Demon Dynasty

Yep most other clubs are abusing this every week now whenever they can. SG and the crew need to start gilding the lilly and take advantage of the sub to bring us into line with the teams we're competing against. One fresh pair of legs could be the difference on the day in a close encounter and sitting on our hands while we watch others use this against us...wakey wakey time.

Yes it would seem that way DZ. However how easy is it to flick a switch and it all just clicks? Especially given the degree of difficulty in the last four rounds. Really needed to put the Dogs away. We have had interruptions with maintaining our best team all season. Then we've seen some of those returning from injury struggle to maintain form such as Lever, Harmes and in his first few weeks post covid ... Tracc. Dogga has never really regained his pre covid form for consecutive weeks either. It was a bit of a tale of two halves. With Clarry another player struggling after half time to maintain his usual high standards and understandably so. Should we have played him or brought Dunstan in giving him one more week to fully recover? It was obvious he struggled after half time. Yes no doubt a better option even under duress but was it worth the risk? Even though he still finished No.1 (statistically) on the night, that rating (4.40) from Clarry was 20% below his usual season average pre injury (5.53)! I guess us hanging in there and actually leading for much of the game is a testament to how well we did play for about 2.5 to 3 quarters. Unfortunately after that the Doggies just kept going and we began to fall away. The pressure wasn't really there from us from the get go though, allowing the Dogs to post a higher score in a bit of a shoot out.

How did two players not get a hand in there. And didnt he just play on after the siren!???

Nah you missed the whole gist and reason behind this ongoing thread with Kev mate. Might wanna do your research before bleating next time

Can someone explain to me what the role of Petracca was last night? Seemed to be everywhere but nowhere. Would have thought he might have played more time as a HF but we seemed to allocate that role to Harmes who is badly out of form at the mo.

Yeh i havent seen us set up with front and square players very often. It's just not in SG's / our FD's DNA or hasn't been till this point. So the multiverse alternative just felt perplexing to me when you mentioned it. If you watch a Blues match Kev, you can see that Vossy has them structured up for this, even around stoppages, so that if the ball gets hit either side they often have a sweeper ready to pounce. Same at the drop of many contested marks including one sitting out the back much of the time for the ball that slips over the back. Walsh one of the main culprits who works his [censored] off across HF to try and present here. Some of the worst vision for me last night was when our blokes run towards the arc from the skinny side... there is sometimes a player they could hit up fat side with an OTT HB or even a kick to a lead coming straight out of the goal sqaure. Instead, much of the time (not always ... Spargo to Weid one exception) they either dont see them or are on auto pilot and just kick blindly to a general area in the pocket and hope for the best. This is partly why i question our forward line coaching. Our forward craft just lacks cohesion and finesse. It's basically non existent unless Kossie gets hold of it in space and creates his own magic. And then there's the pressure factor. To lay zero tackles inside 50 last night. Well that says it all. We aint playing in a PF let alone a GF if we're playing at that level. The other pieces of vision that were damning last night. We failed ro cover the Doggies fat side outlets. They exploited us here which allowed them the corridor far too often. Lastly, after a scrap at HF for the Dogs, early on in that scrap i believe (but could be wrong) you can see what i thought was ANB running close to Treloar (loosely). He then switched off, drifted away, and allowed their most dangerous mid/forward (in terms of goal scoring) to get free on the fat side (roughly on the arc) for the easy receive out of congestion and goal on his favoured right side from about 45 out. Now you are not going to be able to cover VG to great players 100% of the time in match i realise. Especially early in a game where the heat / pace.is on. But this was.much later into the game and if the player in concern (ANB?) was truly switched on in a defensive sense, he would have stayed with Treloar and not allowed him to slip out for a bread and butter goal (for him). Worrying signs last night against an ordinary mid ladder opponent. Too mamy star gazers.

Round 19, 2022 Marvel Stadium - Bulldogs vs Demons Statistically our worst top six performance for the season. Rivers, Tomo, Spargo & Harmes ...yikes! Player Score Rank Clayton Oliver 4.400 1 Angus Brayshaw 4.175 2 Christian Petracca 4.025 3 Steven May 3.650 4 Tom Sparrow 3.400 5 Jack Viney 3.350 6 Max Gawn 3.350 6 Christian Salem 3.275 8 Luke Jackson 3.125 9 Harrison Petty 3.000 10 Bayley Fritsch 2.900 11 Alex N-Bullen 2.850 12 Michael Hibberd 2.600 13 James Jordon 2.525 14 Sam Weideman 2.300 15 Jake Melksham 2.250 16 Ed Langdon 2.225 17 Kysaiah Pickett 2.075 18 Trent Rivers 1.525 19 Adam Tomlinson 1.425 20 Charlie Spargo 1.300 21 James Harmes 1.300 21 Team Score 61.03 Top 6 23.00 Bottom 6 9.85 # Hit outs to advantage not captured Stats courtesy of footywire.com

This just tops of what is already a super ordinary night. Can only hope it's way off the mark.

Terrible piece of play that should have resulted in a goal. Hand ball would have done it.

Lacked a second tall up forward to stretch a shortish dodgy Bulldogs D. That and a lack of pressure in general especially up forward as you say. The lack of pressure up forward was the worst i've witnessed all season. Tomo could not go with Ugle and was smashed by the young rookie. Tomo looks way off this level now when he's on anyone half decent. In the second half in particular, we refused to cover the fat side outlets at around ground stoppages which gifted the Bulldogs the corridor and allowed them too many quick transitions inside 50 hitting up leading targets ....mostly Ugle! We continue to play the 'give them half the paddock' zone to switch and run the ball out to about the half way mark which is laughable. This plays right in to the Doggy's game plan of switch , switch and link up play to launch zones. Or switch and then go inside for a corridor play if it's available from the HB zone. You just can't gift many teams the back half of the ground and expect to win too often. The only way you are going to do so is by bringing elite pressure and intercepting from about the middle of the ground to HF. And we brought very little of either of those tonight. What's happened to Maxy? Unable to run out a match and looks half the player he was prior to the injury. Still under the weather? Tracc was Mr Fumbles on a few too many occasions. Viney second half?? And understandable but Clarry went missing for most of the second half as well. A few patches he went ok. Dogga meh. FInally there were to sets of decision making out there tonight. Unfortunately one side copped it up the [censored] and the other was allowed to play without too many rules at all. Good luck trying to beat that.

Not prolific but did some good things in the first half. Tackles and hunts well. Has a bit of range and toe about him. Seems to have a bit of class & good awareness

A very wet scrappy day. You would think the Casey forwards would be playing mostly in front for the shanked kick ....hmmm

Brilliant play from Baker to Hunt to Gray there. Taking a shot now

So apparently you can run OOB and just keep going as long as you're a doggy. There's no boundary line

Casey a bit slack with getting across to cut off the regular (almost automatic) switch from the Doggies across HB

Silly play for 50 there

Darcy is a bag of bones

Woeful in the back decision there. Missed the clear holding the ball prior

Baker with 13 disposals so far

Lovely gather & give from Dunstan there on the ball in

Great goal from Chandler from the paint. Baker very clean so far

Dogs looove the switch

Lots of Rugby scrums

Typical whitten oval affair

Nice leap & mark a la Royce Hart from Moniz on the wing there. Buntine, Dunstan & Chandler ✅️