Adam The God

Just don't let him do any press conferences this time...

The forwardline's lack of defensive pressure was a major factor in the loss. Our half forwards in Kennedy, Kent, Garlett and Newton were hopeless. Not to mention Jesse's inability to stick tackles or dob simple set shots. Yep, it was Robbie Gray. Little [censored].

That's more like it. I reckon he was good in the Collingwood and Richmond wins. He played probably the worst first half you will ever see against North and then ended up kicking four in the second half. Aside from those performances he's pretty much been a no-show. He's a dumb footballer who plays lazy football for large patches.

A 2017 first rounder for Prestia for starters. I'd be willing to trade others for the right price.

I didn't see the Crows game. Were GWS 'on'? I agree that we need more outside class if that's what you're getting at, but I actually think we are building a lot of versatility in the midfield. Pretty much all our half forwards and midfielders rotate back and forth. But it's at the coal face that we are still short. Whenever Jones plays the majority of the game in the middle we know that we're struggling. I love Jones, but he's not elite and on an ideal day this year, we'd have Viney, Oliver, Tyson/Petracca and Gawn in there. But imagine having Viney, Oliver and Prestia in there. I guess what I'm getting at is we need more guys who can consistently win effective clearances. That is, not long bombs (Jones and Vince's signature clearance), but clean clearances that result in scoring shots. We don't have that enough at the moment. Exactly. If we get our forward pressure happening, even if our defenders fail to spoil the ball back inside 50, the incoming opposition players won't be able to break the lines and get over the back if our half forwards are on top of them.

Spot on, mate.

It's interesting. It was hard to tell not being at the game today, but we certainly reverted to an aggressive set up at the centre bounces in the last 5-10 minutes of the third quarter. This is basically when we dominated. I don't think it was the Diamond Defence, but a very simple set up and allowed our mids a bit of freedom to run and opened up space. All our mids would start at the defensive side of the bounce and one or usually two players (mainly Viney) would sprint through the contest as the ball was bounced. Gawn would tap it down our player's throat and we'd win the clearance. We could do this setup because of Gawn's height advantage and it was interesting to see. The other regular contest that [censored] me and that we need to address occur when team's kick to a contest on our half forward line. This usually involves Gawn competing against the opposition ruckman or a pack of players. The opposition get front and centre of Gawn and rove off him, subsequently carving through our zone with numbers. The Bulldogs did it repeatedly, as did Port. We need to be awake to this, because we become so easy to beat otherwise.

Completely agree. How some posters can say we have more pressing needs than fixing our midfield, shows their lack of understanding of the modern game. The game is won or lost in the midfield.

Without a decent midfield the rest of the team doesn't matter... Without Oliver, Viney was hard-tagged leaving Jones (at best) a B+ grader as our best mid. We're going nowhere with that.

Even if this were the case, they had the first pick... what's the point you're making? That St Kilda didn't [censored] it up when they had the first pick?

Disagree. Played a selfish and dumb game today. Ran around for too many of those easy handballs that Roos knocked him for early in Roos' time at the club. Too many of Jones' kicks were long, hopeful kicks to contests and too many supporters continue to rely on a player's stats to measure effectiveness. Viney was being hard-tagged, which freed up Jones, but he never used the ball in a damaging fashion, in fact he did his best to turn it over at times or take the wrong option. That point he kicked instead of putting it out in front of Hogan was a perfect example.

I want us to have sustained success, not flashes in the pan by taking short cuts. Stay the course. We're 10 weeks in to a new game plan.

Also, to half time, Kennedy, Kent and Garlett had a whopping total of 0 tackles between them. If these guys don't lay tackles, there is no press! It's up to the half forwards, just as much as the pure midfielders to lay these tackles. Not to mention, Newton in particular is too slow to play across half forward. I hope his cards are marked now, because he is a truly horrible defensive player.

People need to stop blaming the game plan. It's the players who are failing to implement it. This will take some time to get right, but when it does, we'll strangle teams and score heavily against them. You could argue however that our zone was far too high today.

You mean like a young player who has natural ups and downs? Turn it up. Rubbish call. But they probably made the right decision for their list. They needed a FF. Petracca will be the better player though.

Hunt played his best game for the club, which was pleasing. Jetta was also really good, although a little rusty early on. Omac was also decent, despite being beaten a few times one-on-one when he shouldn't have been. Watts did a couple of nice things. Everyone else? Yuck. If you looked at Gawn's statistics, you'd say he played an AA game, but if you watched the match, you'd say he didn't impact it enough around the stoppages. He certainly wasn't aided by his midfield though, who were beyond poor.

Kennedy has to go. What a shocking game.

Hogan costing us another game.

Urgh, Stretch. Pathetic. And keep your feet Garland!

Garlett, Kent and Kennedt have nor laid a tackle. There's our forward press totally broken.

Nah, he's had a few absolute shockers this year.

Dean Kent's worse football is as bad as VFA standard. Disgraceful. What an horrendous first half.

Where are those posters that think our midfield is finished?

How is our captain. Olaying a very very lazy game. It'd be nice if he could hit a target today too.

ANB not good enough for this level at this stage. Newton is a joke. As soft as butter. As I've said for a while, no defensive game whatsoever.