Axis of Bob

We could win by 200+ points and you'd find a way to make sure you couldn't enjoy it. I don't take any of your comments seriously.

We kept a team to 4 goals. We were never threatened. It was ugly, not bad.

I really liked how well we defended for the whole game. It wasn't just in defence, but we defended well all over the ground. We consistently denied Brisbane the ability to move the ball quickly, which slowed the game down and allowed us to stop their scoring. We should have scored more than we did, however we were so poor in the clearances that we were denied a lot of the scoring opportunities that we would normally have got. That we kept them to 4 goals after being smashed in the clearances like we did, is an excellent effort. Just because it was a low scoring game, doesn't mean it was a bad win. To me it looked like a repeatable style of win based on strong defence and a range of key forwards. Ugly doesn't necessarily mean bad.

I believe, from memory, that he tested at 2.97s in the SA state screening. I also think Brock McLean tested 3.01s, so I'm not sure that he could be said as having "Chris Judd like explosiveness". As a junior, Trengove was a good all around player. But he was no line breaker, which did concern a few at the time. To say he had "excellent speed" is just an error on the Phantom Drafter's behalf.

No he didn't. That is completely untrue. He was a good all around player, but the one knock on him was that he lacked a bit of toe.

Just finished watching the replay and few notes: ANB was excellent in close. He made a lot of very good decisions and his close movement means he often finds a bit more space than he should. He executes really well. He reminds me of Lachie Neale a bit. Tyson was the probably BOG. His class was evident and he just found ways to create space. You can tell he's used to a higher level as he had so much time. He was so, so clean with the footy. I though Harmes was excellent. Probably the best game I've seen from him. He has great attributes (pace, strong overhead, reasonably good skills) but he really found a way to get involved in the game. He appeared to work hard defensively too, which is promising. He is a player that will do a few things a game that make you go "Woah, that's impressive", but this game he managed to get himself more involved and actually impact the result. Really good signs. I'm impressed by White. He is a player who you don't feel should impress, especially with his weird running style, but he does a lot of things really well. He kicks it beautifully, is very strong overhead and is, surprisingly, a really sound defensive player. I don't know how, but he's always on the hammer of his opponent and spoils well with the body. I think I need to have a good look at him live, because there's something happening with him, but I don't know what it is. I think I'm confused about his pace, because he doesn't look like he should be quick, but I'd love to see whether that's right or not. McDonald moves like his brother, but needs a lot more bulk. But there's a lot to like.

What is also influential is our ability to polish off the tail quickly. It Mitch Starc + New ball + Tailenders = Carnage

Surely you understand that engaging in a debate about racism on a footy club forum is doing something to combat racism.

To my mind, anti-Goodes sentiment is about people being uncomfortable with society changing. This was reinforced after speaking with some 60-65 year old relatives. Goodes is lauded for his willingness to stand up against racism and his celebration of his own indigenous culture. He is made Australian of the Year and speaks about how Australia has come from a place of deep institutionalised racism and that we are still on the journey to true racial harmony. But this is taken by conservative (often older) white Australians as an accusation that they are bad people (ie, racists). They resent being labelled as racists because they feel they are good people and have changed with the times as anti-racism becomes more prominent. They remember their own parents and see how they are far less racist than their parents, so society is going 'too far'. Suddenly they feel like everything is going too far and Goodes, by laying down some truths about indigenous relations on a national stage, is being 'racially divisive'. He's not being divisive, but people feel like they have compromised on racism, so they think that aborigines should compromise a little too. The problem is that the world is changing and this change makes them feel uncomfortable. In a strange way, the fact the people are uncomfortable with being called racists is actually a positive step. It means that people acknowledge the idea that being racist is bad thing. It's certainly a big step forward from 20 years ago.

You would have him making a decision to turn the ball over rather than have a shot at goal because you think he has poor goalkicking confidence? You are making the assumption that a pass was a certain goal, while taking the shot was a 50/50. I think everyone is arguing that it was clear that the odds of a possible pass resulting in a goal were well below 50/50, and certainly far worse odds than a shot at goal from 30m out.

Bail made the right decision to not kick it. There are many times where a player is free. But that is only half the equation. The player has to be able to get it to the free player. With the free player directly behind the man on the mark, Bail would have had to go back quickly and then lob the ball over the man on the mark to the free player. This means that the ball hangs in the air and, with AFL speed, these almost always allow the opposition time to make a contest. That's why you see so many sideways kicks, because you can get the ball to the receiving player quickly and lowly. It's also why playing on is so effective, because when you are 2 metres wider you have removed the man on the mark from the kick. Bail `100% made the right decision to have a shot. He just missed it.

This thread wasn't on the front page and I thought that was disrespectful to Jesse Hogan. I love how he has 21 touches, 9 marks and 3 goals, which may well be as good a game as a key forward has had for us in a decade (and probably the most complete forward performance in the AFL this round), yet supporters are neither shocked nor surprised. I think we supporters may be getting 'superlative fatigue' with Jesse. He's a 20 year old playing his 7th game. He's just just phenomenal.

The AFL team are currently ranked 18th in the competition (ie, last) for disposals. So what you are saying is to ignore any high possession games because the game style of those players is similar to the style of a team that does not get high possessions. That is completely illogical. jnrmac - SNAP!

Question 1: Can they run? Question 2: Can they play footy? This is the way of the modern game. If you have a team that can't run then you get what we got last week. Of course, these are not polar questions as you make out (nor are they good ones). There are shades of grey and even different ways of getting to that shade. But it's a subtlety lost on most of our less nuanced and less astute (and most prolific) posters.

I'm looking forward to the outrage when this thread gets inevitably merged into the proper preview thread. It always makes me laugh.

If we run as poorly as we did last week, then poor skills will be the least of our problems.

It is clear what the coaching staff saw as the major issue we had last week, and it's also clear that they are trying to fix it. Run, especially forward of the ball. We lack running ability. We lacked it last week and we brought in 4 hard running players that can spread and provide an option. This has especially been the case since Kent hurt himself, as we lack a lot of pace forward of the footy. It means that we can't find easy targets forward of the ball and every goal we get has to be fought for relentlessly. Hawthorn are a really good running team. If we take a team that provides the lacklustre run that we showed last week, then we will be smashed. Running is more important than most people think. A lot of posters only see errors, but never consider the benefits of the rest of their game because they only follow the ball.

You don't think he's athletic? Or tall? Or athletic for his height? List the players in the AFL who are 200+cm and more athletic than him.

Agreed. I think Spencer's first half was ordinary and Pyke got right on top of him. But in the second half he got on top of him and, I thought, beat him.

The ins show us that we are interested in making the team faster in the longer term. Fremantle won clearances with their size, and scored against us (early on when we were in the contest) with their speed. We are addressing the size, but we are also trying to improve the speed. Bringing in Stretch as early as they have is obviously because the players we have been playing have not been playing that hard running outside role well enough. Spencer comes in because you simply can't leave him out. If you want to promote people who are knocking on the door, then Spencer has knocked on the door, smashed it down and fashioned the splinters into a spear with which to impale Jamar. Big, strong, aggressive and applies excellent pressure all over the ground.

There's no doubt about his talent. He did play under 18 championships and performed well as a skinny, but athletic key forward/defender. If he opts to play AFL (which is unlikely) then the issues will be injuries and time out of the game. But for a free rookie pick I would think 18 clubs would be very interested.

I don't know much about the first comment, as I spent most of the second half with my hands over my eyes! Generally I think of the pace issue as being two fold: 1- It helps you to finish off the good play of others and make the most of good situations (GWS did this completely int he second half), and 2- It helps you recover from bad situations. To that degree, I agree with you completely. Pace isn't the main issue, but it just gives us less margin for error when the other things go wrong. We didn't lose the game because of a lack of pace, but we were certainly scored against more heavily because of it. The most important thing is winning the footy and we have drafted for that need specifically. We were very lucky that two big bodied midfielders were available at 2 and 3. If we kept winning the footy like we did in the first quarter then we'd have won the game. But if we were a faster team then it could have kept us in the game for longer until we started winning the ball again.

We've done well this year when we've controlled the footy. But once we lose the contests we struggle outside with pace. We've taken steps to start competing in (and hopefully dominating) the midfield battle to control the football. If we can control the football then we can consistently win games of football. Hawthorn has only looked to get running players now because they already have the key contested midfield components in their midfields. After that it's tinkering with the edges.

It's a similar theme to the past (albeit not as dire) - we struggle in the midfield and we lack pace. There's no surprise that we traded for H and Garlett, because they have pace. It's a problem that is made bigger when we start to lose the contested ball in the midfield because GWS were able to stream forward and we couldn't catch them. We've seen that we can play good football when we control the ball, but when we can't win the footy then we can struggle due to our lack to pace. We've made an effort to improve the contested ball through our drafting (Brayshaw, Petracca, ANB etc), but the speed aspect is more difficult to fix.

In praise of the hugely underappreciated art of defensive footy in the AFL