Decision making - Poor.

Clearances / Centre bounces - Slaughtered.

Skills - Woeful.

Goal Kicking - [censored]

Forward Line - Tall short

Did not deserve to win today, outplayed and lacking intensity. Deplorable effort yet again when we have everything to play for. Expected more from this side…

6 minutes ago, DubDee said:

We are officially in average form. 

looking at the big picture, I’d much prefer to be out of form now than in August. We have 12 wins in the bank, no injuries and 7 weeks to get back into form

Only if the club does somthing about it.

I dont know where our goals are going to come from.

Kozzie has gone backwards. Tmac was good but didnt score.

Its not sam w and the club wont give one of the browns a gig so im a tad worried.

Okay. Trying to sweep through the negatives as fast as I can... a few players had absolute stinkers and a few more were well down on what they should be expected to offer. Our forward 50 entries were mostly junk, we frequently didn't have a clear target to kick to, we had numerous brainfart kicks, and even when we had a runner bursting through the wing they had no confidence to kick it to even a one on one and instead kept hesitating and looking for the '

Positives. Hmm.

Correcting the forward line problem may yet be relatively simple.  Tom McDonald has definitely proven he can play as a roaming CHF and up the ground. Jackson has also once again shown he doesn't need to be plonked up in the forward line to be making a contribution. There is simply zero doubt left that Brown can come in and not disrupt out structure. Even moreso when you consider how often Fritsch was left trying to compete with the opposition's top tall defender. Brown really must come in as the 'when in doubt, at least he'll get his arms to it' target for our hesitating mids, as well as his capacity to offer good leads.

Other positives... um,

* even when our forward line isn't working and out mids are wasting the ball, our defence is still rock solid.

* if our forward line starts working and our mids stop wasting the ball, we'll routinely double our opponent's scores.

I think the bottom line is, we did not deserve to win today. GWS were excellent and we stunk up the joint. We are blessed with a backline to stops us from losing ugly. But without them this would have been an ugly loss. 
 

The last holding the ball for Hunt, you could tell he wanted options. We were too static for large periods today 

6 minutes ago, deegirl said:

We cannot expect to win games when we’ve got players in the forward line contributing nothing. Spargo, Pickett & ANB all did nothing today. Unfortunately the gap between their best and their worst is massive. 

Very hard to when the opposition defenders mark everything. We needed a big key forward to contest and bring the ball to ground if he couldn't mark it.

In that last quarter the Giants were out on their feet and we bombed it in and out it came, because we had no big key forward to contest or to kick it to.

Even with all of the above, even while we got smashed in the clearances,  a tall forward would have given us a chance to win..

Christ Jayden,  your captain was 1 on 1 in the goal square that last time! 
 

also when you decide to move laterally during a run, you signal it with your arms three steps  before it happens, that’s one of the reasons why you keep getting tackled mate 

Well that was worth the three hour drive down here and now the three hour drive home !

9 minutes ago, Colin B. Flaubert said:

Also, just for AFL journos...

Today wasn't a MASSIVE UPSET as the AFL website is proclaiming.

I'll wear that Collingwood and the Crows were upsets.

The Giants are top 8 material and devastating at their best.

It's almost like they are ready to launch into a 'Melbourne are flaky' narrative already.

I was listening to ABC radio pre-game. They listed the midfields and said GWS have a midfield on paper but will need to bring it to match us. I instantly thought that 'WE' would need to bring it against theirs and it was funny how they didnt mention this.

It seems being top of the table gives you this over inflated respect. Any decent supporter would have been worried about today after our last few games.

Well I’m off to get drunk. 

Double the effort in goal kicking practice. 7.13! 10.10 we win irrespective of how we played and no matter what umpires do!

Other fix to goal kicking problems bring in BBB, and he will certainly help!

2 minutes ago, Jaded said:

GWS were excellent

I thought they were only marginally less horrible than us in the first quarter, but having given them a sniff, it just seemed like they thought - ‘well why not let’s try and win it’. They can be classy, but otherwise they’re a very ordinary opposition. We were just awful. 

1 hour ago, drdrake said:

When you play selfish football you lose.  We have lost that team first do what ever it takes attitude. 

It wasn't a cracking game it was garbage.  We need a high quality mid

What a stupid comment ! Another mid? We need a forward ie BBb to put pressure on their smaller defence  look Dumb  decision not to play Benny. 

43 minutes ago, praha said:

What was the crowd?

Frustrated

When the game was up for grab in the last and we were under pressure, we continue to launch it in to a 1 on 2 and the player they were kicking it to was Fritta.

I don't know at what point did the coaches ever think a Tmac and Action/Gawn forward line was going to cut the mustard in the cut and thrust of finals football.

I can understand leaving BBB out today because of the short turn around but if he's not there come Thursday Night you can forget about being competitive in September with our current Forward set up.

We're very lucky that our backline is so, so good.

13 minutes ago, Jaded said:

Well I’m off to get drunk. 

Way ahead of you.

7 minutes ago, Win4theAges said:

understand leaving BBB out today because of the short turn around but if he's not there

I cant.

For those saying that Goodwin doesn’t see a problem with our forward line, I don’t see how that could be the case. He would know that for the last 3-4 weeks our points For is way below the average of a top 4 side. I think a bit of arrogance crept into his decision, and was probably thinking “BBB isn’t at out expected level, the Giants defence don’t worry me, so we should be fine to leave him out”. 
 

A game against a middle of the table side just needs to be won to solidify our top 2 position. If we don’t finish top 2 I can’t see us breaking our ‘64 drought.

On another note, is Viney’s career at the cross roads? We’ve been carrying him the last two weeks, and he can’t get his foot right. If he doesn’t get it right over the off-season I can easily see him being the next Jack Trengove.

Well, who knew? You need an effective forward line to win against good teams like GWS. Dumb bombs into the forward line (Oliver) won't do it. Fritter got the most out of his game today (regularly outnumbered) and TMac is the answer at CHF. But the ball bounced out of our forward line, leaving the backline horrible exposed. Lever and May were there usual outstanding selves, and I thought Petty did OK - I'm warming to him. Salem - fantastic. Hibberd - not helped by a lack of pressure on the ball-carrier. I can't make up my mind about our mid-field. We got pounded there today, and I don't think they worked hard enough without the ball.

Jackson was good - especially for a kid who's played a handful of games.

Just imagine what would have happened at the end when Hunt got run down. If there's a BBB or Weid presenting, then Hunt kicks the ball sooner.

Fix the forward line and we win.

Haven't seen our midfield toweled up like that in a while. Hardly any clean chains of possessions especially at centre bounces, by the end Gawn was so over the ground ball murdering we copped that he gave up tapping it to the mids and was just belting it forward at every opportunity. Connection going forward still our achilles heel and today it reared its ugly head again, I'm pretty concerned about this patchy form heading into a pretty tough run home. 

What to do with Kozzie? He's running on fumes. Happy with Fritsch given the way the ball was coming in. Brown or Weideman need to come in to straighten us up at the very least in my opinion.

Edited July 3, 20213 yr by RedFox

9 minutes ago, Webber said:

I thought they were only marginally less horrible than us in the first quarter, but having given them a sniff, it just seemed like they thought - ‘well why not let’s try and win it’. They can be classy, but otherwise they’re a very ordinary opposition. We were just awful. 

I thought their midfield was much better than ours. Their backline defended really well and if we had a poorer backline they would have won by a lot more. 
To say they were ordinary today is harsh. They are massive chokers and it’s totally our fault for not putting our foot down early on to make them fall apart.  But when they get going they are classy footy users and have a lot of good players. They can also kick goals a lot better than we us. Our goal kicking is a disgrace. Has been all year. Regulation shots missed by full time forwards every single week. And Trac!

Edited July 3, 20213 yr by Jaded

16 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

Okay. Trying to sweep through the negatives as fast as I can... a few players had absolute stinkers and a few more were well down on what they should be expected to offer. Our forward 50 entries were mostly junk, we frequently didn't have a clear target to kick to, we had numerous brainfart kicks, and even when we had a runner bursting through the wing they had no confidence to kick it to even a one on one and instead kept hesitating and looking for the '

Positives. Hmm.

Correcting the forward line problem may yet be relatively simple.  Tom McDonald has definitely proven he can play as a roaming CHF and up the ground. Jackson has also once again shown he doesn't need to be plonked up in the forward line to be making a contribution. There is simply zero doubt left that Brown can come in and not disrupt out structure. Even moreso when you consider how often Fritsch was left trying to compete with the opposition's top tall defender. Brown really must come in as the 'when in doubt, at least he'll get his arms to it' target for our hesitating mids, as well as his capacity to offer good leads.

Other positives... um,

* even when our forward line isn't working and out mids are wasting the ball, our defence is still rock solid.

* if our forward line starts working and our mids stop wasting the ball, we'll routinely double our opponent's scores.

Brayshaw a real positive too. 

We butchered so many inside 50's in the first quarter, Petracca in particular had a deplorable kicking game, Oliver not far behind him.  GWS turned everything over that quarter and we crumbled at the crucial times.

I saw too many players in self-preservation mode, not putting manic pressure on (Oliver back to his old ways), not putting hands up on the mark, not concentrating on tackles and consistently getting side stepped.

There was no run and carry until it was too late. We just wanted to play boring, comfortable football, without risks.  With zero reward.  Then when we did take a bold kick, we'd fumble it or not take the first option.

Pickett didn't look interested and must be dropped or rested unfortunately, Spargo couldn't get near it, ANB killed chains and Viney was a mess.

For me though, Petracca and Oliver's games were the most disappointing.  Their execution sucked the life out of us.

Ben Brown wouldn't have made a difference today.. the way we kicked it, they would have swallowed him up easily.   We didn't hav any ground players around anyway.

Unfortunately we are still a poor skilled team who can't compose at key moments.  If we don't bring A Grade Pressure, we're just an average unit that can easily be beaten by bottom 8 teams.  

FLATTTTT ?

 

 

 

 

15 minutes ago, roy11 said:

The last holding the ball for Hunt, you could tell he wanted options. We were too static for large periods today 

that is so correct