Lord Nev

Petty and May both on their man, Lever coming over to intercept. That's pretty much our defensive plan every week. Was just bad luck.

BBB is a genuine chance to be dropped this week. Personally, I'd leave him in, but that's the current goss. (Not sure what that means for Weid)

Oh, don't get me wrong, Weid and Brown both poor today, I just don't think either had any impact on the loss given how it happened. We were smashed in the middle, destroyed on the spread and our defence was (understandably) a mess. I'm more talking about the weight of Demonland commentary and how much focus is on Weideman given it was our mids/wings and defence that cost us the game.

Yep, I admire our 'no resting' or 'resilience' philosophy, but let's be honest - we got a bit lucky last year with our injury run. Hopefully it doesn't hurt us this year. We missed chances to rest some of the players clearly carrying niggles over the last month.

THE GOOD Think it was the second quarter, ANB put in 3-4 huge efforts around our 50 to pressure, spoil and tackle, already an unbelievable effort and intensity, then he shows up not long afterwards getting a hand on a Freo kick going inside 50 that ends up in a goal for us. Bedford played his best ever half for us IMO. With limited opportunity; he's shown more than I thought he had in him this year. Handy depth that could become more. THE BAD Giving up 113 uncontested marks. As well as giving up -55 uncontested possessions. Just shows our lack of legs today. Forward structure and delivery. Brown just seems chained to one spot when we look to go inside 50, and doesn't help when Gawn jumps in front of him. The mids aren't making life easy though with some real 2019/20 style inside 50s. Everything seems a little confused in our forward 50 this year for the most part. THE UGLY Smashed in clearances, including a run of 0-7 centre clearances in the 3rd quarter. Mids needed to step up given the absence of May. First half Dockers kicked 2 goals from 23 inside 50s, second half they kicked 12 goals from 29 entries. No wing depth. Langdon (and Salem for full context) out and we fall apart on the wings. Amon anyone? And the (very very expected) ugliest - Demonland whipping themselves into a frenzy over Weideman on a day where, given the full context of the above, the last people you would blame for the loss are our key forwards.

Not beyond the realms of possibility. Exactly the same period last year that it seemed we did.

Just a flat day that has been coming for a while. The key stats show Freo had all the run and energy. We had a flat period this time last year too, so no panic.

Tall forwards didn't lose us the game.

Tell me you're not watching the game without telling me you're not watching the game...

Smashed in centre clearances, smashed in defence, smashed for ground balls.... Demonland: Weid is useless

That's a big part of the problem though. We're really kicking it on top of their heads a lot this year. Thought we turned a corner last week, some good signs with forward delivery. Hopefully it's better in the second half. Not that that's the only problem of course, but it's the main one IMO.

Geez pretty harsh, neither have had much opportunity so far.

Great interview with Kozzy in the HS today. I particularly loved this from Koz, and amazing to hear a young Indigenous man who has battled moving over to the other side of the country and losing his mum talk about 'facing your fears'. "The main struggle is moving away from home and if you want to make your dreams come true, you have to face your fears. I guess you just need to use the people around you to talk to. For me, that was one of the hardest things as well, moving away from home. But I’ve been lucky to have a lot of Indigenous people around me. ‘Wheels’ (Matt Whelan, the club’s Indigenous project officer) knows Uncle Byron well. If I am going through something, he tells uncle Byron. Wheels keeps me connected. He is basically like an uncle to me at the club and he is pretty important to us Indigenous players. With me being a (young) leader now, it is just about being a helping hand in the communities, which is important." Kysaiah Pickett opens up on the passing of his ‘old mum’, his culture and his sporting hero

I think 'failed' is more a reflection of your expectations. But that's beside the point I was making which is I think most of us, yourself included evidently, have made up their minds about where he's at and what he will become by now so judging it on one game seems a bit over the top.

I just reckon everyone needs to give up on their big hopes for him. Forget the draft order, just recognize he's a depth player. I've accepted that with him tbh.

I didn't say anything about this time being different.

I wouldn't say lucky as such. He's had an unlucky run with poorly timed injuries, especially early on when they hindered his preseasons. The club would have him placed fairly among the group in terms of contract and expectations I reckon, so it is what it is.

My opinion is he doesn't need anymore time. I think where he's at is where he'll likely always be. A solid backup option/depth player that can play an ok role up forward but won't be a game breaker consistently. I think people just still consider his draft position and are waiting for some kind of 'break out', but I don't reckon that will happen, at least in a way where it leads to consistently great games.

100% agree.

I don't begrudge anyone having made their mind up about him by now, fair enough. But to say 'if he doesn't perform in this one game then he's never gonna make it' seems a bit over the top to me.

Seems a bit of a harsh call to judge him on one game as a late replacement coming off a bye...

TBF, it IS the internet, and most of us go to the black and white pretty quickly and pretty hard! I think we can recognize Milkshake had a poor game (and is probably lucky to play this week) but also not absolutely smash him all week.

They're not ALL that matters, but they do give an indication of certain things, for us it's usually an indicator of the role being played and then potentially how effective the player was in that role. Melksham's game last week just seem a bit devoid of those indicators. He was clearly brought in for Harmes' role, so you'd think stoppage clearances, marks, tackles, inside 50s and possessions (to a point) were indicators of how we went. Statistically he was poor in those areas. He possibly had some time on Langdon's wing as well, but those statistical indicators would have been fairly similar for that role IMO. For mine, the key areas I think Melksham can contribute really well are inside 50s and goal assists. In some previous years he's been quite important for us with his quality delivery forward. Last week he had 2 inside 50s and 0 goal assists. You can forgive a lack of impact with the ball if the player is 'bringing the heat', but he had just 1 tackle, 1 one percenter, 1 ground ball get and 10 pressure acts (for reference, ANB in a similar role had 25). Just not a good enough game from a senior player.