You have to remember king has come from Geelong in the past few years. A team that doesn't bottom out, consistently plays finals & wins games they should win

11 hours ago, Rooooooooooo said:

JVR a huge worry for me

Definitely. Crazy to think career best form a month back to possibly (should be) being dropped.

Im starting to think Roo’s struggles are more because of the noise upstairs.

Just now, dees189227 said:

You have to remember king has come from Geelong in the past few years. A team that doesn't bottom out, consistently plays finals & wins games they should win

And have coaches in maggots ears.

Not watching any footy shows this week

Been staying off DL until now.

20 minutes ago, RedLegs23 said:

Definitely. Crazy to think career best form a month back to possibly (should be) being dropped.

Im starting to think Roo’s struggles are more because of the noise upstairs.

Can’t stand him. He literally has tantrums if he doesn’t get the ball in a contest, did you see yesterday?

Slapping at the ball after someone else Has marked it and another time he flexed up his muscles like the hulk, literally like a kid does when they have a tantrum.

He definitely has head noise.

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:
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I’m not one for blind optimism but I have Essendon at the G as a win (assuming we haven’t fallen off the cliff by round 14)
Essendon play like men possessed at this Gather Round fixture and I have no idea why? But I reluctantly given them credit for it.
Happy to play them again to make up for yesterday’s debacle.

It was lost in the coaching box to allow some 100 uncontested possessions, which is a failure on the club to address the lack of pressure on the opposition. It was the same against Freo, and they addressed that to some extent. In that game, they need to stop that, as the top teams will continue to rip us apart in that facet of the game. Their dons made us look second rate for a bottom side at this point in time.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by demon3165

As I didn't see a second of the game yesterday, lucky for me, who did koltyn line up on?

We’ll probably beat the Lions by 20 points next weekend.

Don’t ask for my logic here.

Showed us exactly what we are, a bottom 4 team

JVR is starting to feel like a three-year shed project that my wife is now asking questions about.

Even the Melbourne storm are letting me down.

5 minutes ago, Mel Bourne said:

JVR is starting to feel like a three-year shed project that my wife is now asking questions about.

Dammit, secrets out, I have those!!

Look if someone said at the start of the season we'd be 3-2 we'd probably say ok that's good.

It's just the fact it's the bummers we lost to that stings the most

Obviously was very disappointed yesterday. It's a strange one - on form we should've won, but looking at their ins beforehand and their team on paper they certainly didn't look anything as bad as a richmond or west coast. Very frustrating watch, couldn't stop their uncontested mark game, all off the back of getting smashed in the contest. They clearly match up on us well, even when we've been at our best we've often struggled against them over the years (even when not at AO!). Halfway through the second quarter they just took it up to a level they haven't really played at in a long time and we couldn't go with them. They're not nearly as bad as everyone thinks they are and will put quite a few more strong performances together throughout the season.

This is exactly the type of hiccup that happens with younger teams and doesn't change my perspective on where we're likely at - middle bracket team who will compete on the edge of finals but will still lose to teams of lesser form and will occassionally be completely blown away when another side really clicks on the day and we don't. I'm still thrilled with the start to the season we've had and look forward to getting back to the G and seeing the response against a club that even at their best has had difficulty against us!

just disgusted

2 hours ago, RedLegs23 said:

So much credibility lost yesterday after such a wonderful first month.

This week’s response will be telling.

Absolutely.

Brad Scotts coaching record against us is something like 14-2. We are his bunnies. Weird.

Edited 15 hours ago15 hr by Jack Vineys Anger Manager

The young players are not the issue.*

All of them need a few pre-seasons & 60-80 games under their belts but more importantly, they need the senior players to lead the way

Which was sadly lacking yesterday (senior players output) I counted up to at least 10 experienced players who were well below their best

The danger pre-game was complacency and whether King could read what might get delivered

Let's face it, we starting having these no-show-up games a few years ago with arguably, a much better team

But even the best teams have off days (Bulldogs yesterday as well)

Steep learning curve ahead with lots of ups & downs. We just need to stay ahead in the win column

*Even the great Chris Judd could only average 18 possessions per game in his first 68 matches (3 years)

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by Macca

1 hour ago, Mel Bourne said:

We’ll probably beat the Lions by 20 points next weekend.

Don’t ask for my logic here.

I wouldn't be shocked if we did.

1 minute ago, Jack Vineys Anger Manager said:

Brad Scotts coaching record against us is something like 14-3. We are his bunnies. Weird.

I think a big part of this is he knows not to try and beat Gawn, but to try and negate and rove his taps. I think a big reason GC struggled against us is because they backed Witts in and that lets Gawn destroy him and take over the middle with their mids always being caught flat footed and reactive. It's funny but I always feel a lot more confident when teams have a good ruck rather than a part-timer as teams without a 'star' will always just try and rove off Gawny and it evens it up in the middle. Essendon's mids are underrated due to their injury crisis and subsequent lack of continuity and form but Merrett, Parish, Caldwell, McGrath and Tsatas are a better midfield group than ours at this time and it evenutally showed.

The complacency is a funny one.

If the coaches acknowledge it before the game ("every opponent is tough"), you are validating that you are favorites and should win.

If you don't, you risk letting it fester in the playing group's mind, and players rock up just thinking it will happen.

Coaches too. I don't need to as tight on that message, or that assignment. Play fast, play attacking , they won't be able to go with us.

Either way, it's unavoidable, and results in a collective 30% lowering of intensity.

Supporters are the same - look at how bad the reaction is on here. Everyone expected to trounce them. Probably said "lucky we have Essendon this week, don't need to worry".

A week off from the angst and tension. We don't need to be at our best.

Its totally, universally unavoidable and seeps in from all sides.

Not just in football - in everything. You take your foot off the pedal, you are eventually found out, 95% of the time.

The only tonics are experience - those who've seen it before and can bring unconditional effort no matter the circumstances (gawn) - and those who just love the game and see every chance to play as their everything (Kossie, Butters etc)

Until you have team with a critical mass of these two types, these days will happen, and will always happen.

Theres's nothing the coaches can say or do to prevent it. All mindset.

6 minutes ago, RedBlueandTrue said:

I think a big part of this is he knows not to try and beat Gawn, but to try and negate and rove his taps. I think a big reason GC struggled against us is because they backed Witts in and that lets Gawn destroy him and take over the middle with their mids always being caught flat footed and reactive. It's funny but I always feel a lot more confident when teams have a good ruck rather than a part-timer as teams without a 'star' will always just try and rove off Gawny and it evens it up in the middle. Essendon's mids are underrated due to their injury crisis and subsequent lack of continuity and form but Merrett, Parish, Caldwell, McGrath and Tsatas are a better midfield group than ours at this time and it evenutally showed.

This is partly true, but what the Bombers game plan did yesterday was make Gawn redundant behind the ball. No contested marks and only 1 for the game told the true Gawn story. He was terrific at winning his own ball and was in fact the highest rated player on the ground, but his influence was curtailed by the Bombers' ability to go around him. That is great coaching, and not dissimilar to what Geelong have done when playing against us in recent times. At all costs, avoid Gawn. I'm surprised more coaches haven't adopted this strategy.

1 minute ago, ghost who walks said:

just disgusted

We showed the odd glimpse of good footy but for very much of the game it was like one v wooden Spooner's.

Our first quarter was horrendous and a very good team would have sealed it there and then.

Occasional moments of fightback that actually kept us in it but ultimately we kept reverting to our first quarter form.

It was embarrassing and hard to watch.

Like a car crash one didn't want to see it but hard to look away.

The fumbling and things like just kicking it straight to the opposition was horrendous and strange. The high handballs that just kept causing turnovers...my goodness.

How can a team play like we have been suddenly deteriorate so fast?

I felt sorry for Jake in his 250 th to get injured so early which probably impacted his whole game. Probably should have subbed him off.

I was so looking fwd to seeing he and Fritta both firing in our fwd line but they did zippo.

But in truth these two for the last few years are both either on or off. Four goals or none. Both of them.

None of our fwds did well.

Jvr probably needs to go into the twos not just for form but discipline as well. How is Jeffo going,?

This is the first time I've really called him out but mainly because of his opening salvo of six goals one. Wow. Then hey presto nothing to see here for the next four games . He's now averaging maybe 1.3 goals a game.

I genuinely thought he'd finally turned it all around. Still time but he'd want to get going asap.

Max was one of our best but he only took one mark for the entire game which is very unusual for him.

They must have been fatigued because a lot of their choices seemed to be affected by mental fog of sorts and the number of clangers was very noticeable.

Maybe we have played our absolute best to come from behind in previous games and worn ourselves out?maybe a rest during the week would have helped.

I don't know but that wasn't the same team that turned up in all our other games and I hope we never see it again.

The fwd line was a worry again with Petty having to go there . I'll keep saying it....now for King's sake...He's not a fwd.

Took a few good marks but is a terrible set shot. Didn't score a goal. Which is their main job description and ultimately the limits test for a good forward. Yea they have other things they can do but ultimately a good forward has a decent number of goals kicked. At least 1.5 pregame minimim.

Petty.msnshed under one per game in his almost three years there

Next week will be interesting. Will probably win because the media has not built us up.

It often seems we get ahead of ourselves and believe all the good stuff to the point of not taking it seriously and playing like we did.

Maybe it's a case of overconfidence?

But for so many of the players to fumble....miss targets...turnovers.... hospital handballs, I'd love to know why this all happened.

This should have been a comfortable win but maybe that thinking was the actual problem?

Can someone please explain to the best of their ability in point form , the reasons we lost and why we were so error riddled without much pressure?

I'd really, really like to understand and would appreciate it greatly.

Thanks.