titan_uranus

Vince just kicked it the wrong way, apparently. Not great signs.

Anyone know what happened to Frost?

I reckon Adelaide are getting far too ahead of themselves. At some point a side's going to bring them back down to Earth with a massive thud. It won't be us if we don't show up like we did against GC. If we hit them hard with pressure and we are able to get some fluid ball movement off half back, then I reckon we're every chance. Problem is, if we slip from that requirement even a little, they'll most likely belt us. Not sure there's any middle ground, we either take it right up to them or lose by 10 goals.

Doesn't detract from the argument. They're obviously a better side than we are, but the point stands - they beat a better side than them because they put in a huge effort and didn't drop their heads when the going got tough.

Whatever level of talent we have, GWS has more. Whatever level of talent Essendon has, Hawthorn has more. Essendon won because they put in a huge effort, they didn't mentally give up, and as you say, they played for each other. That helped them overcome the gap in talent that needed to be bridged. We lost because we didn't do any of that.

Is Essendon's midfield equal to Hawthorn's? Are their forwards?

And Carlton, Fremantle and Sydney I suspect. Fremantle looks the goods so far, Sydney looks in top nick, Carlton looks a wooden spoon contender. Let's hope that all gets more air time than 'oh look, Melbourne were insipid on the weekend, again'.

It's going to be hell, sure, but credit has to be paid where it's due and the players deserve it.

You have to give them credit. I hate Hird, I hate Little, I hate that club, but they've beaten Hawthorn when some thought only Sydney could do that, and they almost beat Sydney last week. Good on them.

Hasn't happened yet...

I think this is the general consensus - the slowness is a manifestation of the lack of effort (i.e. we didn't work hard so we looked tired, lazy and slow, pretty much because we were). We got smashed in the clearances because we didn't work hard enough. They ran rampant through the middle because we didn't work hard enough. And we looked super slow because we didn't work hard enough.

Maybe there is something to this talk of the MCG's short grass affecting players? 6 clubs played on the MCG in Round 1. So far 5 of them have lost in Round 2 (Richmond, Carlton, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Geelong), and the sixth one is Hawthorn. Would make our loss a little more tolerable, at least.

I know we all hate Essendon, but if they're going to play well, at least let it be against Hawthorn. I'm sick of Hawthorn (and Sydney) and it's good for the competition if these sides are beatable and not totally dominant.

In this situation you'd have McDonald, Dunn and Frost playing key back positions, so I assume you're relying on Dawes to do the relief ruck work?

I would take massive amounts of enjoyment seeing Geelong slide this year, hopefully well out of the 8. As for Fremantle, I think too many people went too early in dismissing them as a flag chance this year. On current form they appear to stand the best chance of beating Hawthorn or Sydney.

Agreed. His drive off half-back last week was huge for us.

It's each to their own at this point I think, given none of them are really pressing a case, but at the moment I rate Gawn above Spencer (and Fitzpatrick a very distant third). If Fitzy in the backline changes his game then good for him; I don't think he'll be here next year (or whenever he's OOC) otherwise. As for Spencer, I have never felt he has an innate sense of how to play football. He's worked on his aggression and bodywork, which is good, but whenever he plays the overriding feeling I get from watching him is that he's an athlete, not a footballer. Conversely, whenever I see Gawn I see a footballer. IMO he's always been more willing, and able to get involved in general play, whether by linking up through the middle in chains from the back to the forward line, or as a marking forward (both in terms of leading, and contesting in packs). His ruckwork hasn't developed well enough though, his fitness is an issue, as is his consistency, so I certainly see the flaws and hence the issues the club has with its ruck stocks.

I think something's got to give with the second ruck at the moment - we're a tad hamstrung using Frost in that role as limits our ability to use him as a key defender. As for defenders, Dunn's got to improve on his first two weeks if he's going to play well on Jenkins. Adelaide of 2015 is already obviously better than Adelaide of 2014; on current form I worry about Dunn on Jenkins. I think people are seeing a lack of run and spread through the middle and automatically attributing that to having too many talls. It's not like JKH was giving us huge amounts of run last week (though whatever it was, it would have exceeded what we got from Dawes). The real issue is that, despite having plenty of running mids in the side, none of them were working hard enough through the middle. Additionally, last week we had impressive drive off half-back coming from Lumumba, Howe and Garland. Today Garland was awful, Howe no better, and Lumumba didn't give us anywhere near as much drive. No push from half-back means no ball movement, no work ethic from the middle means no run. It's not just about Dawes and the talls. Because he's slow, and pace is a huge deficiency. He also struggles to dispose of the ball cleanly, another huge deficiency. We have the ability to win clearances in the current 22 - Jones, Tyson, Vince, Cross, Viney, Brayshaw. Unfortunately today the majority of them had terrible days (Mumford killing Jamar didn't help). Riley needs to offer more than just clearance work to get a spot in the side.

One of our big development problems over the past 8 years is that, every time we try to send someone back to VFL to work on something, we're forced to call them back up to the seniors well before we should because we keep losing and keep wanting to make changes to the side. Toumpas and Grimes are playing VFL instead of AFL for a reason. That reason is to make them better players in the long run. Bringing them back now cuts short that development, and even if it has a short term benefit, it doesn't help them in the long term. They should both stay at Casey until they've consistently demonstrated improvement in the areas we sent them there for. Until then, we're going to have to make do with what we have. Adelaide has a tall forward line (Walker, Jenkins, Lynch) so we'll need three tall defenders next week - I think Frost needs to be one of those, as I'm not sure Garland and Dunn are tall enough. However, I'm inclined to drop a taller player for another runner, as I think we need to promote run through the middle as a key moving forward, so if Frost makes way in that regard I'll understand.

Talent-wise, our list still needs work, but it's come a long way in the last 5 years. That's not absolutely nothing to do with what happened today. Whether it's above the shoulders or not, whether it's coaching, whether it's just that some of these players have been ruined by a losing culture, whatever it is, we have an innate, inherent problem that repeatedly causes us to have lapses in effort which are beyond embarrassing, and unless and until we fix it, however it can be fixed, we can't improve as a football club.

St Kilda beating up on GC suggests a few things. One - maybe our win against GC wasn't all that special. Two - maybe we are the wooden spoon favourite for 2015. Three - maybe this competition is starting to even up a little more. Fingers damn well crossed it's number three.

6 - McDonald 5 - Viney 4 - Salem 3 - Newton 2 - Hogan 1 - Cross (not sure who else to put here)

That's the thing that is eating me up more than anything. With run of the mill losses, the ones Roos warned us not to get too worked up about, we usually just don't have the skill to get the job done. There were a lot of those losses last year. This is that other kind of loss, the one we saw all too frequently under Neeld - the one where the senior players don't step up when we need them and the general effort across the 22 is unacceptable.

This was fun last week.

This implies there are other players not on this list who did impress you in the second half.