titan_uranus

Well then clearly not all 19 of his touches were turnovers. Still, DE is a useless stat. The kick which missed Garlett and therefore ruined a certain goal, for example, will be classified as "effective" because it went to a Melbourne player and not a Hawthorn player. But it was a rubbish kick. He's a momentum killer.

Put the stats to one side. He was hopeless every time he got the ball or went near it. He had 19 touches but I'd wager close to all 19 of them were turnovers or mistakes. He can't kick, he can't handpass, and he doesn't score goals as a forward. We cannot carry him on the basis that he tackles and sometimes is "aggressive". He is, without question, the player who most deserves to be dropped.

Lever might be struggling but this is a shocking post. Dunn is, and was, a hack.

This is a good comment (amongst many good comments). We are sending too many up into marking contests (Frost is a major problem in that area). We need to rely on OMac to do his job.

We've spent a long time trying to make Melksham a defensive half forward. I'm not sure trying to re-convert him into a half-back is going to work. Having said that, I think the lack of pace in our back half is a big problem, so I'm not sure what the answer is. Hunt needs to come in. Maybe Stretch? We need to drop one of Lewis/Vince.

He's not wrong. But personally, I reckon he can GAGF. 18 months doesn't completely erase the influence he had on the side so if we're struggling defensively this soon after he was coach, he can take some of the blame.

I have no idea what he was trying with that.

Hawthorn did this repeatedly today to good effect. It bought some of their kicks an extra 10 metres by allowing the kicker to get out on an angle without the man on the mark cutting him off. It also got Gunston a goal early in the fourth quarter. IMO this should be outlawed by changing the rules: the protected zone should apply to the man on the mark who is otherwise defenceless. But until that happens, why don't we do it? Didn't any of our players see how frequently Hawthorn did it and how it helped them get out the back of our press?

I don't buy into the argument that's he's making Hunt/HIbberd/Jetta worse. The entire side's lack of structure and pressure up the ground is making the whole backline worse. It's not Lever. His intercept/aerial work is getting better, and he clearly reads the play excellently. Those parts of his game are there and are improving. But his skills are atrocious at the moment. He's fumbly, awful below his knees, and he's missing way too many kicks/handpasses - we cannot afford another poor user of the ball in our back half. His confidence looks down, which will in part be because of the pressure of the trade and the pre-season expectations on him. That's not an excuse, just a reason. He can play a lot better than this and he's going to need to.

6 - Salem 5 - OMac 4 - Oliver 3 - Jones 2 - Kent 1 - Hogan Jones deserves some credit for stopping Mitchell. Kent and Hogan get votes for at least trying as the game continued. Gawn won the hit outs but lost his temper as the game went on and was doing some very selfish things (a torp out of the backline, a rushed shot for goal). His miss in the first quarter didn't help either.

You're right in that we can't drop them all. You're wrong to give him another week. He's a momentum killer. @ProDee was right. His 4 goals last week was the worst thing that came out of that game. He can't kick, he can't handpass and he's fumbly. We simply cannot feature him in our forward line. Get him out.

We're only going to make, what, 3-4 changes? It's not going to matter anywhere near as much as the remaining 18-19 players lifting. Having said that, there are some key things we need to do. The number one thing we must do is drop Bugg. To never be played again unless and until he is regularly kicking bags of goals for Casey. A complete liability in the side otherwise. We should also drop Harmes. A classic NQR player whose ceiling is lower than a lot of the other bad players. We should also drop at least one of Lewis and Vince. Whether we like it or not we're not dropping both and I suspect we're probably not dropping one, either. But we should, and it should be Lewis. As to who comes in, Tyson and Hunt should be two ins. I also think we should be bringing in a second tall to be a proper second ruck when Gawn is off. We might need to drop Frost to make that happen. So it could be something like: In: Tyson, Hunt, Weideman/Pedersen Out: Bugg, Harmes, Frost/Lewis

We have a lot of problems. I'm not fussed about being 12th on the ladder, or being 2-2 - we've beaten two bad sides and lost to two good ones, those aren't on their own a problem. It's what has been happening for a month now and the things that have gone backwards from 2017. Our leaders remain abysmal. Lewis was terrible and Vince was IMO worse - Vince is the laziest SOB, he refused to bend over and pick the ball up today and just tried to kick it off the ground. An embarrassment. Jones was sent to Mitchell but either because of that or because he's never been a great leader, he never tried to arrest the slide in Q2 or Q3 when we desperately needed someone to stand up and lead. Our inefficiency going forwards isn't improving. It was bad in 2017. It's just as bad, if not worse, in 2018. We should have been 6 goals up after the first 20 minutes. The game was practically played in our forward third. But we were only 20 points up and so a quick couple of goals to Hawthorn and the game was evened up. Same in Q2 - we were generally even with them but 4.0 to 0.4 ruins everything. We carry too many unskilled, VFL-at-best players. When one or two have an off day, we can cope, but when they are all down we are made to look VFL-standard. The main culprits here are Bugg, Harmes, ANB, Wagner, Kent, Melksham, Frost. Kent and ANB were serviceable, the others were terrible. We concede goals far too easily in defence on transition. This is as bad, if not worse, than last year. Frustratingly, we all saw this coming during the week. Hawthorn were always going to have a small and fast forward line but what did we do about it? We continue to play "our way", which means we press up in our forward half. Clarkson knew what he needed to do and we got burned out the back like we have so many times over the last year. The defensive set up isn't working, but nor are key backline players. Something's clearly not working with Lever. His confidence is shot, I'm sure partly because in the first two rounds we tried making him a key defender which he simply isn't. He's at least getting to more contests now as a third man and spoiling the ball but his skills have plummeted and he's a liability when he goes near it. Hunt's already been dropped, Jetta's playing so poorly he deserves to be dropped, and Hibberd's fallen away from last year's admittedly lofty standards. Throw in the woeful Vince and Lewis and we're left with a scarily bad backline. We're being outcoached on game day. Goodwin seems to refuse to make changes until it's too late. We leave one off the back of the square, or we leave an opposition loose man in defence, or we don't man up on game-changers, or we don't rotate players to get them into the game (did we ever try putting Garlett in the middle to get him into the game?). Selection isn't helping either - going in without a second tall to back up Gawn in the ruck is just stupid. It might work against a side like North Melbourne but it was arrogant to try it against Hawthorn. I've already read a number of comments about watching whether or not we respond next week. I fully expect us to play 100 times better. For the last few years we've generally responded well to bad losses. But the above problems are a month old, not just one week old, and it's clear not enough has been done by the players or coaches to fix them. And until we do, we can respond to bad games all we want, the bad games are going to keep happening and we're not going to go anywhere.

Hawthorn's first game was a near-walkover against a limp Collingwood. Their second was a hard-to-read game vs Geelong, where both sides seem to always play above themselves. Then last week RIchmond picked them apart. You'd like to think we looked at what it was that Richmond did to move the ball through Hawthorn with ease. I've read Richmond's pace was important so we'll be in need of bit-players like Melksham and Kent to break some lines. I think our forward line matches up well against most sides, especially Hawthorn (I don't rate their backline). But their forward line looks dangerous to me. If we don't properly respect their small forwards, I can see Rioli, Breust, Puopolo and Impey running riot and scoring those easy goals out the back. If Gawn can get on top of McEvoy in the ruck that might be our most important advantage, though.

Why, because they're currently playing Brisbane? They have repeat games against Adelaide, Geelong, Essendon, Collingwood and St Kilda (at the time the AFL made the picks that was three finalists from last year plus two sides tipped to rise this year, and features none of NM, Carlton, Brisbane or Fremantle, who were tipped to be the year's worst sides). They have four tough road games (Adelaide, Port Adelaide, West Coast, GWS). And they have to play a home game at Etihad against Sydney. I fail to see how their draw is soft.

Only bested in those stakes by Josh Jenkins. So incredibly overrated and continually spuds it up when any sort of pressure is on. His own supporters bronx cheering when he finally took a mark deep into the third quarter.

Collingwood's also missing a host of players - Elliott, Moore, Greenwood, Adams, Wells, Goldsack, Broomhead.

This game looks like a top 8 side vs a bottom 10 side. The roles are not what anyone expected, though. Classic Collingwood though. Every year under Buckley they win surprise games against quality sides but then back them up with losses to rubbish sides. Last year they beat Sydney in Sydney, then lost to St Kilda, then they beat Geelong, then lost to Carlton, then they beat Fremantle in Perth then lost four straight games. If they win this there's every chance they lose to Essendon on Anzac Day.

Where did that come from? I had no idea he was playing poorly enough to be dropped. Is this based on some sort of knowledge/source or is this just tripe/trolling?

People are suggesting Frost or ANB might be dropped but I'm 99.9% sure that the outs will come from the extended bench. Assuming that's correct, I think Brayshaw for Tyson makes sense. I doubt Weideman will come in off the back of one (good) VFL game, and I don't think we need him structurally against Hawthorn. I could, though, see Hunt getting a game purely on the basis that Hawthorn have four small and pacey forwards. If he comes in, it could be Fritsch who makes way (I can't see Garlett or Wagner being dropped).

Agree. Hawthorn-Geelong games aren't always accurate measures of either side. Taking that one out, they had a routine win against a terrible Collingwood and then they looked slow and past it against Richmond. They're certainly better than our last two opponents, but they're not dominant and they're not that much better than us, if at all.

1. Kicking 18 goals with Hogan kicking only 1 of those, whilst racking up 25 possessions up the ground. 2. The way Oliver dealt with his tag, including his ability to play as a deep forward. 3. Salem's game in the midfield - far more strength than I've seen from him before. Promising sign.

Geelong punished our lapse in Round 1 and we lost by a kick. Let's not get too carried away here. Yes, we have lapses. We lose too many quarters by big margins, and indeed we've already lost one game this year because of it. But the North first quarter wasn't anything like the Geelong second quarter, it's just not a good example of the point you're trying to make. And we're clearly capable of righting the ship, possibly more so than last year: we fought back against Geelong after that second quarter, Brisbane levelled with us but we won by 5 goals, North started with 4 goals and we won by 6.

Love this thread, Skuit. Out of interest, where are you getting these stats from?

And as for frees that went unpaid, there was the blatant hold/push in the back on Petracca in the fourth. Insane.