Club recruited him as a wingman and marketed that idea to Members to fill a glaring hole

The club recruited him to play wing with Ed Langdon. With Ed offering great run and AVB bringing a crunch around contests, we moved Tomlinson back to fill a more significant need. And by doing this we have improved our defensive system that is keeping us in games.

I don't really care how the club markets things to members. Marketing is marketing. I care about what I am seeing on the football field.

That said, I have been very impressed by our marketing team this year.

Just now, Half forward flank said:

2. Omac hasnt come on? Are you saying the club thought he would improve this year. If so no wonder we are where we are.

I am saying that, yes. Why else would they keep him on the list if they didn't think he would improve?

I'm not an Omac fan, but was prepared to back the club to give him time as a developing KP tall. I think it's probably run its course now and I think the club seem to agree, given their selections of late.

Two things I've been reflecting on and wondering about the impact of:

1. Yesterday was our first game with a red ball all season. I'm also guessing it was our warmest game since Round 1, five months ago. I have no idea whether there's any merit to this at all, but is it possible we struggled to adjust to the earlier start, red ball and/or warmer temperature?
2. Yesterday was our second game all season at Metricon, but it was the Dogs' 6th. I wonder whether they knew the ground dimensions better than we did and planned accordingly?

2 hours 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!

Agree re having a shocker and only really just losing. I reckon close to our worst performance for season along with Port game. Whereas Dogs played to their best ability so I plenty of upside for us. Saints game critical and we will bounce back. Extra day to recover and playing in Alice where Saints have not played before. Bring our best and should win well as we do play Alice ground well.

30 minutes ago, Half forward flank said:

1. Do you concede the Club recruited him as a wingman and marketed that idea to Members to fill a glaring hole

2. Omac hasnt come on? Are you saying the club thought he would improve this year. If so no wonder we are where we are.

 

By the way, how do you know we offered Tomlinson a substantial contract? You dodged that question earlier...

14 hours ago, Hogan2014 said:

Will be a repeat of 2017, will just miss finals ... there’s a real mental toughness issue within the group, just can’t maintain the intensity. 

Been a problem for years, current coach too close to players. That said too many of our players have zero Killer instinct. Thats why we will ALWAYS be downhill skiers. Unless we get some players who have got Killer Mongrel in them AND some skills and poise we will remain Irrelevant!

2 hours 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.

The backline is starting to show signs of this buut the mids and fwds are non existent.

IN the 3rd when they had kicked 2 goals it should be - lockdown on them for 5 mins and regain composure - but no, our one paced game plan (flat out) just keeps doing what they have done. Bang. Another 4 goals kicked in quick time.

Thats leadership right there. Yes we dont have our Captain but it should be up t the senior players to address this. Very poor.

26 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Two things I've been reflecting on and wondering about the impact of:

1. Yesterday was our first game with a red ball all season. I'm also guessing it was our warmest game since Round 1, five months ago. I have no idea whether there's any merit to this at all, but is it possible we struggled to adjust to the earlier start, red ball and/or warmer temperature?
2. Yesterday was our second game all season at Metricon, but it was the Dogs' 6th. I wonder whether they knew the ground dimensions better than we did and planned accordingly?

We tend to play Metricon alright, so reckon it was a case of just not working hard enough.

This may sound silly but I wonder what impact Jones' late withdrawal had on the forward mix and what we had planned there. We certainly lacked leadership across half forward and the midfield.

Edited August 23, 20204 yr by A F

Just now, A F said:

By the way, how do you know we offered Tomlinson a substantial contract? You dodged that question earlier...

What baffles me about the focus on Tomlinson this week is that he was one of our best yesterday and played one of his best games for the club.

He was providing rebound and making space for us to spread and get scoring chains going.

21 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Two things I've been reflecting on and wondering about the impact of:

1. Yesterday was our first game with a red ball all season. I'm also guessing it was our warmest game since Round 1, five months ago. I have no idea whether there's any merit to this at all, but is it possible we struggled to adjust to the earlier start, red ball and/or warmer temperature?
2. Yesterday was our second game all season at Metricon, but it was the Dogs' 6th. I wonder whether they knew the ground dimensions better than we did and planned accordingly?

Sorry I think its clutching at straws. That really doesn't explain, effort, focus, pressure and dumb football - like kicking into the man on the mark and giving away 50m penalties.

 

12 minutes ago, Docs Demons said:

Agree re having a shocker and only really just losing. I reckon close to our worst performance for season along with Port game. Whereas Dogs played to their best ability so I plenty of upside for us. Saints game critical and we will bounce back. Extra day to recover and playing in Alice where Saints have not played before. Bring our best and should win well as we do play Alice ground well.

I reckon our West Coast game was worse than yesterday's. At least we had midfield-forward connection at times and lowered our eyes most of the time. Against West Coast we bombed long every time on top of our forwards heads and to the advantage of West Coast players. 

Port was the worst, West Coast second worst, the Bulldogs display was frustrating like the Richmond and Geelong games. We struggled with our transition from offence to defence and back again against Richmond and Geelong, whereas we were okay in this respect yesterday.

4 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

What baffles me about the focus on Tomlinson this week is that he was one of our best yesterday and played one of his best games for the club.

He was providing rebound and making space for us to spread and get scoring chains going.

Absolutely. People are just frustrated and I get that, but it's misdirected. Tomlinson is slowly growing into the role back there.

15 hours ago, Deemania since 56 said:

When is Fritsch going to prepare for a match by kicking 300 practice goals at training each week? No rest until he nails 300 goals. 

....and when is he going to stop leading into the pocket and marking on the boundary line?

Is it him or do the opposition take him there cause they know hes 500/1 to kick it from out there !!

6 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Sorry I think its clutching at straws. That really doesn't explain, effort, focus, pressure and dumb football - like kicking into the man on the mark and giving away 50m penalties.

 

I don't think @titan_uranus is saying there are one or two factors and that's it. He's just saying there might be multiple factors at play.

15 hours ago, Deemania since 56 said:

When is Fritsch going to prepare for a match by kicking 300 practice goals at training each week? No rest until he nails 300 goals. 

His problem is he always takes his marks on the flanks and pockets.

Great that he gets a number of shots but hard to convert angles.

2 hours ago, pinkshark said:

You don't?  

I am losing faith...

wrong thread

Edited August 23, 20204 yr by Pickett2Jackson

20 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Sorry I think its clutching at straws. That really doesn't explain, effort, focus, pressure and dumb football - like kicking into the man on the mark and giving away 50m penalties.

 

As @A F said, I'm certainly not putting the performance down to these things, not at all.

But one thing that was problematic for us yesterday was the way the Dogs spread the field and used the wings. We know that teams like West Coast and Geelong play their respective home grounds better by using width/length/etc., and we know we have struggled for a time at the MCG for a similar reason. I don't know Metricon's dimensions so it might not be a factor for us but I wonder whether the Dogs (in a credit to Beveridge) knew the ground's dimensions and tried to exploit them by stretching our zone out and switching across the ground. 

Maybe they would have done the same at any other ground we played at, so it may well not have been a factor at all, but it's just something I noted. With the Dogs having played 5 games there before yesterday to our 1, it could have been a (sort of) home ground advantage to them.

2 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

As @A F said, I'm certainly not putting the performance down to these things, not at all.

But one thing that was problematic for us yesterday was the way the Dogs spread the field and used the wings. We know that teams like West Coast and Geelong play their respective home grounds better by using width/length/etc., and we know we have struggled for a time at the MCG for a similar reason. I don't know Metricon's dimensions so it might not be a factor for us but I wonder whether the Dogs (in a credit to Beveridge) knew the ground's dimensions and tried to exploit them by stretching our zone out and switching across the ground. 

Maybe they would have done the same at any other ground we played at, so it may well not have been a factor at all, but it's just something I noted. With the Dogs having played 5 games there before yesterday to our 1, it could have been a (sort of) home ground advantage to them.

Hopefully the opposite occurs next week.

Saints have never played in Alice Springs while we’ve been playing there since 2014, and performed well there on the last 3 occasions .

Last word for me on Tomlinson

He was not the problem yesterday but the position we recruited him for was and still is. So instead of filling a gap in our wing position  in our 2019 recruiting we have to go out and do it again this year.