8 hours ago, Rusty Nails said:

Jnr far too many players (Spargo, Clarry, Gus, Kozzie  ANB et al) can't kick from distance to save themselves.  It's been our Achilles all year and shows no sign of abating.  Good sides kick about 50/50 of these and that allows them to put these teams away.

Our set shot kicking from 40ish or less from pretty much any angle would have to be up there with the worst or we are possibly the worst.

And that's set shot kicking from 40 or less.  Anything outside of that forget it.  Aside from BB (if he doesn't lose his head like tonight), T-Mac or Tracc (IF he can keep his and not constantly play on every time) we have virtually no chance of converting no matter who takes the set shot.

Just one of many reasons but it played a big part in costing us tonight and will continue to do so for as long as they ignore it.

Is much harder when we continually kick from deep in the pockets. 

Insanity 

9 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Yeah Clarkson did a good job getting his side up for the game. but there is only won reason why we drew and that was the 22 players out there mentally weak everyone knows it.

Thought we were back on track after Port but no you have to play somewhere near your best every week or your gonna get your pants pulled down and we have far too many players who choose when they want to play and it's not good.

The Gold Coast game will say everything about the club. Do they eventually learn and realize 100 per cent is the minimum you must give to play the game or do they show there constant flakiness against bottom 8 sides. 

Gold Coast know they can beat us and if this is the Melbourne I know they will do so easily.

Yep, that game will be interesting. The Suns ladder position is not indicative of the footy they are playing at present. You would think the players would know this, but I feel as though we will take them lightly anyway. It's the kind of arrogance that I hate in a footy club.

Just fuming about tonight, the tackle count says it all. When will our players understand that talent and experience don't win games unless you actually use it in the game?

Where to start , We are the Jeckyl/ Hyde of the AFL. It seems as a team we require 90% of the side to be having a good game. If this happens we are capable of beating anyone. As soon as this drops off even by just a small amount we can be beaten by anyone. Last night 4 goals up, think we can coast, then we get outplayed by the 17th team for the next 3 quarters. This is just lazy bathwater (a term I hate) football/attitude. This needs to be addressed we are not in good form, What have we lost four of the last 8 games? And TMac, he is a super barometer, you can bet if he's not in the game we are struggling big time. Sure we can beat anyone on our day but we do not have that hardened professional mindset required for the ultimate prize.

9 hours ago, DubDee said:

Never seen May play a worse game. Needs to get his head right. 

Jackson, T Mac and Brown gave us SFA up front. We were crying out for some marks from our 58 inside 50s

Delivery inside 50 was very poor!

Kicking for goal very poor!

Umpiring terrible, Clarkson obviously didn’t take note of how many Hawks goals came from frees or non marks that were paid!

Hawks wanted to win, Demons didn’t which is unacceptable!

5 minutes ago, dee-tox said:

Vanders played four times as well as Harmes did last week. 

Everyone’s entitled to their view. Im interested in how you arrived on 4 times, and not say 3 or 6 times? What was the metric?

I saw a guy get caught repeatedly when trying to weave around players and the combination of him and Viney was just too slow. One of them at least needs to be out next week in my opinion and if I were the coach I would use Harmes in his best role which is a tagger who can still rack up useful possessions and sparrow as an outside mid and have both JV and AVB out of the side.

as an aside I would use dogga in the ruck more and keep gawn inside the goal square for the 1000 long bombs we seem to do to the hot spot each week where the opposition marks uncontested.

1 hour ago, Forest Demon said:

You can have one bad performance against one of the poorer sides, it can happen, but the pattern of performances against good opposition vs bad opposition is damning.

We are clearly a better football side than previous years, but there are still some serious issues between the ears. I don’t know why I hadn’t already, but I turned it off as soon Jack Viney mentioned “learnings” in the post game interview.

[censored] learnings, God I hate that term!!

4 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Ahh, the old I don't like what they say so I'll cancel their right to say it

You could burn a few books while you're at it

There's a word for people like you and it isn't nice

Block posters of you don't like what they say. 

 

And then grow a pair

 

There's a difference to having a say and adding to a discussion, and then there's trolling. Even when you have them on ignore it comes up with others quoting. 

Though, I'm not surprised one bit that you struggle to understand this.

 

The performance after quarter time was ugly, can understand the disappointment for some especially after we announced a membership record during the week. They showed a clip of Goody announcing the record to the players and for the first time this year I thought this would be a comfortable victory pregame.

In the end i felt relieved we managed to hang on to 2 points and stay on top when it looked like we would get nothing, that’s just me though. Seriously, it has been a crazy last few weeks where anything can happen.

My main concern apart from the overall performance was our inability to close out the game the last few minutes when it was presented to us like some have pointed out already. I’d be working on that during the week on the track and who knows where that will be with the covid drama. 
Petty and Hunt were our best two defenders I thought, saw Hunt make numerous dashes to free himself and was ignored multiple times. We needed to use him breaking the lines more like Hawthorn did with that number 16 to good effect.  
Must simply bank 4 points next week in what will be a tough assignment.

A look after a lie down and a cuppa.  We have come from being very poor (2019), average (2020) to being a good team.  We have not created a dynasty, or even understand what ruthless would look like.  We are a team that has ‘something’ and is competitive (how big are our losses - we have not been smashed once this year).

There are still massive holes in what we do, but when we do our basics well, we are a very good side.  Not great. Not yet.  

Last night was particularly disappointing with the way we gave it up.  A long way in front and we simply wilted.  Very poor.  But this is our first year being ‘up there’ - we still have a lot to learn.  Take a look at the top 4 and we are surrounded by teams expected to be there and with histories of being there to draw on.  There is the bones of something here.  Last night was unacceptable as the ‘new Melbourne’, but I am not unhappy with where we have shifted to.  Its the next bits that will win us a flag.

1 minute ago, buck_nekkid said:

A look after a lie down and a cuppa.  We have come from being very poor (2019), average (2020) to being a good team.  We have not created a dynasty, or even understand what ruthless would look like.  We are a team that has ‘something’ and is competitive (how big are our losses - we have not been smashed once this year).

There are still massive holes in what we do, but when we do our basics well, we are a very good side.  Not great. Not yet.  

Last night was particularly disappointing with the way we gave it up.  A long way in front and we simply wilted.  Very poor.  But this is our first year being ‘up there’ - we still have a lot to learn.  Take a look at the top 4 and we are surrounded by teams expected to be there and with histories of being there to draw on.  There is the bones of something here.  Last night was unacceptable as the ‘new Melbourne’, but I am not unhappy with where we have shifted to.  Its the next bits that will win us a flag.

Excellent post ?

Just on the Vanders discussion. 

He actually started off well. Unfortunately he saw the likes of Oliver,  Petracca and Viney trying to break tackles and not give first option and so next thing Vanders is trying to run around blokes and get through tackles when there were clear options ahead of him to give first use.

This is what happens when your so called leaders decide to click into Hollywood mode. It filters down to the rest of the team because they see there leaders do it, and think it's acceptable. 

 

Edited July 17, 20213 yr by dazzledavey36

Clearly, mentally we turn up just thinking it will happen against bottom teams and just rely on our talent. The amount of Times hawthorn were able to find one on ones inside 50 Showed the lack of work rate and will to support. We still lack maturity and this will cost us the flag this year .

Petty was one of the few players who could genuinely walk off that ground with their head held high. 

1 hour ago, picket fence said:

What "learnings" has J.V learnt that improves him as a footballer? Oh thats right, get in the way of Oliver and try to barge through tackle after tackle after tackle. He hacks it forward and turns it over when he does get it. I would seriously replace him with someone with skill, perhaps Bowey.

 

1 hour ago, picket fence said:

What "learnings" has J.V learnt that improves him as a footballer? Oh thats right, get in the way of Oliver and try to barge through tackle after tackle after tackle. He hacks it forward and turns it over when he does get it. I would seriously replace him with someone with skill, perhaps Bowey.

I been on about this for years

If he wasn't a Viney he wouldn't be playing at the Dees. Continues to be a liability 

Hope he is dropped next week He is a part of the problem in my opinion

2 hours ago, bingers said:

 

1. Dodgy umpiring ... particularly the hawks getting frees when they simply barged into tackles head first.
2. Return to the 'bad old days' of other sides getting on streaks where they kick 4 or more goals in a row.
3. Dr D ... is he for real?
4. Lucky not to lose the match.
5. I won money betting on Hawthorn. (For some reason, Sportsbet paid out a reduced amount ... not sure why.)
6. Most players played poorly. Surely they can't play that badly two weeks in a row???

 

*Well, other than not actually losing.

This gave me the s5it$ last night. It’s not the reason we didn’t win, but the hawthorn players constantly dove onto ground ball and driving their head into players standing still and were rewarded with free kicks. Then there was the goal they kicked when Lever so obviously had his jumper pulled in a marking contest. The free kick against Ben Brown to McEvoy is so ticky tack. Again, not the reason we didn’t win, but the Hawks got an armchair ride.

Edited July 17, 20213 yr by Kick_It_To_Pickett

Our lack of tackling was woeful but even more so in our backline.

I think it was their worst performance ever.

Also with Jackson averaging half a goal a game we are a forward down. His ground skills are good but he drops a lot of marks,

The top teams we have beaten must be wondering how at this moment in time.

 

1 hour ago, Boots and all said:

learnings

Kicking at goal would be a good learning for us.

 

I couldn't believe how fumbly and unclean our skills were for most of the night last night.  Yes Hawthorn laid alot of tackles and applied pressure which would have contributed to that, but I feel as if so much of it was self inflicted as well.  Not a big knock on the guy, because he has generally been awsome for us over the past two seasons, but I also thought Ed Langdon probably played one of (if not the) worst game he's ever played for us last night.

50 minutes ago, Pipefitter said:

We still lack maturity and this will cost us the flag this year

This. All other things being equal, we just don’t have the mental or experiential resilience. Goodwin said also that they love the fans, implying that we play better with a crowd. I was at the GWS loss, with a home crowd, and we were horrible. Premiership teams are robust and uncompromising week to week, regardless of externals. For the past 6 weeks, we are the polar opposite of that. Next year maybe, who knows, but with the absolute gift that is our short injury list this year, it looks like being wasted. Grrrrr…..

Yep, no wall punching for the little fella after this game .He would know the result for them was as good as a win. Nu.mber 4 maggot was probably the worst last night.

They are so predictable these 

maggots.They get play around the opposition forward line and low and behold a free kick pops up. They are almost as childish as the way some of our players are going.

 

9 hours ago, BillyBeane said:

A very interesting point about experience and games played.  I thought we were lucky to get the 2 points.  It's bizarre how we looked absolutely cooked half way through the 3rd and looked out of it early in the 4th off a 10 day break.  I thought we were going to lose by 4 goals.  Hopefully the two points are as good as a win by seasons end.

Which website are these stats from?

Also did anyone else think that there was something else going on last night. Our blokes had a look of resignation about a season that has nearly gone, and could still go awry. Beyond this game itself..

Jake Lever....1 tackle

Hunt....1 tackle

Petty.....1 tackle

May....0 tackle

Rivers....1 tackle

Salem the highest with 2.

Six tackles btw these six defenders. 

No wonder Hawks scored like they did.

11 hours ago, Mazer Rackham said:

That would have to be the worst spectacle of football since Melb v St K, round 16, 1981.

Yeah, It looked liked a VFL match

You know, I wasn't going to be a sore looser and bring up the abysmal umpiring last night, but unless he's being somewhat misquoted in the media, wow Clarkson is one.  Not happy with finishing with 22 to 15 free kicks in Hawthorn's favour (it was 21 to 12 mid way though the last quarter) and multiple give me goals from soft free kicks, Clarko is out in the media spruking how they should have got more holding the ball free kicks.

I must say, I kind of agree with Clarko to a point, in so far as there weren't many holding the ball free kicks paid, when perhaps there could have been, but there was also some pretty atrocious umpiring all around last night and I didn't here much mention of that from him.  Gee, I can't remember who was paid a free kick for holding onto Dixson for a mili second too long, handing him a free in front of goal last week, but how was that one for us in the first quarter when I think it was Viney was held onto without the ball for an eternity and no free kick played.

 

I'm sure he will go down as one of the best coaches of the era, but Clarkson will also go down as just about the biggest sook and umpire windger of the era in my mind as well.  Puss off Clarko, you're a [censored] (insert banned adjective of choice here).

Edited July 18, 20213 yr by Rodney (Balls) Grinter