Hard game, we looked cooked and it was one of those nights where I reckon any team would have beaten us.  Lions are good, but we aren't that bad really.

Tmac I thought was great, liked Windsor too and I thought Kolt was decent enough for another showing it was just a shocker of a night all round.  Max was great too but it just wasn't happening last night.

Glad we have the bye and hopefully McAdam can come in soon and inject a bit of something something into that forward line.  Midfield was very underwhelming, even when we got the ball out of there and it looked like we were off it got stopped dead.  They just had an answer for everything last night, was just one of those nights unfortunately.  We will bounce back after a good rest...I hope.

The game was mostly an aberration for us. Clear from after the Adelaide game we were shagged out. We will be better after the bye but long term resilience is a worrying issue as demonstrated by the past two finals campaigns and this early hiccup does not inspire confidence. 

Edited April 11, 20241 yr by John Crow Batty

Disappointing is an understatement.

9 hours ago, DeeZone said:

Perfect conditions, reasonable home crowd, two of the worst umpires that I can remember and our team looked slow and unable to match the Lions pace and short game for three quarters. Despite having a dominant Max Gawn, our mids ran out of gas and the Lions had six of the top seven players on the ground and that lack of balance enabled them to slice us up in a very cool and deliberate manner aided and abetted by a couple of adjudicators that do not understand the rules of the game. However I will also take the 4 wins and two losses a 13 day break and see how the boys respond against the Tigers on Anzac Eve, I love our Anzac Eve guernsey’s.

The speed was very noticeable. Looked like we were playing in sand. 

9 minutes ago, John Crow Batty said:

The game was mostly an aberration for us. Clear from after the Adelaide game we were shagged out. We will be better after the bye but long term resilience is a worrying issue as demonstrated by the past two finals campaigns and this early hiccup does not inspire confidence. 

We had an extra day on Brisbane. An 8 day break. We weren’t shagged. We were fresh if anything at all. 
 

The pathetic excuses being rolled out by many are intolerable, insipid just like the display last night in perfect conditions.

44 minutes ago, John Demonic said:

He looks 21

Excuses

He has been poor

1 hour ago, 640MD said:

 

why use 3 games in 13 days as an excuse

normally it’s 3 games 15 days 

 

Brisbane played us well

Firstly the club never used it as an excuse, but let's remember that not only was it 3 games in 13 days, it was also interstate travel AND coming up against a side who had a bye and then a game against North, which is basically a bye. 

We had 2 very hard contested games against Port and Adelaide, lost Salem in the first 10 minutes which left us down a rotation, plus Clarry who was, for the first time probably ever, a total liability.

Having said all that, you are right and Brisbane played us very well and deserve all the credit. They smashed us in clearances, in contest, in ball use, in efficiency, in tackles, in just about every single stat except hit outs. They deserved that win, and the final margin flattered us. 

 

45 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I actually think he's doing really well for someone his age who is being asked to ruck, when really he shouldn't be.

I think we're asking him to spend too much energy and focus on rucking, covering the ground etc., when what we ideally ought to be doing is letting him spend his entire game perfecting what he needs to perfect, his forward craft.

The ruck gets him into the game sometimes, but every minute he rucks is minutes of time he's not spending working on being a forward.

Disagree

Fullerton needs to play and take the 2nd ruck option. JVR, Petty main targets with Fritsch playing his role as a front runner.

 

37 minutes ago, Jeremy said:

He’s had 3 pre seasons. No one’s saying he needs to be playing like Wayne Carey but he’s dropping basic marks and has no forward craft. If he doesn’t lose his man and is flying towards the ball, he has no tricks, very ordinary 1 on 1 and average at ground level. Who knows how good he will be at this stage, it’s up in the air, could go either way.

It’s the dropping of marks that is a worry. He has very hard hands at the moment. Gets to the right spot but can’t clunk them. If we could get Petty’s marking with Roo’s kicking we’d have a decent forward 

I liked Lever's post match interview, took full responsibility as the leader. They tooled us from stoppage outside d50 last year, they then replicated the same strategy again. Very disappointing. 

We were certainly tired but the midfield issues were present against the Power and Crows. We may get belted by Carlton if we cannot fix our clearance game. 

Frankly, West Coast have been showing good work around stoppages and if we don't pull our pants up they might beat us for inside 50s and clearances too. 

15 minutes ago, Young Angus said:

Hard game, we looked cooked and it was one of those nights where I reckon any team would have beaten us.  Lions are good, but we aren't that bad really.

Tmac I thought was great, liked Windsor too and I thought Kolt was decent enough for another showing it was just a shocker of a night all round.  Max was great too but it just wasn't happening last night.

Glad we have the bye and hopefully McAdam can come in soon and inject a bit of something something into that forward line.  Midfield was very underwhelming, even when we got the ball out of there and it looked like we were off it got stopped dead.  They just had an answer for everything last night, was just one of those nights unfortunately.  We will bounce back after a good rest...I hope.

Sorry, but Max was not “great”

He may have had 51 hit outs - but a large chunk of percentage of these were either straight to or sharked by a Lions player. There was more movement and positive signs from him in the last quarter. But the game was over at 3/4 time. And Lions has already put the cue in the rack.

People calling Fritsch a front runner are seriously deluded.

He is in the top 5 for overall goals kicked in the last 5 season, playing  as a medium forward. He's kicked only a handful less goals than Jeremy Cameron has in 5 years for goodness sake.

He also kicked 6 on the biggest stage of all and would have comfortably won the Norm Smith if not for Trac.

 

If you are playing Melbourne, who is the one forward you put all your attention on? Fritsch. 
Kosi of course, but in terms of who do you defend in the air? It's Fritsch.

For such an undersized forward playing as basically our number one target going inside 50, he is remarkably consistent. He needs help though.

29 minutes ago, Demonised said:

I was at the game last night and I'm afraid I didn't see lack of interest or effort. I saw that we were up against a talented team and our systems weren't working as they have been. They pressured us and we often fumbled or chose bad options while they were on song and very, very slick.

A very fair reasonable and balanced review

 

1 hour ago, John Demonic said:

I think the question about whether the Lions fast spread and surgical precision by foot is our kryptonite or whether it was our fatigue, is going to be unanswered until the finals. To me though, their game last night would take a herculean effort from our team firing on all cylinders just to be competitive and take it to the death where a bit of luck and a few plays from your stars can make the difference. At least they've given us a good lesson.

The good thing to come out of this for a neutral, would be that this season might genuinely have 6+ flag contenders. 

Sure but what hurt far more than this was the contested work. They smashed us. Our bulls looked tired and sore. 4-2

Without reading every post, i just think we looked so flat early and for 90% of the game 82-53 tackles says it all. 

Its also ok for players to have down nights. Clayton looks like he has hit a bit of a rough patch.. its never happened to him before. But he cant handle the footy, so hopefully 2 weeks off might be good.

Bailey and Petty were not great, Ben Brown was awful until last qtr. ANB worst game for the year. Viney non effective. Billings nothing. Sparrow passenger. Windosr only burst. McVee beaten. Howes nothing, Kolt was underwhelming. JVR regressing.

Max, Tom Mc langdon i thought were our best.

Onwards and upwards.

Edited April 12, 20241 yr by dees4lyf

10 hours ago, wizardinoz said:

Because if Tom can mark the ball like that down forward he is still a great asset. Petty is a premiership CHB & at the moment looks like a fish out of water.

Tmac has the turning ability of a truck unfortunately. We already have BBB there too, it would be a disaster if them both are our KPF.

15 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

People calling Fritsch a front runner are seriously deluded.

He is in the top 5 for overall goals kicked in the last 5 season, playing  as a medium forward. He's kicked only a handful less goals than Jeremy Cameron has in 5 years for goodness sake.

He also kicked 6 on the biggest stage of all and would have comfortably won the Norm Smith if not for Trac.

 

If you are playing Melbourne, who is the one forward you put all your attention on? Fritsch. 
Kosi of course, but in terms of who do you defend in the air? It's Fritsch.

For such an undersized forward playing as basically our number one target going inside 50, he is remarkably consistent. He needs help though.

Correct, I also don't understand why they were using JVR on Harris Andrews? It should've been BBB, probably wouldn't have made a huge difference but you can't ask your second year Fwd to go against their veteran key defender.

18 minutes ago, H_T said:

Sorry, but Max was not “great”

He may have had 51 hit outs - but a large chunk of percentage of these were either straight to or sharked by a Lions player. There was more movement and positive signs from him in the last quarter. But the game was over at 3/4 time. And Lions has already put the cue in the rack.

Well not great at all, he hit the ball to Lions players most of the time, I just meant that he looked like he was trying pretty hard still when a few of the others had gone to sleep.

Was the whole team sick perhaps?  Caught Viney's bug the other week and now they were all just a bit sick.  Surely that's what happened right?

12 hours ago, Clintosaurus said:

Noah Answerth = [censored].

Hopefully it might motivate Petty to extract the digit 

54 minutes ago, Demon Dynasty said:

That's a bit of a lazy response

An unashamed sucker for the classics.

https://youtu.be/mGDhzVi1bqU?si=yk-V_SEFW5Y4D8kf

34 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

Firstly the club never used it as an excuse, but let's remember that not only was it 3 games in 13 days, it was also interstate travel AND coming up against a side who had a bye and then a game against North, which is basically a bye. 

We had 2 very hard contested games against Port and Adelaide, lost Salem in the first 10 minutes which left us down a rotation, plus Clarry who was, for the first time probably ever, a total liability.

Having said all that, you are right and Brisbane played us very well and deserve all the credit. They smashed us in clearances, in contest, in ball use, in efficiency, in tackles, in just about every single stat except hit outs. They deserved that win, and the final margin flattered us. 

 

Yeah the Salem out really did hurt our rotations not to mention robbed us of much needed ball use. Really sucks losing players like that early in the game. 

Just like losing Gus in the QF, it was brutal.

12 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

People calling Fritsch a front runner are seriously deluded.

He is in the top 5 for overall goals kicked in the last 5 season, playing  as a medium forward. He's kicked only a handful less goals than Jeremy Cameron has in 5 years for goodness sake.

He also kicked 6 on the biggest stage of all and would have comfortably won the Norm Smith if not for Trac.

 

If you are playing Melbourne, who is the one forward you put all your attention on? Fritsch. 
Kosi of course, but in terms of who do you defend in the air? It's Fritsch.

For such an undersized forward playing as basically our number one target going inside 50, he is remarkably consistent. He needs help though.

The worst thing that ever happened for his career was beating up on Easton Wood in a grand final.

Drank all his own bathwater then topped it up for his fans.

Of course he's kicked a stack of goals, he's very talented, plays in a side with a (usually) prolific midfield and just lives out the back.

He was downright dreadful in periods of 2022 with his lack of second efforts and unwillingness to pass, they didn't stamp it out. Played pretty well through some injuries last year, but the last 2 weeks he's back to his old ways.

It's not just his fault, the coaches are to blame too. Why when we have a specialist full forward in BBB and a couple of other talls who can mark it do we play Fritsch almost full time as the deepest forward and number 1 target?

Don't get me wrong, modern footy means forwards have to come up the ground in the zone and the ability to get back inside 50 is hard running and important, but every backline knows Fritsch is just going to tear off out the back and it makes him predictable and completely useless if the ball never gets there. And when he's matched up on a tall that he can't out mark that's going to happen a lot. 

I'd be changing his starting position - he should be 50/50 deepest forward and up the ground - and change his mindset that the most important thing for him to do is to get deep. Even if he's the deepest forward if the mids and backs are under pressure up the ground then give them a short hit up leading at the kicker. 

17 minutes ago, Young Angus said:

Well not great at all, he hit the ball to Lions players most of the time, I just meant that he looked like he was trying pretty hard still when a few of the others had gone to sleep.

Exactly, few people would say it was up with his best games but there's been plenty of Max games like that which have contributed to a win.

17 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Correct, I also don't understand why they were using JVR on Harris Andrews? It should've been BBB, probably wouldn't have made a huge difference but you can't ask your second year Fwd to go against their veteran key defender.

I think BB doesn’t have the legs to go with Andrew who is quick and excellent at peeling off. The idea was probably that JVR had more juice in the tank to “defend” him. It didn’t work. 
I don’t know why Petty was given the defensive role on him. That would have made most sense.