Earl Hood

2 hours ago, Hiram Cowfreak said:

I thought they put lots of pressure on us and Langdons run and speed made a huge difference.

Bennell showed his class and AVB is getting back into form. Good signs.

Yes we are starting to realise Langdon is a wide option that is always available. He is amazing how often he is on his own and so well positioned. His disposal needs work but he will get better. We need to work on the other wing, will it be Tomlinson or someone else? 

27 minutes ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

He didn't run under it.  That was just BS from the commentators because they weren't game to say he was pushed in the back and not given the free.  There were three contests in a row where he was shoved out and they marked behind him.  Not a peep from the Umps. 

And the random one outside the boundary against Oliver that nobody knows what it was for... 

And the one Rankin kicked off the ground, didn’t he drop the ball in a tackle to get it on the ground for a kick at goal? 

6 Gawn

5 Viney

4 Oliver

3 Salem

2 Petracca

1 Lever

4 minutes ago, Lampers said:

To be fair Gold Coast pulled four goals out of their back passage.

Rankine *2 and Ellis *2

So Melbourne were due a little luck.

Yes missed 4 gettable set shots but then nailed 4 blinder snapshots from 40m or less out the back of packs. Realistically they could have missed 3 of those 4 so we win well. But gee they played well and will be a force to be reckoned with in the next few years. 

10 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Lol Jennings..

This is the same guy that said he wanted to coach his own team in the VFL only to instead get overlook for coaching gigs and then picked up a got a director of coaching at... VAFA level...

Same bloke that didn't see eye to eye with highly respected development guru Brendan McCartney  because he had high opinions of himself and how things should have ran.

The dude is as sour as they come honestly 

Ship off back to the VAFA Jennings where you belong.

Well we can all put [censored] on Jennings I suppose, what would he know except we are what,  6 wins and 26 losses since 2018 to 2020? I mean like our top bloke has a clue. Not! 

3 minutes ago, Demondan75 said:

Watching tonight's game at Giants Stadium, does the playing surface look really chopped up?

We will be playing on a cow paddock tomorrow! Might help us. 

5 minutes ago, Vineytime said:

Haven’t seen or heard anything about Tom Sparrow for 12 months now, picked for Rd 1 last yr,  was talked up (normal MFC) got injured and hasn’t been sighted since.. can’t be close to selection as we’ve made a dozen changes already and he hasn’t been one of them nor has he been named an emergency.... would like to hear how he’s going. 

Pre COVID he looked good at training early on. I have been an advocate for him to be introduced to the midfield to keep the incumbents on their toes. Maybe another season and let’s see what he has. 

4 minutes ago, A F said:

Yep, they've definitely backed the coach in, but it's hard to know what went down and whwther it was the right move in the end. Time may tell.

Unfortunately I think time is telling. If our FD can’t see what our biggest problem is I am really concerned, there is no other option but to remove the coach. Just look at last weeks game and the repeated failure of ball carriers to sight free forwards but just kick long to a contest. It’s damning but it has been going on for 18 months. It is mind boggling stupidity and I wonder how the players are still buying into this get ball, kick forward at all costs game plan? 

Unfortunately I think Goody is the problem. The potential fix is not difficult but I don’t think it is going to happen. The predictable attack at all costs game plan is killing us but Goody is committed to it. If we don’t change our play on at all costs, kick down the line strategy ASAP say in the next 2 or 3 games and we end up 1 and 6, I reckon it’s time to go. We can’t financially do it of course but we could override him. Force an attitude change. I don’t like sacking coaches but if we go 1 and 6 I think we need to act. 

1 hour ago, dl4e said:

A little better but Rivers should not have been dropped. AVB should have. 

He had about 7 turnovers so may be appropriate for him to go back and work on disposal. He will be back, I think he has the goods. 

15 minutes ago, A F said:

That was in 2018. He was gone a year later. Disagreement is perfectly healthy.

Oh thought it was last year. I agree disagreement is healthy but that’s my point Jennings was sent packing and then McCartney Who I suspect wasn’t clashing with Goody but upset some players with some home truths. 

2 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

At the 5.00 mark he says the footage Garry Lyon showed on AFL360 On the Couch, is how Saints played for the last 5 years.  Can only be Richo's influence.  Worrying.  

A losing strategy at saints and so far the same for us.

Was not a fan of his appointment.  Less so after hearing that.

That is a real worry and perhaps the reason he was appointed. You interview a guy who is telling you what you already believe and want to hear, he must the best man for the job, right? Better than that McCartney guy who upset some of our senior players with some plain talking about their poor attitude last year. 

1 hour ago, Swooper1987 said:

Except that Jennings was part of the coaching group last year.  He was also one of the coaches that voted for Oliver to win our B&F when he was accumulating some very average stats. 

And I remember some telling vision in the coach’s box last year when we had one of our few close wins of Goody ruffling Jenning’s hair immediately the siren went. Jennings reaction indicated that he and Goody were at loggerheads over something  and he had just been put back in his place. Was gone at year’s end. 

I agree with Ross and that this issue is fixable and the root cause of our problems is not that we have a list of footballers who cant kick or have no vision, it is the play on at all costs game style.  But I am not sure Goody gets it even after 18 months of crap play. 

1 hour ago, ProperDee said:

A smart coach would come up with an idea for players to trial instead of the indiscriminate bomb.  How about a 30 metre worm burner into open space if there is nothing on offer? Give the forwards half a chance instead of zero and no opposition defender would ever expect it.

 

A commentator mentioned somewhere that Ken Hinkley instructed Port to do just that against West Coast to negate McGovern and Barass. It must have worked, Port flogged them. 

1 hour ago, Ham said:

That score assist was good, but he did undo that with a bomb into the 50 at the other end in another quarter. When he had 2 forwards providing leads. It's just inexperience, but you would hope that someone would bring that up and show him. 

Kozzies long bomb to nobody that scorched a free Hannan I think happened early. He later lowered the eyes and gave off a beautiful pass to a leading forward. The kid learnt very quickly unlike some others. 

18 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

How’s everyone’s viewing Langdon’s season so far?

Started the season like a rocket with 31 touches but has been a little quiet the last fortnight.

Noticed he was always a running option down the wing for our ball carriers who mainly failed to use him and instead kicked to a contest. So yes he has been a bit quiet. 

With the TAC U18’s not happening recruiters won’t have a lot of observed form to go on at draft time. What do they go on, the boys Under 16 form and their physical abilities at the draft camp? Wouldn’t be the greatest year to have the first pick with the odds of getting it right reduced even further than it already is. Won’t be our problem. 

22 minutes ago, Half forward flank said:

I understand that but I am talking about timing leads, body positions, doubling back and the like. These are things only gun forwards know. Not suggesting they have anything to do with strategies and game plans. 

Have look at a replay of the match, at least the first half that I have revisited, there doesn’t appear to be much wrong with where our half forwards were positioning themselves. Time and time again there were leading, free options but the ball carrier chose to go forward and kick long or shorter but nearly always in a predictable straight line while we had players free off to the left or right. The ball carrier just has to look and in crowd free stadiums, listen to the calls! This issue is so obvious from looking at the video. And look at the Tigers defenders, often caught behind our leading half forwards but I suspect that is because their zone defence was just assuming the ball carrier would predictably kick down the line or bomb to the CHF area so they congregate around there and ignore their leading opponent. This reminds me of when I played suburban footy off half back, if your team was on top you would just ignore your opponent and go to the predictable area the ball would be kicked too. 
 

Taking the obvious forward options makes us a better side but OK it doesn’t make us a great side, we have disposal issues but really if you are coached to play within your abilities, that’s a start. 

1 hour ago, bing181 said:

It's not being rectified because it's not easily solvable. Just as Jack Watts will never lose his sublime disposal and decision-making skills, the reverse is also true.

It can be compensated for, and team play can be built around individual players' weaknesses, but there's a limit to how much compensating you can do for players who have neither the foot skills nor the vision (but who may have other attributes).

I agree that developing disposal and decision making is not easy and some will never improve but what about vision? Watch a replay of last week’s match and freeze frame a dozen or so of our moves through the midfield and entering 50, time and time again as our player is about to kick you will see 3 or 4 better options than the one he chooses and often they were easier targets 20/30m off to the right or left to a free player. Instead our ball carriers invariably kicked to a contest, or just to a point up the line or tried a low % bullet that got intercepted. Why aren’t they looking for wider options that change the angle of attack and force defences to reset? And it’s just not vision, in these empty stadiums they should be hearing free players calls. Watching the the first half again it seemed every time we transitioned out of defence thru the corridor the ball carrier had Langdon running on the wing as an option, he really does cover some ground but few used the option, why? Looking at the first half in detail it looked like our forwards often moved to the right areas to lose their opponent but we rarely took advantage. Instead the Tiger defence tended to gather in numbers around TMac 25m out from goal and wait for the bomb. 
 

Yes we have players with limited foot skills and we will always turn the ball over at times but the coaches should be encouraging and drilling players to look to use wide options, shorter passes to a free player, pause after a mark and look for best option instead of the blindly turning and kicking up the line. 

49 minutes ago, Half forward flank said:

How would they have done that if we took him with 3.

He was a NSW Giants academy player so all they have to do is match our first round bid which was pick 3 with their first rounder, pick 17 to get Greene. That’s the rules. I am sick of these academies, the draft has become a compromised joke against clubs like us. 

Well it has been interesting to read Demonland comments, then Garry Lyon, Fox Sport analysis about our problems. I took that on board and sat down to watch a replay of our first half debacle against Richmond. I watched 50 minutes of footy but stopped and rewound our every foray forward into our forward zone and that uses up time. But when you freeze frame critical moves you see time and time again what we aren’t doing. That is consistently NOT picking the right option to pas the ball for advantage for the team structure we have. 
 

On paper the fix is easy, it is not about poor kicking skills, it is about decision making. Looking at all our forward attacks over again the issue is all about the ball carrier not being able or wanting to pick out the closest open option and particularly options on either side of you! So many times we have free players on the outside of the ball carrier but they only look inside and then kick long to a contest. When a kick sideways means the defenders have to reset. I cannot believe our coaches are not able to get our players into stopping and evaluating the best short free option. 

On the other hand we are playing with blinkers on and move forward in straight lines to obvious contests and wonder why TMacc gets swamped by defenders. 

1 hour ago, Half forward flank said:

And another. Should have taken Tom Greene last year, understanding it was a bit complicated with the Academy situation.

So we would now have two AFL ready players, Green and King.

 

We couldn’t get Greene, Giants would just equal our bid. 

2 hours ago, Redleg said:

That kick is typical of the dumb decision making of too many of our players.

Viney had the time, as the photo shows, to see the free men and at least try and pass it to them.

He then compounds the mistake with another pathetic kick.

This scenario is repeated often by our players.

 

Yes agree but why? These players are not that dumb surely. I just don’t understand our inability to rectify a basic and easily solvable problem.

On 7/5/2020 at 5:31 PM, JTR said:

Look at this...

Viney with the ball kicking inside 50.

Left to right he has Hunt running to space, McDonald on his own with no one near him and Langdon on his own with no one near him.

Where does it go?

Long bomb to Fritsch in a 1v3

That not a problem with the forward structure.  It's just taking the wrong option when going inside 50. 

Much as I like Viney, he is one of the worst offenders. 

I looked at this screen shot the other day  and it is damming and showed lack of vision but it just occurred to me is that without crowds surely Viney could hear the calls from the loose players to his right. I assume with full stadiums players can’t hear team mates calls and have to rely on vision only but playing in an empty echo chamber you have to scratch your head why a player wouldn’t pick up such obvious free targets. I believe it comes from our mantra to play on at all times so we tend to kick straight ahead in predictable lines. Any directional switching only occurs in the back half, once we have possession forward of Centre we are so predictable it must remind opposition defenders of their days playing in the under 16’s.