POSTGAME: Rd 16 vs GWS

[BDA 22,875]

32 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Here's the thing. It wasn't a bad day in the office as you say. To say so is glib,  'oh well we're 12-3'

This has been building for weeks. We have only played 3 or 4 good games for the year - where we have played 4 quarters. The rest in reality have been scratchy wins an dpoor losses. We seem incapable of starting well, getting a lead and building on that lead.

That is not the signs of a good side. Yes we can defend but our defence is under huge pressure and can't stop everyting.

We are 3 and 3 from the last 6. We havent kicked 10 goals in the last 3 matches. Our fwd line is dysfunctional. We haven't kicked 100 pts since round 7.

 In the last 3 weeks Kickett has kicked 1 goal, TMac 1 goal, Spargo 1 goal, and Fritsch got 3 yesterday taking his tally to 4.

That is not going to take you deep into September. We are papering over the cracks because we are 12-3.

Our vaunted midfield yesterday were terrible. They were obliterated. They have been playing poorly for weeks by only playing in patches. Yesterday they were completely outclassed and were shown up. Bathwater maybe.

The sefless footy seems to have disappeared and it was bees to the honeypot yesterday - what happens when players lose trust, don't play instinctive first give football and start worrying about their own stats.

We have a hard run home and if the problems aren't sorted quickly we will be rueing a massive lost opportunity. Goodwin has had a good year but his history as a coach shows some deep flaws including not being able to get players up for the first quarter, being stubborn in selection and losing games to sides we should in reality smash. Think 2 losses in 2020 to bottom 4 sides that cost us a finals spot, think 2017 loss to 14th placed COllingwood when we didn't lay a tackle in the first 20mins of a must win game to make finals. This year poor wins over North, losses to the Pies and Adelaide.

It's clearly not time to throw everything out and start again, nor is the sky falling, but lets be realistic about where we stand. We have had a good run but the next 4 weeks are probably the most important in the last 15 years. Crumble and this could set us back a long way. Stand up and acknowledge where and what we need to do better.

 

GoDees

 

I didn’t intend to be glib

All fair points

We’ve been poor for 3 games now but we did beat the doggies and the Lions just prior to that. Our best is very good

Too many of our players are out of form. We are flat and our ball movement is so stagnant and laboured. We need to inject some freshness and energy.

Port game is now massive. Season defining. We’re going to find out whether this is a mid-season bad patch or something more terminal.   

The coaching team will earn their wages over the next few days.

[Clintosaurus 7,860]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I thought that might be the case as well but a Goodwin comment in one of his pressers this week seemed to indicate this wasnt the case. Seems we're just in a bad form slump unfortunately.

He would not want to use it as an excuse though.

[Altona-demon 321]

A couple of observations - and apologies if these have been raised earlier in the thread - i haven't gone through all pages. 

1. Jack Viney is a very limited disposer of the footy. High floating dump kicks - which lack penetration.  These kicks are either turned over, or inevitably formed another contest which we lost. He also burnt Petracca very badly at the top of the goal square. I am not convinced his "grunt" makes up for these incessant turnovers on our half forward line (which rebound very quickly). I'm not against Sparrow playing through the midfield - he has a cleaner disposal, more penetrating kick and is a midfielder playing out of position at half-forward at the moment.

2. Clayton and Christian both ball watching and not running two ways - happened at a number of stoppages. The outnumber at the stoppage really hurt us and you could see GWS plan to sit behind our players at stoppage and push players into contests and then hold the outside space for the spread when the ball came out.  Kelly in particular carved us up on this tactic. 

3. Our ball movement is so predictable it has now become a weakness.  The one time we actually used tempo kicking to direct the ball slowly into the forward 50 it was effective because the other team just sets up now for a contest and creates unmarkable balls for TMac (or any other forward for that matter).  Let's use some measured entries to reduce our predictability.  This includes the short kick across our half-forward line and penetrating into the 30 m out space.  Rather than simply relying on crumbing or miracle marks all the time.....

4. Pickett was so quiet it wasn't even funny, I don't even remember him getting it our touching the ball.  What is the structural reason for this? Why isn't Pickett getting played through the middle at centre bounce any more? I found this was an effective way to "get him into the game" - he is the sort of player one feels who needs to TOUCH the ball to get into a game.  Surprised he isnt getting some minutes through the middle - he is the sort of player we want touching the ball in the middle / half forward area -which leads me to my final point.

5. Is it time for Salo to play through the middle and do what he does off halfback (distribute hit up targets etc) through the middle into the halfforwad/full forward space.  No other midfielder has been able to lower their eyes and hit targets in this way.  Can we bring in another distributor (is Bowey ready) to play that role for the team, or even shift Sparrow or Rivers into that role?

[Red But Mostly Blue 4,547]

13 hours ago, AmDamDemon said:

Yea it might happen, but it might not. We smashed Brisbane and the Dogs. Reality is, that is the same team that has lost to two bottom of the table teams and one other team in the eight. Gotta love it, anything can happen and I’d rather be here than in the position of any of those other teams, who are all chasing us.

This is true. I am optimistic for the game against Port. At our best we can beat anyone. At our worst, we can be beaten by anyone. I guess that's probably true for most clubs, but if we're going to be a serious threat for the next 5 years, we can't be seen to be so fragile. The Hawks, Cats and Tigers in recent years were certainly not viewed that way. I appreciate we have a while to go to reach a similar peak, but to get there we have to be honest with ourselves. The boys have to fight every game, for 4 quarters, to continually build that image and trust. That's got to restart against Port.

Go Dees

[buck_nekkid 6,046]

Our best is good enough, but we haven’t seen it for quite a few weeks.  Without the back 7, we are in real trouble.  The mids were absolutely thrashed by the giants, and the run and carry was pressured and poor all day.  The forward set-up is geared to work off the midfield pressure and overlap - when this is poor, the forward setup looks abysmal.  

We really are in a ‘slump’.  We are playing like a mid-table team with not enough consistency across all aspects of our game.  We have a target on us and are hunted, and i reckon most teams think they are a good chance to knock us off each week.  Zero fear factor about the demons atm.

Looks like Ben Brown crapped the bed in the 2’s - Weid did more to earn a place and should be considered for a run.  We looked way too short in the forward half yesterday, and it looked like they had no confidence kicking to contests, just bombed it to rebounding oppo players.

Having a team defence is OK, but we have to score more than the opposition do.  Our kicking for goal has been bad the last few weeks (TMac should have taken both shots as drop punts rather than those round the corner bangers - he didnt land one in warmup, so why think he would get them during the match?).

Currently we are playing like a team that would be 5-8 on the ladder.  If we don't see rapid improvement and consistent application over the next few weeks, that will be where we end up.  We dont have the maturity yet to dominate at the top - i hope this little period kick starts some hunger and propels them to such potential.

[jnrmac 20,179]

51 minutes ago, Clintosaurus said:

He would not want to use it as an excuse though.

Oh don't worry they will if needed

We are world champs at that

[old55 23,687]

It was a very disappointing loss and we've burnt any buffer we had for top 2 and even top 4.

We definitely stepped up in the second half - we were down 60-69 in contested at half time and finished 138-131 so went 78-62 in the second half and were down something like 24-31 inside 50s at half time and finished 56-55 so went 32-24 in the second half.  But the real problem is we were under water in clearances at half-time and went further south finishing 24-39 and 6-11 for centre clearances.

We burnt a lot of opportunities in the last quarter and a tall marking target in BB would definitely have helped.  TMac got up the ground and marked well and Fritsch was great in the aerial contest forward, but Max and LJ didn't really offer anything when down there. 

But I never thought we would win because even if we converted one of those relatively straightforward chances in the last quarter, the ball was going back to the middle and 2 times out of 3 it was going straight into the Giants forward 50.  I've heard some arguments about quality of our clearance vs poor quality opposition clearances - but for a team that plays "territory football" we just cannot afford to be smashed in the centre clearance like that with 6-6-6.  Sure GWS have a strong midfield but so do Port and the Dogs coming up.  Seriously - the back 7 should sue the midfield for the pressure they put on them - Captain and VC in there.

[D4Life 2,510]

2 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Finished watching replay late last night.

Our first quarter was incredibly frustrating to watch. This unfortunately brought back memories of 2019. So many inside 50s for 0 reward. And once again it was the same usual suspects who continue to butcher it going forward..  Oliver, Harmes, Petracca and Viney. Notice these are so called leaders?

Forward is a complete mess. Amount of times we had the ball forward of centre to then having to wait until the likes of Fritta and McDonald sprint back to give us an option. By then GWS were able to flood back numbers. McDonald played a good game playing as that roaming CHF, but yet we had to rely on Fritsch as our FF. Just a complete mess. 

I like Jackson, I really do. His ruck work and around the stuff is amazing for a young ruckman. But as a forward, he might as well be a witches cone. Doesn't add any value up forward and unfortunately he's a bit of a weak link because he's simply not a natural forward and this is taking away a spot for Weideman/Brown. Need to work out how best we use him moving forward because him up forward is simply not working. 

Stafford, Goodwin and whoever else is in charge of selection committee needs to swallow their ego's and arrogance and just get Brown in and leave him in there to build cohesion with his teammates. It was do bloody obvious that majority of us supporter raised this as a concern when team selections came out on Thursday.

Petracca and Oliver are doing my [censored] head in. We saw the Hollywood [censored] they dished up against Collingwood and I said after that game that if Goodwin is fair dinkum he gives them an absolute bake. Well it's CLEARLY evident that nothing has been done by the coaching staff in rectifying this because that's 3 games in the row these two Id iots have cost us goals and turnovers through trying to be fancy. 

If I read another article that Petracca is in the same level as Bont I'll spew up! He is so far daylight apart from Bont that's its not funny. 

The comments around Hunt costing us the game is laughable. Besides those 3 blunders he actually played a good game. I can easily list 10 other things that cost us the game. He stays in the team.

Full credit to May, Lever and Salem who were absolutely a rock in defence. They all did their job while the rest up the field completely shut the bed. I hope May tore shreds off them. How demoralised would it be when you and your back 6 are doing the job, but its the fruit cakes ahead who kill us with simple mistakes.

I said last week that I believe the doggies were clearly the number 1 team in the comp as they were  complete all over the ground. I said maybe their defence was shaky, but then I read a stat that they were number 1 in the AFL for some of the key defensive stats. Certain individuals who I won't name, had their rosy red and blue glasses on tried to justify this.  This is why the doggies and Lions are the best team in the comp. They win they should be. We don't.

Overall a very disappointing game. 

 

Very disappointed with the Demons but haven’t given up all hope yet.

We killed the wonderDogz at their home ground, and tore Brisbane apart after giving them a 3/4 goal start!

Yes we’ve dropped off in form, but our best has proven to be good enough.

To me BbB has to be given 4-5 weeks, at least we will kick straighter and hunt could only run 40 meters then kick it towards Brown, rather than having nothing to kick towards!

[Demon17 5,202]

53 minutes ago, Altona-demon said:

A couple of observations - and apologies if these have been raised earlier in the thread - i haven't gone through all pages. 

1. Jack Viney is a very limited disposer of the footy. High floating dump kicks - which lack penetration.  These kicks are either turned over, or inevitably formed another contest which we lost. He also burnt Petracca very badly at the top of the goal square. I am not convinced his "grunt" makes up for these incessant turnovers on our half forward line (which rebound very quickly). I'm not against Sparrow playing through the midfield - he has a cleaner disposal, more penetrating kick and is a midfielder playing out of position at half-forward at the moment.

2. Clayton and Christian both ball watching and not running two ways - happened at a number of stoppages. The outnumber at the stoppage really hurt us and you could see GWS plan to sit behind our players at stoppage and push players into contests and then hold the outside space for the spread when the ball came out.  Kelly in particular carved us up on this tactic. 

3. Our ball movement is so predictable it has now become a weakness.  The one time we actually used tempo kicking to direct the ball slowly into the forward 50 it was effective because the other team just sets up now for a contest and creates unmarkable balls for TMac (or any other forward for that matter).  Let's use some measured entries to reduce our predictability.  This includes the short kick across our half-forward line and penetrating into the 30 m out space.  Rather than simply relying on crumbing or miracle marks all the time.....

4. Pickett was so quiet it wasn't even funny, I don't even remember him getting it our touching the ball.  What is the structural reason for this? Why isn't Pickett getting played through the middle at centre bounce any more? I found this was an effective way to "get him into the game" - he is the sort of player one feels who needs to TOUCH the ball to get into a game.  Surprised he isnt getting some minutes through the middle - he is the sort of player we want touching the ball in the middle / half forward area -which leads me to my final point.

5. Is it time for Salo to play through the middle and do what he does off halfback (distribute hit up targets etc) through the middle into the halfforwad/full forward space.  No other midfielder has been able to lower their eyes and hit targets in this way.  Can we bring in another distributor (is Bowey ready) to play that role for the team, or even shift Sparrow or Rivers into that role?

Agree with all your points except the last. 

We move Salem and tinker with defence at our peril.

its the maon/now only reason we are still competitive.

[Deemania since 56 6,716]

1 hour ago, Altona-demon said:

A couple of observations - and apologies if these have been raised earlier in the thread - i haven't gone through all pages. 

1. Jack Viney is a very limited disposer of the footy. High floating dump kicks - which lack penetration.  These kicks are either turned over, or inevitably formed another contest which we lost. He also burnt Petracca very badly at the top of the goal square. I am not convinced his "grunt" makes up for these incessant turnovers on our half forward line (which rebound very quickly). I'm not against Sparrow playing through the midfield - he has a cleaner disposal, more penetrating kick and is a midfielder playing out of position at half-forward at the moment.

2. Clayton and Christian both ball watching and not running two ways - happened at a number of stoppages. The outnumber at the stoppage really hurt us and you could see GWS plan to sit behind our players at stoppage and push players into contests and then hold the outside space for the spread when the ball came out.  Kelly in particular carved us up on this tactic. 

3. Our ball movement is so predictable it has now become a weakness.  The one time we actually used tempo kicking to direct the ball slowly into the forward 50 it was effective because the other team just sets up now for a contest and creates unmarkable balls for TMac (or any other forward for that matter).  Let's use some measured entries to reduce our predictability.  This includes the short kick across our half-forward line and penetrating into the 30 m out space.  Rather than simply relying on crumbing or miracle marks all the time.....

4. Pickett was so quiet it wasn't even funny, I don't even remember him getting it our touching the ball.  What is the structural reason for this? Why isn't Pickett getting played through the middle at centre bounce any more? I found this was an effective way to "get him into the game" - he is the sort of player one feels who needs to TOUCH the ball to get into a game.  Surprised he isnt getting some minutes through the middle - he is the sort of player we want touching the ball in the middle / half forward area -which leads me to my final point.

5. Is it time for Salo to play through the middle and do what he does off halfback (distribute hit up targets etc) through the middle into the halfforwad/full forward space.  No other midfielder has been able to lower their eyes and hit targets in this way.  Can we bring in another distributor (is Bowey ready) to play that role for the team, or even shift Sparrow or Rivers into that role?

All good points - some very valid and worthy of action. These are difficult decisions and even more difficult to admit as observer comment. I think that the coaching staff have decided across the past month to ignore experienced observational comment.

[Half forward flank 1,022]

15 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Good in form side? They lost to the Hawks last week and drew with North recently.

They are a backs to the wall side, but they were certainly not in form. It was two teams in bad form coming up against each other.

Semanitics. We lost to a good side. I will stick by what I said. Going into next week commentators will say GWS are in form. Some like you may not. If however you are right  that it was two teams in bad form it just further establishes what I said further. its over to Goody now to get us a crack at a flag as the season hots up at the business end.

[Demonsone 2,043]

Dont rate Brown as one trick pony and understand fitness via the VFL but Bremerton said once that playing in the reserves/vfl is not always the answer for certain players.

[Bay Riffin 1,479]

18 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Some of the supporters walking out of the ground cursing and blaming Hunt have no idea about football I’m afraid. Utterly a more pathetic effort than the display of the team today.
At least the coaches tried something with Hunt forward and Gus back in the last. It didn’t work but they had to do something. It tells you some of our forwards weren’t anywhere near it today. 
Untimely game was lost in the middle today.

Not sure why everyone is defending Hunt. He’s been good playing back this year but he simply had a very poor game. His awareness was awful. He’s been good but let’s call it correctly, it was a balls up when we had control in the last quarter. 

[Little Richard 6,265]

Today I’m not as disappointed with the loss, but fuming at the way we played. Dropping back to second or even third over the next couple of weeks is better IMO, takes the heat off a playing group that is renowned for its mental fragility.

However, I am worried that we don’t have the experience or knowledge to allow us to peak at the right time, ie the eve of finals.

[At Least I Saw a Flag 5,274]

On a news report the newsreader said that the GWS was a massive upset. Really? Was anyone here in the least surprised?

 

[dazzledavey36 55,316]

I know times have changed and maybe I'm a bit out of wack here. I haven't really notice any other teams do it but Richmond few years ago.

But the last few weeks I've seen our players laughing and joking as they run out or when they are just warming up before the bounce. Our starts have been terrible, and it's a genuine concern that we are always playing catch up footy.

Is this a new thing? I question the mind set of some of these players who think it's going to be a walk in the park.

Even in country footy we still get a serve pre game if players are seen laughing and joking when playing bottom sides. 

[1964_2 2,357]

Hi All, 

It’s not helpful to panic or over-react to a loss, and you can’t win every week unfortunately. Having said this, it is important to learn from a day like yesterday. 

I couldn’t be happier with this year, and the clear improvement choco, Yze, goody and the players have delivered. But, we do still appear to be slow to learn. I will summarise my thoughts below, and interested in any views, agree or otherwise. (Apologies for duplication, as I am sure you would have covered much of this)

James Harmes:

 Is a tagger + nothing else. This is a player, that appears to get too happy with himself at times, and unfortunately is not smart enough to play a half-fwd flank, or wing. So if there is no tagging job for a game, then he should be playing VFL - especially as we have many similar players to him (but a bit smarter). 

Viney:

let’s not panic here. If it takes Danger a month to get back to his best from a similar length injury, then we can give Jack 4 weeks before we start calling for his head. 

Petracca/Oliver:

not at their best yesterday, but we can’t be a team that relies on them dominating to get a win. 

May/Lever:

Thankyou to whoever’s decision it was to chase them - we are nothing without them. 

Petty:

seamless replacement for Tomlinson. Reliable + compliments May/Lever. 

Kozzy/Spargo/ANB:

kozzy needs a rest, a clear coaching error to not identify this. The three of them have been critical all year, but at least 1 of them does need to play a strong offensive game, to compliment the defensive pressure they bring most weeks. A good coaching move to identify that they were off yest, and try Hunt fwd. it nearly won us the game. 

Gawn:

when not ruck, I think he provides most value a kick behind the play on wings/defence. When another key fwd (Brown/Weid) finally stands up, we will obviously have this luxury.

Brown/Weid:

it couldn’t have been more obvious last week against the Dons, that we needed another key target inside 50. Clearly they decided to take too much comfort from the win, rather than addressing weaknesses. I am concerned with Weid, and his ability to have a presence at AFL level. Please Ben Brown, step up and regain your status as one of the comp’s best full fwd’s. 

Fritsch:

wish he wasn’t so selfish, but has a key role in the team + will benefit when Brown finally steps up. 

TMac:

don’t change a thing. He is not our inside 50 target. He is our CHF that exploits his opponents lack of fitness by leading all the way up to half back flank. Will also benefit when key inside 50 target steps up. 

Jackson:

give him the rising star, and sign him for 4 years. Will be a top 5 player in the competition in future years. 

Salem: 

half-back flank, and key cog in defence. Don’t mess with the things that are working. 

Hibberd:

amazing that he is playing his best footy at this age. And let’s hope we have Maynard ready to play the same role next year.

Jordon/Sparrow:

Keep playing them (especially Jordon). They are the future + I am not sure potential replacements such as AVB + Melksham add more to the team. 

Langdon/Brayshaw: 

don’t change a thing. See above re don’t mess with things that are working. 

Rivers/Hunt:

Riv a future star of the comp. Hunt - a great role player this year (although execution was off yest) 

 

keep the faith demons supporters. It’s a tough time of the year. Goody - Learn from yesterday, tinker and address the deficiencies, smash Port, then the season is well and truly on track. 

 

[Demonised 1,355]

I've been asleep for four months. Looks like the same old same old. Have I missed much?

[Brownie 5,986]

Ben Brown got benched early in the vfl game last night. FINALLY! they must be bringing him in for Thursday's game.

Hope he gets a really good run at it.

Also gotta say Petty is getting better and better each week. I hope the backline holds together through to the finals because we're rubbish without them at the moment

[dazzledavey36 55,316]

2 minutes ago, Brownie said:

Ben Brown got benched early in the vfl game last night. FINALLY! they must be bringing him in for Thursday's game.

Hope he gets a really good run at it.

Also gotta say Petty is getting better and better each week. I hope the backline holds together through to the finals because we're rubbish without them at the moment

Petty has been good. I thought he was solid yesterday. 

[Dr.D 1,771]

can someone tell me why Petracca, Oliver and Harmes consistently start in the centre square if they've consistently shown to get smashed at clearance? Why have they earned the right? Surely it's time to try different guys there and have Petracca coming off the half forward line or carry off a wing or something. We just can't keep rolling off the same guys expecting a different result. 

[Fat Tony 5,262]

We did pretty well to get so close given how badly we performed at centre clearances and stoppages, how poor our kicking for goal was and how inefficient Petracca, Oliver and Viney were by foot. Despite losing the clearances by 15 and the midfield being so poor with kicking, we had more inside 50s, 4 more marks inside 50 and 1 more scores.

The game plan is ultra defensive and we get lot of our scores from interceptions in the middle of the ground. GWS were disciplined not to give us these. 

The plan needs to be a bit more flexible to go through the corridor and use the open wing. Particularly if we bring in another key forward.

The biggest concerns are our centre clearances and the output of the small forwards.

While Hunt made bad errors in the final quarter, at least he gave a spark that Pickett and Spargo couldn’t provide. I would think about playing Hunt forward in place of Spargo and bringing in Bowey.

In the centre we need to try to surge forward and not be so cute. 

Ben Brown not being selected was not the reason we lost. It was our midfield and execution in front of goal. Fritsch was good in the deep forward role but got poor delivery/supply. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

The comments around Hunt costing us the game is laughable. Besides those 3 blunders he actually played a good game. I can easily list 10 other things that cost us the game. He stays in the team.

 

I was at the fence for a bit (until security booted me back to my assigned seat ?) and I saw Jayden’s face as he ran past on his way to one of his “brain farts” as some are calling them. It was as though his life depended on his next move. He had a look of burning determination that as a supporter you really wanna see. 
So yeah, lay off him. Please. 
edit: not you, DD. I’m referring to those who want his head. 

Edited July 4, 2021 by WalkingCivilWar

[Dee Zephyr 19,268]

1 hour ago, Bay Riffin said:

Not sure why everyone is defending Hunt. He’s been good playing back this year but he simply had a very poor game. His awareness was awful. He’s been good but let’s call it correctly, it was a balls up when we had control in the last quarter. 

No issue with how people viewed his game yesterday good or bad, but the blaming that he cost us the game was unjust IMO from what I heard leaving the ground. The move forward might not have worked but it certainly created a  bit of a spark that we desperately needed.
 

He’s proven in the previous two seasons that he can find the goals, I just wished he backed himself with that run and had a shot from 40 to a vacant square rather than stepping inboard and looking for an option. 

[John Crow Batty 8,878]

8 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

I was at the fence for a bit (until security booted me back to my assigned seat ?) and I saw Jayden’s face as he ran past on his way to one of his “brain farts” as some are calling them. It was as though his life depended on his next move. He had a look of burning determination that as a supporter you really wanna see. 
So yeah, lay off him. Please. 
edit: not you, DD. I’m referring to those who want his head. 

He was trying to do something. On another day it might have worked.