Earl Hood

Holding over for Thursday game?

I thought having Yze in this year as midfield coach would finally allow us to take full advantage of our obvious strengths, that is best ruck, Gawn delivering to AA players like Oliver and Petracca, with Viney, Harmes, and add cameos from Kozzie, Sparrow and Melksham. That in centre bounces we would learn to read Gawns taps and flick the ball around to find a mid free and running toward goal like we used to see with the Cats and Hawks great midfield groups so often. And like we managed in 2018. Instead we have got to the point where we are getting smashed most weeks at centre clearances and battling to compensate elsewhere against good sides. interested in thoughts about how to reset the midfield, especially at centre bounces. Viney is struggling, he goes out or maybe goes forward as a defensive forward, in place of Kozzie, who needs a rest or Spargo, ditto. Do we bring Brayshaw back into the midfield and LJ goes to the wing and Max does more time as ruck, less forward, assuming BB comes in as a forward target? So many ways to reshuffle but if we continued to get smashed in the centre we won’t win against good sides.

6 Salem 5 TMac 4 Gawn 3 May 2 Fritsch 1 Langdon

Had our chances in the last 5 minutes but stuffed up the forward entries. Hunt had three brain fades in a row!

Difficult to see on TV but The expert comments are saying we are playing a 7 man defence giving GWS an extra around the ball when it’s being contested. We are getting belted around stoppages and thru the middle. Time to get numbers back in the middle I think. Is it Jordan playing back to make up the 7?

6 Lever 5 May 4 Oliver 3 Salem 2 Brayshaw 1 Langdon

I thought Choco had fixed our set shot yips?

Yes Mitch Brown would be handy.

Poor on field leadership by the Dogs. They had done all the hard work and then take an intercept mark on the wing with 1.05 minutes on the clock and….kick up the line to a contest??? Could not believe it. Don’t you find someone sideways or backwards and work it slowly forward to soak up time?

That is an interesting observation, not presenting ahead of the ball carrier. I witnessed it , at MCG, in our bad years when we would be in contention in the very odd game and see players forward of our ball carrier run to pick up an opposition player rather than run into space for the pass. Players unwilling to take a risk for whatever reason, it happens but as a team you can’t function successfully with that mindset. Time to move on with our forward line set up. As for Weid as I have said elsewhere, he has all the attributes to be a good intercept marking backman but we never tried him there. Darcy Moore was going to be a key forward but where is he now?

Good point OD I was yelling at the TV, why were we kicking wide to the pockets consistently? In contrast to our usual game plan. By the fourth quarter I was assuming we were going wide because we had zero confidence in our key forwards to even make a contest. All we needed was Weid and TMac for that matter to punch the ball! I cut TMac some slack as he has runs on the board and should have kicked 2 goals. So the real issue as you say a trust problem with our midfield delivering or not delivering to a key forward. It used to do my head in years ago when Watts would be leading out on his own and the mids would ignore or not see and bomb it to a contest, always wondered if it was myopic or intentional.

Interesting that Worpel for the Hawks got a week for what looked a fairly insipid so called sling tackle. Looking at yesterday’s match there were 2 or 3 sling tackles that could be deemed similar or worse! Crickets from the MRP.

Lucky it was only one, it was graded as careless but it looks intentional to me. He had no interest in the ball.

And think the coaches will have a heart to heart with Kozzie in the game review. A bit too much flying for spekies, giving away frees and then that dribble goal attempt in the last when he had an option on the outside. He will learn from it.

Yes we looked tired after a 10 day break, let’s hope that after this 14 day break we are less tired and come out firing! Not sure about the fatigue factor, it’s all above the shoulders. Gee we need to have a forensic examination of our centre bounce setups and our lack of clearances at stoppages.

Too late now I suppose but I would have thrown Weid back pre season and Petty forward. I think Weid could be a good half back, intercepting mark. And Petty can take a grab forward.

I think they mean the Mornington Peninsula Football League is circling!

6 Jackson 5 Gawn 4 Salem 3 Jordon 2 May 1 Hunt I am not giving votes to our midfield running brigade as it was smashed around the stoppages and didn’t apply pressure, didnt run and didn’t man up. Max and LJ did a lot of good work but with little support. Oliver threatened at one stage to turn it around but kept getting caught, trying to do too much probably because he lacked support and Tracc spent the day turning the ball over, kicking to the pockets or out of bounds or having his handballs intercepted! I know we mark our midfield harshly but when it gets beaten the team gets beaten.

Survey done and good questions, not sure about the relevance of my answers. Racism is common I think but must admit I haven’t heard it for years at a game but then I have a reserved seat in our MFC area. Most of our fans are too busy abusing the umpires to worry about some swarthy types playing for the opposition.

Petracca Gawn TMac Oliver May Jordon

Set shots inside 40m please. Should be 90% efficiency, not 50%. We should be 2 goals up on that quarters hard work. And suspect we will need a lead as their big forwards will come back into play towards the end.

Second half if we don’t take charge of the centre clearances this will turn ugly. Get control of the centre and we can get back in this. It has been an issue this year against lesser sides but we could rebound off half back but won’t work against this mob while every bounce is going their way.

How do we get Oliver and Tracc back into this?

But Bradshaw got a lot of love on the night from several commentators for his continual defensive work, breaking up the Doggies efforts to run the ball out of their defence. Played an important role I think.

Yes interesting that role players that excel at their role don’t get coaches votes either! Never expect the outside observers to recognise the role players. Of course in the club B&F voting they usually do get some votes, but interesting the coaches don’t throw the odd one vote to their favourite role player.