Did anyone else find it weird watching football this time of year?  Feels like it's still summer.

9 hours ago, picket fence said:

Well, he aint as good as many think he is!

Come on Picket he's a developing 20 year old key forward in his second year of senior footy, don't get sucked in to Blueys rubbish 

Any one have Intel on the Bowey injury..

He was in top form before going down.

Hope it's a get over it quick Injury.

 

16 minutes ago, drdrake said:

It was bad, no hiding away from poor skills a slippery footy will always find out players with poor skills.

The amount of time we had multiple players going for the same ball, Sydney just let us and circled the contest on the outside, as soon as we turned it over they pounced.

Positive we had 2 very good young players debut, negative these 2 young players played better then a large percentage of our team.

Ah yes ... the early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese ....

No goals, or little else, from 3 small forwards

Sparrow is too slow

Max was outsmarted by Grundy

Rivers’ kicking has gone down the crapper

Schache would have to be the meekest, low energy big man in the comp.

Levers turnovers were shocking.

May was one of the few that looked like he gave a - you know what.

Howes and Windsor very promising.

 

 

’’

 

9 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

Not a fan of the ruck rule changes.

I guess Grundy was in his rights and did well to close in like he did.

It's just not a good look for the game for me.

Looks like cheating 

Don’t entirely disagree with you but it’s within the law of the game now. Tactical nous, other clubs have it……we do not.

1 hour ago, Clintosaurus said:

Wait until we play on a normal shaped ground before going apoplectic. 

I'd also be asking the umpires department about Grundy going straight over the centre line too. Pretty sure that was a free kick last year for not giving the oppo ruck a chance to jump for the tap. Unless the umps made it up at the time. Lloyd Meek was pinned a few times for it.

I also thought the ruck wasn't allowed to cross the centre before contesting the ball. Then thought maybe you can once the ball leaves the turf. 

Smart from Grundy & and he got away with it. He learned a lot in the 12 months he was with us, sadly it will be used against us more effectively than it ever was for us. 

42 minutes ago, binman said:

Has been an issue for several years.

As has been a pattern not to adjust our method.

Ironic that on a night we should of been kicking long for territory, we were linking up with hands. 

Again, our poor kicking was a massive factor.

Slippery conditions exacerbate our kicking iusues because it exposes poor technique.

Which made the decision not to start billings even more perplexing. 

And slippery conditions expose how much we rely on maxy's marking. Did he take a mark last night.

Such a frustrating game to watch. Infuriating 

Exactly. I was pulling my hair out about our inability to deal with slippery conditions AGAIN! 
It really highlighted Goodwin’s stubbornness AGAIN. He just refuses to make changes based on past failures.

4 minutes ago, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Don’t entirely disagree with you but it’s within the law of the game now. Tactical nous, other clubs have it……we do not.

We all know why!

10 hours ago, Maldonboy38 said:

My wife had the computer all night, this is my first opportunity for input. Glad, to be honest. I may have chucked the laptop through the new smart tv. So:

• few positional winners
• annihilated around the stoppages and ball drop
• our small forwards were as poor as they have ever been
• horrendous field kicking
• and a whole lot of poor, poor football.
• Some of our great players were less than average.
• Our brilliant back 6 were soundly beaten by their own errors, decision making & field kicking
• Laurie, Schache & Billings looked sub par. Billings not the answer.

I know it was greasy & slippery, but our ball handling looked like Tallygaroopna v Manangatang reserves in mid winter.

Having played for manangatang, I take great umbrage at that comment!

9 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

There are some truly garbage hot takes in this thread, but equally there was some ridiculous overconfidence after beating Carlton in a practice match (say it with me one more time - it was a [censored] practice match).

I was there. The humidity was telling. We simply didn't cope. That's understandable, but disappointing.

Grundy was good but the key difference was he wasn't being blocked, checked, hit and kneed at every contest. Gawn was. We know this happens when we go in without proper ruck support. This has been happening for 8 years.

We were also visibly cooked about 5 minutes into the last. That will partly be because we were a player down plus May appeared to be hobbling, and partly because we struggled with the humidity. But it's also concerning. We pride ourselves on our fitness and specifically running out fourth quarters, but we were gassed too early.

Having said all that, three things really stand out to me as areas of significant concern:

1. I never, ever, want to see Spargo, Chandler and Laurie in the same side again. On the understanding that ANB is a walk-up best 22 player, there will never be a situation in which we need all three of these players alongside ANB. Sadly, I do not see anything in Laurie to suggest he's good enough, but IMO Spargo was atrocious tonight - I watched him and he appeared lazy, pointing without manning up and waltzing between contests. I didn't like that we picked him off no practice matches and I think it was a massive mistake. I think we conceded that we stuffed this up by subbing so early in the third, which we don't normally do. The worst bit was that this robbed us of a rotation when Bowey went down. Spargo will probably be suspended but I'd be happy to drop him for Kozzie next week
2. We can't play Schache again. Not after that. That was so, so weak. They ignored him most of the night, allowing McCartin to blanket JVR. Fullarton or Brown have to replace Schache next week.
3. We lost CPs and clearances to a side missing three first-choice midfielders. That is enormously concerning. We do not have a good enough forward line or forward half game to be that bad in the middle, and if a side missing that much midfield power can beat us in the middle, then we are in for a tough time.

I loved Howes and Windsor, Viney was incredible, and Oliver was so good for someone with the summer he's had. May was dominant in the air and Salem in the midfield clearly works.

I won't write us off after one summer's game in Darwin-like conditions, but enough went wrong tonight to give me a lot more doubt than I want.

This, and a a lot of people on here have a terrible misconception of how easy it is for a 20 year old to play key forward.  At the ground anyone with a brain could see we were affected by the heat, which may be a problem in itself but it was a factor. Also does anyone stop and think if we were so putrid for the whole game how come we were level at 3/4 time. Yea plenty needs improvement but I'll wait until next week at home before I start the wrist slashing.

48 minutes ago, binman said:

Has been an issue for several years.

As has been a pattern not to adjust our method.

Ironic that on a night we should of been kicking long for territory, we were linking up with hands. 

Again, our poor kicking was a massive factor.

Slippery conditions exacerbate our kicking iusues because it exposes poor technique.

Which made the decision not to start billings even more perplexing. 

And slippery conditions expose how much we rely on maxy's marking. Did he take a mark last night.

Such a frustrating game to watch. Infuriating 

Agree, & sadly Binman when we tried the odd longer kick we hit up a Sydney player on the chest 45+ metres away.

I feel like there were at least 4 or 5 examples where the kicker was only under mild pressure at the time too. 

9 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

I was at the ground. It was bone dry & little humidity.

Rubbish 

12 minutes ago, chook fowler said:

No goals, or little else, from 3 small forwards

Sparrow is too slow

Max was outsmarted by Grundy

Rivers’ kicking has gone down the crapper

Schache would have to be the meekest, low energy big man in the comp.

Levers turnovers were shocking.

May was one of the few that looked like he gave a - you know what.

Howes and Windsor very promising.

 

 

’’

 

A lot of our minds are slow not sure why.

Petraca bad at tackling on open field.

Clarry not running hard enough when we turn over the ball.

Sparrow similar.

Who's our explosive and quick mid? Kozzie?

3 hours ago, poita said:

Gawn should be ashamed of his performance, being monstered by his understudy. Nevertheless if we had recruited a legitimate second ruck, we could have given him some support. Luckily for Max he will probably only cop this for 22 more games, unless he breaks down beforehand. 

Viney, Fritsch and maybe Petracca did their jobs, but the rest were really poor. Goodwin had a woeful evening as well. 

 

Hmmm, understudy? 2 Copelands, 2 AA jumpers, yeah this guy is a complete novice! I don't know if Grundy's tactic at the centre bounce is a good look for the game, I thought that they had to stay on the other side of their line until the ball had been bounced, he was running at the player and not even looking at the ball at times. But he played ok, Gawn was ok too. I don't like the hits behind play Gawn still gets without penalty. 

People need to get a grip, one game in basically tropical conditions. We looked better in the first half than Sydney, yet couldn't score, they can address that through the week. We looked less competitive I thought after half time, yet we kicked 3 goals, and only trailed by 2 points. Ran out of steam in the last. Windsor looked good, Howes looked good after a couple of shaky possessions. Not a night for tall forwards on either side. but both sides struggled to score fluently until Sydney had that patch in the last.

 

5 minutes ago, loges said:

This, and a a lot of people on here have a terrible misconception of how easy it is for a 20 year old to play key forward.  At the ground anyone with a brain could see we were affected by the heat, which may be a problem in itself but it was a factor. Also does anyone stop and think if we were so putrid for the whole game how come we were level at 3/4 time. Yea plenty needs improvement but I'll wait until next week at home before I start the wrist slashing.

Because Sydney are not that good, honestly a better team would have smashed us.

Just now, ElDiablo14 said:

Because Sydney are not that good, honestly a better team would have smashed us.

You don't know how good they are going to be yet 

It felt like we put ourselves under pressure.  I was waiting for us to get with the program and realise we had more time than we thought we did.  Unfortunately that fumbling simply didnt clean up.   Forward work was unrewarded, and lacked any concept until Frittata led up the guts into space.  

A lot to like in Howes, Windsor.

Many older heads were not in it the way they needed to be. Being smashed at the contest and Max getting Dacked by the man bun should have been embarrassing enough to drive some changes, but it looked like in the last they were standing back and the queue was already in the rack.

1 minute ago, loges said:

You don't know how good they are going to be yet 

They could be great come Rd23, but we are not talking about potential. Yesterday they were the better of two very mediocre teams.

Whilst it’s the 1st game some questions need to be asked in the 7 yrs with 8th coming up of Goodwin he’s had 10 finals with 5 wins 2 x straight sets & a Flag which most teams would take the Flag. Not sure what the hurry was in extending his contract after it was extended in 2022. Our game style after 1 game looks the same, they haven’t been able to fix our fwd issues in years and only Hogan in the last decade looked like a forward, Tmac & Brown bodies have been done since 2021 flag yet as team in the premiership window we haven’t been able to attract a power fwd & yes hard to find, instead we invested in Grundy who is now gone which was a poor blunder buy the club and who will replace  Max? 

I wonder if Steven May ever turns around the forward line and says we are busting our backsides off here and you guys are letting us down by not kicking straight. 

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

The problem is the same issues as last year were repeated.

Poor ball movement/disposal

No movement inside 50

Poor entries inside 50

Inaccuracy in front of goal

Too many NQR passengers

Failure from coaches to change things up when not working

Only goals before half time in the first game of the new season kicked by Viney and Langdon. A dark portent! Haven't felt this pessimistic since the loss to PA in the first game of 2019. Perhaps its just that our middle rump of players aren't much good?

It’s pretty clear that we’re great at lowering the eyes and finding a target during the preseason. Ramp up the pressure and we simply revert to bombing it. Funnily enough I would have coached them to bomb it forward at all costs last night. The ball was soap and cute handballs weee not the answer. Goodwin out coached again.

36 minutes ago, greenwaves said:

Did anyone else find it weird watching football this time of year?  Feels like it's still summer.

Yep I'm currently watching the NZ v Australia test match. I wasn't really all that excited yesterday going footys back. 

9 hours ago, layzie said:

Here's the issue with the body checking and negating tactics on Gawn. Yes it makes it hard, but I expect this to happen every single week from here on in. It will not get better, everyone will be doing it. 

Find a way to relieve our ruckman or we will surely die. 

Agree, will be like playing Port Adelaide every week.