POSTGAME: Community Series vs Carlton

[whatwhat say what 22,600]

i had no issues with the 50s against jordon (failure to hand the ball directly back), viney (blocked the previous 50s run forward), and langdon (another failure to hand it directly back)

the one against clayton was pretty harsh but, as per above, technically 'there' as he clearly thought it was a dees free (as it arguably should have been)

but, in particular, the penalties against tomlinson and t mac (note: not trac; it was against t mac for raising his arms in disgust in the umpire's direction after cripps ducked and earned a free) were absolutely laughable

things that looked like they worked:

• fritsch as our main forward target
• lift in intensity in the second half 

things that looked like they didn't work:

• missing 5 of the premiership back 6
• gus at half-back
• lack of intensity in the first half

mostly, it seemed to be like we blew out some cobwebs ahead of the real thing starting in 13 or so days

[titan_uranus 24,963]

The midfield two-way running I saw last week vs North was miles ahead of last night.

Intensity often drops in practice matches and it wouldn't surprise me if we planned to go all-in for one match and less so for the other. Assuming that's what happened though, I don't really know why we picked the North game to be the all-in one, but anyway.

IMO many are undervaluing the importance of having all of our missing players from one part of the ground. Having one key defender out can be covered (e.g. Smith covering for Hibberd last year, or Tomlinson covering Petty vs North last week) because it's only one stop-gap with a majority of the usual faces around you. But last night we had Lever, who hasn't played competitive football since the GF, and a 9-game 19-year old in Bowey, as the only regulars down back having to help organise a back half that we didn't spend much/any of the pre-season planning to deploy. That is then compounded by the unfortunate reality that some of the second-stringers are too loose (Hunt and Smith), so it sort of spirals a bit.

The weak back half meant they were scoring from just under 50% of their inside 50s in the first half (13 scores from 27 inside 50s). Part of that comes from a poor midfield display but I'd back our first choice backline to do better than conceding 50% of the time.

I certainly would rather have dominated the game but the result doesn't mean too much to me. I am, though, disappointed that Baker didn't demonstrate much/any improvement and we saw too much bad Hunt and not enough of the 2021 improved version.

[Turner 1,506]

Pass marks for Gawn, Clarry, Lever

Question marks on Brown, Jackson, Nibbler and Tommo for a variety of reasons, mostly influence but some more acute like why did brown run underneath every high ball so poorly or if he got hands to it not even look close to hanging on and tommo is clearly not fully trusting on that knee.

Serious concerns on Hunt and not sure what's to gain from having baker out there. and melky is so far down the pecking order when really he shouldn't be his build and strengths bring more to the side than chandler and bedford when he's playing well or we're playing as the dominant possession heavy side against bottom 8 sides.

Pleasantly surprised by what smith did, i think he'll be there round 1 without rivers and petty. 

thought trac was unusually quiet particularly in the first half and viney clearly has a bit of covid lung to work off

[DubDee 25,471]

Like a lot of premiership sides, I think we will start the season slowly and I wouldn't be surprised if we are 2-2 after 4 games before we settle into the season and get our match fitness up.  We had a very short preseason.  On a positive note, we have virtually no injuries and not much off season surgeries so we should get into our groove before long

[Robbie57 2,020]

From the get go we lacked system especially in the back half, if we want to be able to interchange our usual back 6 for the Casey back 6 the latter needs to learn the system and to be cohesive. It was a mistake putting Gus there in the hope he would play the Salam role. We did not work hard enough going back when the blues were flooding. 

Where was our discipline?Max will be filthy with himself and justifiably others. Get the ball back and no dissent. Its not just about the umpiring if we are disciplined it spills into our other systems. Poor kicking (yes Trac) and decision making  (Spargo) in the front half cost us early goals. 

I think a chat at Sorrento pub is required.

[binman 42,500]

Nothing of substance to take from last night as it was clearly little more than a glorified training session. 

Some random reflections - 

• The foundation of our 'system' is pressure and intensity. The system does not work if our pressure and intensity does not meet the minimum threshold
• If there was a scale for pressure and intensity, lets call it the binman scale, our grand final (bar the second quarter) would be a 10 and our round one game against Freo maybe 6
• On that hypothetical scale, lets say 6 is the minimum threshold for our system to work
• On the binman scale we were a 2 last night, except for a brief period in the third and the start of the last quarter, when maybe it got to a 4
• By contrast were 6 plus on that scale all game against the Roos 
• When we lifted our pressure and intensity the system rumbled into gear and we got on top
• I think the biggest challenge of the dees this year, and in particular for coaches is calibrating our pressure and intensity.
• We will lose games if our pressure and intensity drops below 6, but by the same token can't be at 10 all year as it is not sustainable and we will burn out. 
• This calibration is something we did brilliantly last year, but as they say on the ads for super past success provides no guarantees for future performance 
• Speaking of intensity, and at the risk of being too negative about Weed, his first involvement in the game perfectly summed up what he needs to address if he wants to be a regular in the ones. 
• Weed dropped a mark he should have clunked, but that was not the real issue (after all, he had come on late in the game after playing earlier in the day ). It was his next effort - or lack thereof to be more exact. When the ball hit the deck he simply was not urgent enough, which i find baffling given he he is bloke trying to force his way back into the team
• On the selection front, the only thing to come from last night is i think it cemented Smith in for Petty. I thought he was good, without being great, but had a better game than tomo, who i think lacks a bit of pace and lateral movement ATM
• Tomo is better suited playing against the biggest opposition forward but that role is now Mays. So my tip is Smith will get the nod as he has the closing speed and leap to impact more aerial contests and can better run of opponents 
• On a related note, it is hard to asses the performances of any of the defenders. For one thing this was a group that probably had never lined up together, so confusion, for example covering ground balls, was inevitable.
• But more significantly, the pressure up the field was non existent and our defensive model relies on that pressure to function
• It was no surprise that Lever had no impact in terms of intercept marks until the third when we noticeably upped the pressure and intensity
• The biggest win for the night was no injury

Edited March 3, 2022 by binman

[loges 6,767]

You get an idea of the mindset when you see your players laughing and joking with the opposition as the scoreboard ticks over to show a 7 goal deficit.

[titan_uranus 24,963]

6 minutes ago, binman said:

• On the selection front, the only thing to come from last night is i think it cemented Smith in for Petty. I thought he was good, without being great, but had a better game than tomo, who i think lacks a bit of pace and lateral movement ATM

Liked your whole post @binman but just on selection, it's not Tomlinson v Smith that is my main focus for Round 1 (personally I prefer Tomlinson, which is I will admit in part because I remain yet to be won over by Smith, but that battle isn't going to make or break our backline once May, Salem and Hibberd are brought back in).

My main focus is who gets Rivers' spot for Round 1. Didn't really see anything last night to indicate someone is ready to step up into that spot.

[DeeSpencer 25,398]

23 minutes ago, Sydney_Demon said:

Referring to  3+ list cloggers is totally disrespectful and unfair. Some of the players on our list aren't going to make it no doubt but that's the same in any club. It's not an exact science. ANB went from a fringe unwanted player to essential in 12 months. I guess you would have classified him as a 'list clogger' at the end of 2020. 

That's true, I wouldn't have rated ANB in 2020, but he got a 2 year deal previous on the back of being a good AFL footballer. 

Baker is not a good AFL footballer, never will be. Mitch Brown having a list spot is some kind of sick joke. Melksham should've been paid out if we were fair dinkum. That's 3 who are offering nothing.

25 minutes ago, Sydney_Demon said:

Haif forward depth? We have Kossie, ANB, Spargo, Harmes, Sparrow. Melksham is there as depth with Laurie coming through. Kossie and Sparrow, possibly Spargo, all have significant upside. All clubs would like to have quality depth players in all positions so injury doesn't have a significant effect on performance, but that just isn't reality with salary caps, quality players wanting to play for the senior side, etc. etc. 

All those guys are in the best 22 apart from Melksham and Laurie! They can't be depth when they're in the side. Melk is finished. Laurie is an ok prospect as a midfielder, doesn't have the speed or size to do much at half forward for the time being. Bedford and Chandler aren't it either, so where's the turnover of options?

29 minutes ago, Sydney_Demon said:

BB is useless after one week, Jackson hasn't progressed apparently, TMac is rubbish. Last night was tough conditions, it was slippery, hot & humid. It didn't suit tall forwards and the delivery into the forward line (especially in the first half) was poor. I do agree with you that TMac has his limitations,  especially when the ball hits the deck, but if he competes in the air, clunks a couple of marks and kicks a couple of goals a match he's doing his job. The same with BBB. Jackson is still a work in progress. Any forward line is going to struggle if there's slippery conditions and the ball is bombed in. One thing I don't understand is why Wiedeman isn't being given more opportunity pre-season. They played him in the ruck for less than a quarter against North and again for less that a quarter against Carlton. Might as well have let him play the whole game for Casey earlier in the day to get his confidence up.

I'm not talking long term, we've seen these guys win a flag. I'm talking about round 1 and the early games of the season.

Last year we went smaller due to Brown and Weid's injuries and Tom did a very good job at CHF competing. It also allowed Jackson a lot of game time as a forward and whilst he was hit and miss he settled more in that role.

Brown dropped a few he would've usually swallowed last night and moved pretty well, so I hope that was just an off night.

But I do wonder how we best use Jackson and Gawn when the forward line doesn't really need them. Max goes deep forward with Brown and they can work together but if they don't mark it we are in trouble on the way out. And Jackson can get lost if he's not rucking and not getting asked to play more as a CHF. Especially early in the year where big guys often don't hold as many marks as they do once they've got their eye in.

Tom's not asked to do as much grunt work in a taller line up so he has to be holding marks and contributing on the ground when he's effectively a forward flanker at times.

Weid - he's really only back up for Ben Brown or perhaps the rucks. We can't have another tall who gets beaten to the ball or run off by smaller defenders when we're already overloaded for height. And no matter how many goals he kicks in the VFL he just doesn't hold his marks in the AFL and we should stop pretending he ever will by this stage.

[roy11 3,825]

52 minutes ago, In Harmes Way said:

I thought the 50m penalties for "delays" in getting the ball back to the player awarded the free kick made the game really hard to watch. 

It was interesting that Jordon and Langdon got 50's for "clarifying" who should get the ball before handing it over, and Oliver got a 50m penalty against him for giving the ball back to the wrong player because he didn't ask. So you're damned if you clarify, and damned if you don't, but inadvertently give the ball to the wrong player because you don't know who should have it.

Re: Delay penalties - there was one incident where Carlton got a free kick and Newman was feigning being held to try get the 50. I understand the need to crack down on delay tactics (see Petty vs West Coast) but feel some team may lose a game this season after some deceitful treachery. Hopefully the umpires can see through these actions. 

[In Harmes Way 7,730]

17 minutes ago, loges said:

You get an idea of the mindset when you see your players laughing and joking with the opposition as the scoreboard ticks over to show a 7 goal deficit.

You get an idea of the mindset when the side are 7 goals down but lose by 5 points.

[DeeSpencer 25,398]

18 minutes ago, binman said:

• On the selection front, the only thing to come from last night is i think it cemented Smith in for Petty. I thought he was good, without being great, but had a better game than tomo, who i think lacks a bit of pace and lateral movement ATM
• Tomo is better suited playing against the biggest opposition forward but that role is now Mays. So my tip is Smith will get the nod as he has the closing speed and leap to impact more aerial contests and can better run of opponents 

Tomlinson 1.05 to be in Petty's role. Tomlinson and May played in the same backline for 7 weeks or whatever it was, just as May and Petty did. Not sure why you're trying to create this idea that Tomlinson won't be right back in to his CHB role.

Smith a decent chance to take Rivers' spot, probably just edging out Hunt. Unless there was someone in the VFL who really impressed.

[Marty 419]

6-6-6 rule is pretty simple. There’s a tone of time to set up after a goal. They weren’t switched on!! 
No other excuses! Which would  explain alot of other issues from last night as well.

[chook fowler 19,434]

I think this result showed how much better our backline functions with Hibberd. He can play tall and small, knows how to position himself and is a competitive beast. I doubt we would have lost if he was playing.

[binman 42,500]

3 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Liked your whole post @binman but just on selection, it's not Tomlinson v Smith that is my main focus for Round 1 (personally I prefer Tomlinson, which is I will admit in part because I remain yet to be won over by Smith, but that battle isn't going to make or break our backline once May, Salem and Hibberd are brought back in).

My main focus is who gets Rivers' spot for Round 1. Didn't really see anything last night to indicate someone is ready to step up into that spot.

Yep fair points. 

I think there is a chance Smith may take rivers' role

I said in my post it is hard to asses the performances of any of the defenders. That said hard to get enthused about baker or Hunt, both of whom had average games. 

But i thought Hunt was terrific last season and i like him in the team, so i hope he gets his chance to prove himself at some point. He mightget the nod ahead of Smth, but i doubt it.

Barring injury, i'm guessing the back six will be May, Lever, Salem, Hibberd, Bowey and Smith.

With no Bruce we only need the one key defender really and may can take Naughton. Bowey and Hibber can probably cover River's run.

That leaves English and maybe Ugle-Hagan. Smith and Lever can share duties on them. And Smith can also play the half back rivers role so provides some flexibility.

Alternatively, thomo comes in and takes English and Smith is not selected. But he can't play HB, so offer less flexibility.    

[Deemania since 56 6,605]

12 hours ago, Chook said:

8 50 metre penalties, 3? 6-6-6 rule violations, Brayshaw in the backline, 5/6 first-choice backliners out?

Yeah, not taking much from this one.

Do you reckon that the brown paper bag syndrome made its re-appearance last night? This is an extraordinary count of critical goal opportunities provided to Carlton at the micro-second drop of the hanky.

The status of umpires has fallen, albeit affecting games and games outcomes for some years (perhaps reaching a boiling point); this new 'whistle-controlled modification of player intellectual discontent with rule applications' will serve no purpose other than to further confuse, irritate and degrade the players whilst simultaneously further plunging an umpiring fraternity into the very shallow depths of a wading pool wherein they have the immense bad fortune to drown - in increasing numbers - whilst standing on two feet.

[Gawndy the Great 9,011]

34 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

The midfield two-way running I saw last week vs North was miles ahead of last night.

Intensity often drops in practice matches and it wouldn't surprise me if we planned to go all-in for one match and less so for the other. Assuming that's what happened though, I don't really know why we picked the North game to be the all-in one, but anyway.

IMO many are undervaluing the importance of having all of our missing players from one part of the ground. Having one key defender out can be covered (e.g. Smith covering for Hibberd last year, or Tomlinson covering Petty vs North last week) because it's only one stop-gap with a majority of the usual faces around you. But last night we had Lever, who hasn't played competitive football since the GF, and a 9-game 19-year old in Bowey, as the only regulars down back having to help organise a back half that we didn't spend much/any of the pre-season planning to deploy. That is then compounded by the unfortunate reality that some of the second-stringers are too loose (Hunt and Smith), so it sort of spirals a bit.

The weak back half meant they were scoring from just under 50% of their inside 50s in the first half (13 scores from 27 inside 50s). Part of that comes from a poor midfield display but I'd back our first choice backline to do better than conceding 50% of the time.

I certainly would rather have dominated the game but the result doesn't mean too much to me. I am, though, disappointed that Baker didn't demonstrate much/any improvement and we saw too much bad Hunt and not enough of the 2021 improved version.

The 50% scoring from inside 50 is due largely to an unaccountable midfield. We got absolutely pants in the middle and Carlton were able to highly capitalise from their clearances. I think the arrogance/selfishness of Trac and Oliver were on display last night and Cripps gave them both a good reality check. Not a bad time for a reminder of what team football is about. 

Having our starting back 6 would have definitely helped reduce that conversion to maybe 30-40% but even that would be too high. 

[Vipercrunch 2,820]

47 minutes ago, whatwhat say what said:

i had no issues with the 50s against jordon (failure to hand the ball directly back), viney (blocked the previous 50s run forward), and langdon (another failure to hand it directly back)

 

Couldn't agree more.  The fake "whose free is it" after giving an obvious free away in a 1 on 1 contest had to stop.  Hopefully they also clamp down on the standing over of a player to stop them getting up and taking the kick quickly (ala Cordy on top of BBB in the GF).

 

 

[DistrACTION Jackson 8,459]

4 minutes ago, binman said:

Yep fair points. 

I think there is a chance Smith may take rivers' role

I said in my post it is hard to asses the performances of any of the defenders. That said hard to get enthused about baker or Hunt, both of whom had average games. 

But i thought Hunt was terrific last season and i like him in the team, so i hope he gets his chance to prove himself at some point. He mightget the nod ahead of Smth, but i doubt it.

Barring injury, i'm guessing the back six will be May, Lever, Salem, Hibberd, Bowey and Smith.

With no Bruce we only need the one key defender really and may can take Naughton. Bowey and Hibber can probably cover River's run.

That leaves English and maybe Ugle-Hagan. Smith and Lever can share duties on them. And Smith can also play the half back rivers role so provides some flexibility.

Alternatively, thomo comes in and takes English and Smith is not selected. But he can't play HB, so offer less flexibility.    

We typically have 7 defenders in the side - last years GF was May, Lever, Petty, Rivers, Salem, Bowey and Hibberd.

I think round 1 will be May, Lever, Tomlinson, Smith Salem, Bowey and Hibberd.

[Gawndy the Great 9,011]

12 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

Tomlinson 1.05 to be in Petty's role. Tomlinson and May played in the same backline for 7 weeks or whatever it was, just as May and Petty did. Not sure why you're trying to create this idea that Tomlinson won't be right back in to his CHB role.

Smith a decent chance to take Rivers' spot, probably just edging out Hunt. Unless there was someone in the VFL who really impressed.

I think Tommo is the perfect match-up on the bigger bodied tall forwards. He effectively rendered McKay useless yesterday and has done the same on Hawkins before. A number of the top 4-6 teams have these types of forwards (McStay, Lynch, 2m Peter etc). Whilst Petty can certainly do the job, id honestly have Tommo as the lockdown defender.

Nevertheless between May, Tommo, Petty and Lever we have options - just not sure we can play them all in the same team as our vulnerability seems to be against those teams with a smaller more mobile forward line. This is why i think Rivers over Smith and although Hunt was terrible last night, he has the right physicality to match the pace of small dynamic opposition forwards.

[titan_uranus 24,963]

14 minutes ago, binman said:

Yep fair points. 

I think there is a chance Smith may take rivers' role

I said in my post it is hard to asses the performances of any of the defenders. That said hard to get enthused about baker or Hunt, both of whom had average games. 

But i thought Hunt was terrific last season and i like him in the team, so i hope he gets his chance to prove himself at some point. He mightget the nod ahead of Smth, but i doubt it.

Barring injury, i'm guessing the back six will be May, Lever, Salem, Hibberd, Bowey and Smith.

With no Bruce we only need the one key defender really and may can take Naughton. Bowey and Hibber can probably cover River's run.

That leaves English and maybe Ugle-Hagan. Smith and Lever can share duties on them. And Smith can also play the half back rivers role so provides some flexibility.

Alternatively, thomo comes in and takes English and Smith is not selected. But he can't play HB, so offer less flexibility.    

Yep Smith may take Rivers' spot and Tomlinson plays Petty's role.

They didn't have Bruce in the GF but we went in with May, Lever and Petty so you'd think we'd go a similar level of height for Round 1. I don't know about the Dogs' injury list much but you'd imagine they'll be running a similar forward line, meaning Naughton, Schache and English/Martin, with Hannan and then Bontempelli down there too.

11 minutes ago, CYB said:

The 50% scoring from inside 50 is due largely to an unaccountable midfield. We got absolutely pants in the middle and Carlton were able to highly capitalise from their clearances. I think the arrogance/selfishness of Trac and Oliver were on display last night and Cripps gave them both a good reality check. Not a bad time for a reminder of what team football is about. 

Having our starting back 6 would have definitely helped reduce that conversion to maybe 30-40% but even that would be too high. 

Reducing the 50% figure down to 30-40% wins us last night's game with ease.

I agree the midfield defensive pressure wasn't up to scratch and was a key contributing factor, but the number of inside 50s Carlton generated should not have resulted in 10.3 to half time.

[sue 9,096]

30 minutes ago, roy11 said:

Re: Delay penalties - there was one incident where Carlton got a free kick and Newman was feigning being held to try get the 50. I understand the need to crack down on delay tactics (see Petty vs West Coast) but feel some team may lose a game this season after some deceitful treachery. Hopefully the umpires can see through these actions. 

Yes I noticed that at the time and wondered if feinging a delay would become a new art form.  Will the AFL in its infinite wisdom  penalise players who feign a delay and reverse the free/mark.

[Willmoy1947 4,077]

Couple of things.No more chest bumping. Do the Umpires realise that if they umpire like that supposedly for a crackdown on abuse of rules there will be a lot more of dissatisfied supporters abusing them after, and coming off. Thirdly you know your not right when players on both sides are laughing at rule interpreting.

[Devil In Disguise 2,278]

Can't understand the love here for Smith. Very limited footballer who rarely gets more than a handful of disposals. Also has no pace. Rather see Hunt off the HBF using his speed like he was doing prior to his injury last season. Was pretty special seeing him & Langdon working together down the same side of the ground.

[Demonland 71,131]