Adam The God

Exactly.

And I know Ablett is a legend of the Geelong Football Club, but if he was a Melbourne player doing what he's doing out on the ground with the opposition players now we'd be livid. This is the captain of Gold Coast. They've lost by 120 points, been humiliated and Ablett is still out on the ground, all smiles, having chats with all his mates. Catch up with them during the week. Get off the field now. That's embarrassing.

We're on the rise. Ridiculous, isn't it?

120 now...

Yeah, originally looked like he was missing, so I went and took him out of my Supercoach team for Viney and then they said he'd be playing yesterday. Didn't hurt me too much in the end though.

Well, Prestia is still playing. He's had it 21 times.

To be honest, I haven't watched any of it. Just flicked over to it. Who's injured, mate?

Worst time to play Gold Coast next week...

Well it is in a way, IMO, because our better players are younger. I'm sorry but even Gawn and Tyson have only 100 games between them. No excuse for Dunn or Vince though.

But are we seriously saying that our coaches haven't devised a Plan B? I think that'd be foolhardy to think that. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced the coaches want our guys to increase their work rate and correct the issues themselves. Roos said after the Collingwood win (I think) that the coaches are more about educating the players on why they are being beaten. I'd be saying that our players were incapable of making those adjustments to rectify the situation, because they refused to bring the required work rate and intensity to each and every contest. I'm glad Trenners didn't play today, because he would have looked so slow. Trenners wasn't the answer today, but I can certainly see the argument for Oliver. When the tide was going against us and Gawn couldn't get his hands on it, we needed someone like Oliver.

Agreed. I mentioned earlier in this thread that it's either stubbornness or the coaches are trying to teach the players how to work through that. I refuse to be naive enough to suggest that our entire coaches box failed to negate a major issue in the game. I am surprised however that the coaches appeared to miss how high our press was.

It's an 18 man press. The players have said this themselves. So it's not just the midfielders. It's everyone bar the last few defenders. But I generally agree with the sentiment here. The amount of times their midfielders waltzed past flat-footed Melbourne midfielders - where were our forwards? Kennedy was playing as the inside slider in the first half for a number of centre stoppages and managed to create for a period of 5-10 minutes, but then was unsighted for the rest of the game. I disagree. Their best does not much our best. We just didn't bring our best. That's the difference.

Jetta would be in the first five players I'd put on my team sheet every week. He's a solid, solid player. Love him. He went alright today too. I agree. Didn't think it was his fault. When the landslide started happening in the second and third I felt he stood up when it was his turn. Tried to create from half back as well. Did so on a couple of occasions.

I sat on the third level. I usually like to sit quite close to it, but today's vantage point gave us an interesting view of it. For my eye a couple of things were to blame for the ease with which St Kilda transitioned. 1) the players seemed to be caught between too minds and hesitant. They weren't sure which contest to go to half the time. So much so that by the third quarter, we were second guessing even attacking loose balls. 2) our players failed to read the play a lot of the time. It was almost as if they underestimated their opponents across every line. By the time our blokes were reacting to situations it was too late. St Kilda's ball movement was pretty impressive, but as some posters have pointed out, our press was too high. We made it too easy for them. We're not a quick side, so if we leave that much space in behind at Etihad, it seems fast teams will kill us. We need a plan to counter this. Over to you Goodwin and Jennings. 3) our intensity and work rate was hopeless. About half the time we would manage to make a contest out of a loose ball situation, but would fail to stick our tackles and St Kilda banked on their team mates winning the ball and getting the uncontested possession on the outside. It happened time and again.

If so, I wonder if that will impact upon our scoring capability. Roos has said a number times that we're still trying to find the balance between attack and defence.

The zone defence worked the last two weeks...

That's a load of rubbish, mate. You're a level-headed poster, but to say that there's nothing the coaches could have done to win the game is absolute bullocks. Okay, so they played the ground well, but what's our plan? What are our coaches saying? You don't go into a game without back up plans and we didn't one. And who was on Acres in the third?????

As long as we learn from it. Let's be honest. Tom's been pretty hit and miss for a few weeks. He took some good marks last week, but handed the opposition momentum time and again with outrageously poor disposal/decision making. He's just not a very clever footballer. That's not to say he isn't best 22, because he clearly is, but he makes some mind-bogglingly dumb decisions at times.

I reckon the coaching team and Roos in particular are sticking steadfastly to a plan that they believe in time will win us games. But even though Hawthorn don't necessarily go out to stop opposition sides, it's more about playing their brand, if things are going against them Clarkson still makes the right moves. Roosy seems too stubborn to make them. I don't buy that our entire coaching box are unaware of the obvious moves, so perhaps there's a greater lesson the coaches are trying to teach the young player (ie. it's up to you to turn the game yourself)? Either way, it's not working and it also cost us the Essendon game. The coaching team do not want to change their game style. If opposition clubs had momentum going against them they might go one-on-one and try to lock the game up. We seem insistent on pursuing the A plan at all costs. It has me a little lost, I must say. And see I wonder if this is the reason why Roos and co don't make moves. They demand that the players lift their work rates, instead of changing the game plan/style to suit the work rate of the team on that day. And I agree entirely with this. It's probably a good conclusion to this entire post. In other words, without work rate it doesn't matter if we change our game style. We'll still get beaten if we don't work hard.

Yeah, he wasn't our worst, but in the first half he had one effective disposal. Hopefully he now understands the step up in quality from VFL to AFL. 5 tackles is a pretty good return though.

Disagree that finals are out of reach. I maintain we will win 10-12 games this year. 12 games could well get us into the 8 with such an even competition. And as you say, we're just as likely to come out next week and beat Gold Coast.

I reckon our forwardline let our backline down in a big way though. Harmes, Kent and Frost's tackling pressure was pathetic. This game plan will leak goals like a sieve if we don't bring the right intensity.

Our work rate was ordinary and our intensity was even worse. The amount of tackles that didn't stick properly and allowed them to get handballs out to uncontested players just killed us. We were also Fumble McFumbles off half back, continually turned the wrong direction when we should have given the handball to a team mate on the opposite side. There was clearly little talk and what was so telling is that at half time you could tell our players were completely sapped of confidence and couldn't win it. That shows you how mentally weak this group still is. The heads were down, there was little talk and worryingly, it only took 30 minutes to completely batter our confidence. I'm strangely not that angry. I am, but I've already told myself that this is what I predicted at the start of the season and even before the game today. We will win 10-12 games this year. We will win games we are expected not to win and we will lose games we are expected to win. I put St Kilda (1-4 coming into today) heavily in the latter category. We should have won today. We made their C graders look A grade. Riewoldt was the best man on the ground in the first half, but was almost unsighted in the second half, because the game was already over and their hard running average players got on top. I reckon Acres had 10 uncontested disposals in the third quarter alone. We let their mediocre players run all over us. A disappointing day and a nail in the coffin of the 40,000 members target.

Stop making excuses. We haven't brought the required work rate and we've been unclean with our ball handling and decision making all game.

This will be the third goal in a row as a result of Frost not sticking a tackle.