Jaded No More

Killing us on the outside. Everyone flying up for the ball. Ugh.

Ummmm where did I say anything about them last year? Richmond have been flakey for years. They made yet never won finals. They were a joke for a long time, nobody is denying that. I was just saying that they have now reached peak maturity and can absorb pressure that we can't. They also have better and more mature leadership across the field, and match winners. I never once said this was not something we are capable of, but we are not there yet, as proven this year against more mature teams. Do you disagree? Still think that we don't have Dusty-type match winners, and I am not 100% sure we have a potential one on the list. Trac has been a huge letdown.

The Richmond v Sydney game last night, is a great example of why we struggle to compete with the top teams. Richmond is amazing at absorbing pressure and then releasing. How many last quarters have they won in tight games? How many have we lost? For me, while there are no standout teams, Richmond, West Coast (minus injuries) and Sydney stand a rank above. All of these teams have match winners, all of these teams can grind out games, and all of these teams have finals experience. We are not there on any of those fronts.

If Trac lifts his game for the rest of the season, it will go a long long way to helping us play finals. So far in his career, it's been all talk and very little action.

A must win game, with percentage also very important. I wouldn't be surprised if, and that's just an if right now, we do make finals, it will be by percentage only. We have 3 almost certain losses coming up before the end of the season, and two more 50-50 games. If we don't win the 'easier' ones (and there really are no easy games in AFL), and win them well, we will miss out again, and again be staring at a wasted season.

Kind of sad that his good mate Watts won't get to play with him. Brought it on himself I suppose.

Hope he has a great game and a good career with Port. Really deserves it!

He's not and you're right, he is probably covered Howe's role a bit, but he isn't great overhead which means he can't play tall at all.

I wonder how we'd go playing off half back, replacing Vince. His field kicking is a lot better than his goal kicking, that's for sure.

Tyson will never be good until he is playing as an inside mid. He is not an outside runner, and Goodwin trying to make him one, won't work. He is slow and a poor user of the footy. What he does exceptionally well is win clearances. As for the Smith vs Weideman argument, both bring different things to the table, but bottom line is Weids is the future. We need to get game time into him, and the time to do that is now. Our backline is my biggest worry, for which there is no great solution. Frost is major NQR, Petty is untried and raw, and that's about the depth we got going on. We have lost a lot of quality down back in recent years in Frawley, Dunn and Howe (say what you like, the two boys are doing very well at Collingwood). We've only regained Lever in the process. That's 3 out 1 in, and now he is injured. We are really thin for backline depth and it's a major worry.

To be fair to West Coast, they are missing their 2 forwards. We wouldn't win much without Hogan and TMac either. But I take your point, all teams are vulnerable, which makes it more frustrating that we haven't been able to beat anyone currently sitting above us on the ladder, despite them not being unbeatable. We definitely lack composure when the heat is on, which I think is a combination of lacking maturity, poor/lacking leadership and not having real match winners. TMac is the closest thing we have to a match winner, but when the delivery to him is so god awful, it's hard to expect him to win us games.

Gawn's miss in round 1, could literally be the most costly kick in the comp this year. It's 2017 all over again.

And it was also reported at the time that Trac didn't say anything to the club as soon as he got bitten, which means he allowed it to get to a stage where it was badly infected. Bottom line is, he is not producing what he should be. If it's due to injury, then why persist playing him. If it's due to form/attitude/ego/fitness, then he needs to go back to the VFL and regain all of the above.

If we don’t play finals this year, it is an enormous failure. That’s two seasons we have wasted in crucial development of getting finals experience. Barring anymore disasterous injuries, if we don’t make the 8 again, questions will need to be asked. Coaching staff, leadership team etc will need to be reviewed. Simply not acceptable.

Perhaps, but I felt our backline runners like Hibbo were too busy defending talls and too easily isolated away from the contest, because we knew we were too short down there. Jetta is a damn marvel though. Hannan had a few shots on goal from marks. He isn’t really a crumber in my opinion. We need a speedy goal sneak. Garlett needed to play or Spargo needed to stay. It was always going to be a contested battle so not sure why we didn’t go with a smaller fleet of forwards like the last few weeks.

Cannot continue to ignore players in good form at Casey, because ‘big name’ blokes can’t get dropped. Trac is only still in this side because of reputation. Had Harmes or Neal Bullen been stinking it up this bad, everyone would be out for blood. And they’d be on their arse in the VFL. It is time to go to Casey for a nice little period and stop thinking you’re undropabble. Also please learn to kick goals good.

And not for the first time this year we lose games at selection. We went too small down back and too tall up forward. I get the need to have a backup for Gawn, but gees to drop Spargo and not bring in Garlett is just making an already slow team slower. I think Joel Smith is doing really well, but Lewis and Vince down back are destroying my soul. They are good footy users and they give us maturity, but they run in mud. Sooooo slow. Why don’t they give Stretch a go at Vince’s role? We simply cannot keep playing both. Tyson had a chance at redemption and blew it. Trac is giving us nothing. Hogan missing in action. Neal Bullen and Harmes lack of composure is another team killer. I would have loved to see Salem take the wing in the last. Help us get the ball inside 50 with some finess. Clearly the focus this week was “see ball, win clearance, smash ball forward”. Great in theory, awful in practice. We wasted so many opportunities because apart from Melksham, nobody lowers their eyes going inside 50. It’s bomb central, with not a single crumber inside. The mind boggles.

I think we will probably scrape into the 8, and lose week one. Too many players who give us nothing under pressure. Jetta and McDonald literally bleed for us, while Petracca, Tyson, Hogan, Neal Bullen etc disappear. Losing Lever was the end of our season. I hope we make finals to get over that mental hurdle, but sadly we are nowhere near good enough to impact in September. A brave effort.

When the pressure was on we absolutely turned to water. We are just making up numbers. Reality check.

We are not a pressure side. Crumble.

Petracca needs to be dropped.

Umpires told to make Port win

Game over. We cannot win against the umpires.

Lol how flat did we come out in this quarter?

If Hogan doesn’t get himself going, we are in trouble. The amount of laughable holding on Melbourne players that goes unnoticed wouldn’t bother me, if Port didn’t get every soft free every time their precious hipster hair is touched.