In order to impose manic pressure or pressure of any kind onto the opposition you actually have to be standing next to your opponent. We need to stop this garbage of guarding space and corralling (in some cases standing 5-10 metres from our opponents) and play directly on them. This is also beneficial if your opponent is quicker than you, your opponent doesn’t have a head start on you and you’re more likely to pressure their disposal/marking the ball. If your opponent moves, move with him. Hawthorn/Richmond and now Collingwood were all able to move the ball from one end of the ground to the other not only without us touching it but almost unoposed. When teams are kicking in from a behind we seem to conceed the first kick, (normally to deep in the pocket) then at times the second kick (somewhere around the 50). Both these kicks are being taken uncontested because our players are too busy guarding an irrelevant space. From here teams can do one of two things, continue to kick to free teammates as we still guard space and work their way up the ground or outwork and outrun us and create the overlap, handball receive then run and carry then a kick inside 50. Yesterday was a combination of both for Collingwood. One thing we’ve been good at doing this year is taking a mark inside 50 then turning quickly and kicking to a teammate in a better position. For some reason we failed to defend against this yesterday. We know we’re not the quickest, we pride ourselves on contested possession so let’s make every possession by the opposition accountable. (Guard space when the opposition has marked and is kicking inside 50, put a man front and centre of the goals, and where the keys forwards are going to lead to)
Our tackling let us down again, even in the previous games we’ve won this season it’s been an issue. On most occasions one player should be able to tackle the player with the ball. When we tackle we allow the ball carrier to off load a handball. At times yesterday we had 2 and 3 players tackling the ball carrier and he still managed to get a handball off and away they went.
The suggestions that Lever’s absence was a large contributing factor to the back lines pantsing and the loss as a whole are comical.
Hogan had a bad day, it happens, but can he stop playing for frees and stop throwing his hands in the air while the opposition runs off with the ball. Lead by example.
Can we now all acknowledge that TMac is Neita MARK2. Feel free to rotate Hogan and “inset name” but can we just leave him planted in the goal square for the remainder of the season. He is by far our best contested mark and set shot for goal in the team. Leaving him there was the best thing Goodwin did.
Petracca needs to be dropped, if it was good enough for Watts, enough said.
Poor decision making across the board, kicking to 1 on 2 or 2 on 3. Players running inside 50 from the centre square and kicking to an outnumbered fwd. Take ownership, be accountable and kick the goal.
The Pies worked harder than us and wanted it more, they hunted in numbers and put us away with ease. On paper we had them covered but it was evident we were rattled from the first bounce. 100 point drubbings of lower placed sides clearly count for nothing, when we are challenged in big games and there’s something to play for we continue to choke. No this doesn’t mark the end of the season but this does raise a number of questions, some of them reoccurring ones. As posted earlier, it’s not that we lost, it’s the way we lost. If they kicked straight we could of been down by 8 goals at qtr time.