RalphiusMaximus

Bennell would always do the flashy things, but never the basics. He would rather try to pick-pocket the ball from under the pack than dive in and get it, avoided tackles and couldn't get enough of it to justify a place as an outside running mid. He has pace and occasionally looks good, but more often winds up looking foolish as someone who genuinely wants the ball smashes in and take it while he is dancing around trying to do something clever. As others have said, 16 disposals playing for WCE in an absolute thrashing is nothing to write home about.

They won't rush Kent back. He has to make up a lot of fitness before they'll even look at him. The fact that he had an ongoing issue with his knee that just wouldn't heal will make them more cautious as well. I think we need to bear in mind that this is only his second year in the AFL. Roos has repeatedly said he won't push the kids into games before they're ready, and this applies equally to our second year players as to the first years. Kent will be a very good player for us one of these days, but it's not going to be in the first half of season 2014.

The Bulldogs had a fair bit of success with a small forward line for a while there. They made space, worked hard and let their small forwards lead out 1-1. We can try to do something similar.

Only 8 more months and we'll know if he's a Demon!

The tables you've supplied us with re fairly skewed given that Watts has played only one game this season and it was one of his best ever. As Wunders said, better to do this comparison at the end of the season.

I rate Kent and think he was an absolute steal for us, but he's had a very poor pre-season fitness-wise. I don't expect to see him until halfway through the year. Roos has bene very clear that he won't be rushing the young guys and they will have to be ready to play both physically and in terms of form. He'll keep building his fitness base playing for Casey and when he's ready we'll see him in the seniors. Also bear in mind that it's only his second season. He's not at the stage where we need to see him as a regular in the side. Let him work into it and play half a dozen games on the back end of the season.

The way I see it we need to do a few things to be competitive. We need to tag Hurn with one of our forwards. They use him so much to set up play, if we can remove his influence to some extent it hurts them. I think this is Bails job next week, especially given his knack for finding space going the other way. Bring in Gawn so we have two tall rucks to match up on their twin towers. Sadly, we may need to push Watts forward to give us a tall target, even if it's just to force the ball to ground. Use either Dunn or Grimes (or both) on LeCras. while TMac and Frawly take Darling and Kennedy. Hope like hell our midfield can come somewhere close to breaking even.

I think a lot depends on whether Fitz is fit. I suspect he won't be given the all clear given the way concussion is treated these days. That being the case Gawn comes in as a straight swap. If Fitz is by some miracle considered fit, we bring Gawn in for Pedersen. I think JKH had his taste and didn't do too much. Time for him to go back to the seconds and "earn his spot" some more. While he killed in the pre-season, he just didn't look ready last night. We have a few options to bring in to replace him. I'm leaning towards Blease as the most useful of them. If we look at the opposition, we need someone to sit on LeCras and a couple of tall stoppers on Kennedy and Darling. Frawley obviously takes one of the talls. The club tells us that Tommy should be right next week, so he covers the other. This leaves us with Dunn and Grimes to play on LeCras, so no real changes needed there. There was an article today talking about Watts playing forward. If that happens it probably means no Pedersen even if Fitz doesn't play and gives us room for another mid. I'd love to see Viney, but I suspect it's too soon and they'll want him to play another at Casey. I really don't see who is going to come in to fill that spot. So, looking at the above: Out - Pedersen, Fitzpatrick, JKH. In - Gawn, Blease, ? This would seem a fairly likely scenario to me.

Can't agree with the notion that Roos was outcoached. In what way exactly? The fact that he kept Tom acDonald on the park when he was injured? What else could he do? Take us down to a bench of 2? He tried to keep him in position and then shifted him to FF to see if he could take a couple of grabs. I don't see any bad coaching in that. You can't possibly be claiming that the terrible kicking for goal was a result of his coaching? That rests entirely with the players who failed to kick them. Tell me exactly what you think he did or failed to do that contributed to this loss. As for the opposition, their tactic was to flood the backline and look to Saint Nick once they got the turnover. Amazing tactical mind at work there. The wrist-slitters need to open their eyes and take a breath here. We lost solely because we couldn't kick straight. There was no great coaching move that made a difference to the game. The injuries were not a deciding factor, nor were the umpires or the coaches. We played with a little too much timidity, which as has been said repeatedly will be alleviated as players get more comfortable with the plan and their teammates, but even that was not a decisive factor. We won the possession count, the tackle count the inside 50 count and broke even on the contested possessions. That in itself s gold given what we've done the last few years. We had 6 players with a disposal efficiency below 75%. Again, we would have killed for that last year. We could go further and say only 2 had less that 60%. We even had more marks inside 50. This was a good night for us. Honestly, the only bad here is that it might cost us a spot or two on the ladder, and I don't see that as all that important right now. It's not like we're aiming for the 8 this year, and going up a couple of spots in the draft order never hurts.

Nic Nat 8 disposals 12 hitouts 4 marks.

I mentioned this in another thread, but I am surprised that Templeton wasn't reported for his flying elbow on Watts. They had a lovely slow-motion shot of it on channel seven at one point. He went in to tackle and when Watts stepped him he threw an elbow with his full momentum behind it into Jacks ribs to knock him over the sideline. That has to be a striking offense in any reasonable system.

Too much angst in the last few pages to bother reading it all. I invite people to look at this game from another angle. WE WON THAT GAME. The only thing that says we didn't is the scoreboard, and if we were in finals contention that might be significant. The simple fact is that if four of those points had been goals we won the match. One thing that went marginally wrong for us. If Vince hadn't hit those two posts. If Jones, Trengove and Pedersen had kicked the sitters they missed. That is the difference. Forget that We lost Fitz early. Forget that Tommy Mc was playing on one leg or that Howe copped a knock in the first and wasn't running at full speed either. All of that we had covered and we still beat them bar the few missed kicks. The reality is that all over the ground we thrashed them. They were reduced to flooding the backline and bombing long to Reiwoldt as their only useful avenue forward. They flooded their backline against a forward line with NO TALLS. That's how much we had over them. I couldn't care less about the score. As far as I'm concerned we beat them all over that misbegotten travesty of a ground and the fact that the scoreboard doesn't reflect that is a minor detail to be corrected with some more set shot practice this week.

I would like to see Templeton cited for the flying elbow. Just thought I'd mention that. As for Watts, he was brilliant with the ball in hand and worked really hard to present options when he didn't, but he still needs to tackle more. There were a few occasions where he had an opponent right in front of him and could have nailed them and instead he chose to let them run off and stayed with his man. I'm not talking about a 10-15m chase, but 1-2m to get to them, sometimes when they were taking off from a standing start. This is the only area of his game I really have a problem with,his reluctance to commit to contact.

Beat me to it

HE got it pretty right though

6 J. Watts - 96.3%, 27 disposals, several assists, looked like he had his own personal force field he was so hard to tackle. 5 N. Jones - Pretty sure that's the most ball he's ever had. Just worked so damn hard. Would have had him BOG if he'd kicked that goal. 4 Dunn - Best of the backs. Was forced to play on a significantly bigger opponent a lot of the night and did it well. 3 Tyson - In everything, used it pretty well, second most disposals 2 Vince - would have been higher if not for the four points next to his name. 1 Spencer - As bad as his hands are, he had 40 hitouts, gave us a lot of use of the ball and fought really hard for the ground ball. He lacks class, but his effort is huge.

You want someone to blame, look to Pedersen and Vince. Pedo 0 goals, 3 points. Vince, 1 Goal, 4 points. That's the game right there. If they had converted the chances they should have we won. We can go further and say that Trengove, Howe, Bail and N. Jones all kicked a single point, and three of those should have been easy goals as well. Yes, I'm upset that we lost this, but I'm not slitting my wrists. This was entirely down to players being unable to kick goals when they bloody well should have, and that is so much better than previous years where we lost by 70-odd with 80 points coming from direct turnovers in the back half.

Jack Watts, 96.3% efficiency and a lot of that was from in the middle of heavy traffic. Great work.

Having a look at our best players, you have to be reasonably happy. Nate Jones with 38 disposals. I think that's a career high for him. Vince we expected, but Tyson was really good apart from a couple of brain fades, and who would've thought Watts would be that good. My only gripe with his game was that he repeatedly declined to tackle when the player was right in front of him. As poor as Spencer's hands were, he won the hitouts comfortably. Bail also got a fair bit of it which is nice. Matt Jones used his speed really well and stood up for us in the second half. Dunn was the best of the defenders. The big question is of course what to do about the forward line. It's clear that Pedersen isn't up to it, but at the moment he appears to be our only tall forward left standing. We don't have the precision kicking necessary to go with a small mobile forward setup, so we need something up there to take marks. Really hoping that Dawes and Hogan can get themselves back quickly.

Decent game from us, we just lacked a forward target. Reiwoldt basically took the game from us in a five minute burst when he kicked three goals, which wound up being the margin. If we'd been able to convert the shots you'd expect any AFL player to nail, we'd have won pretty comfortably. I give most of the team a pass for that. It's just the excrable kicking for goal that killed us, and the guilty parties should be ashamed of themselves, even those who were otherwise amount our best players.

Haven't seen a single shepherd from a Melbourne player tonight. Saints do it all the time.

Umps aren't bothering with the dive into the legs rule tonight.

Watts another great kick forward, goal to Vince.

Too little run out of defence at this point. We keep trying to chip out and wind up with another stoppage.

Tyson goal. Great work from Watts in traffic to set it up.