Earl Hood

Lyon and Watson agreed this morning there wasn’t an issue with the endeavour of the players, it’s all about execution and I agree. So this not about playing for the jumper or commitment, it is about basic ability, game plan, and how we execute the game plan. Does the game plan work, does the GP suit our skill set, are we selecting the right people to play? They  are questions for the coaching hierarchy. Not sure they have any answers. 

35 minutes ago, chook fowler said:

The heat is really on the Club now. Ox has joined the chorus with Crawford, Lyon, Brererton, Watson ripping into all aspects including Board, CEO, coaches and players. The get out of jail card has expired and something will have to give. 

Viva la revolution!

What revolution we just don’t have the $ to move Goody on I am afraid. And that situation goes straight back to the board who signed off on Goodwin’s contract extension on the back of one good season. Why do that? he wasn’t about to be poached for heaven’s sake. Just add it to the list of incompetent decisions on top of the numerous non decisions made by our boards of directors for decades! Too many old school tie time servers, I suspect?  I don’t know but they are at best mediocre. 

1 hour ago, Canplay said:

Gary and Derm both spot on, we can all see the following :-

 -  we’ve a midfield issue -  they can all win contested footy but lack foot skills and footy smarts 

-  team selection has been sporadic and poor under goody -  He’s no idea of best team or fwd structure

-  we’ve invested big in the wrong part of ground -  you trade 1st round picks and salary cap for gun midfielders or tall fwds - not backs

-  we’ve overestimated list, including trading away 1st pick this year

-  we’ve invested pick 3 in an under sized ruck we didn’t need -  just too  dumb for words

-  players not learning / changing under coaches

real question is what are the board going to do about it??

 

 

Not much, the club can’t afford to pay out Goodwin after resigning to extra years too soon! If they hadn’t he would be out of contract this year I believe. 
 

in hindsight our drafting is looking like a shambles. I noted last week in Egan’s summary of the seconds run against Geelong that he described Jackson’s ruck work as outstanding “that’s obviously why we drafted him”!!! That hit a raw nerve as why would you cough up pick 3 for a backup ruck when you have Max and brought in Pruess as backup?  At draft time MFC were talking more about his athleticism and his ability play forward or as a midfielder. 

43 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Demonland. Can we start a post on this. It’s been obvious for years and years. Not just the past bad 18 months.  It does “kill us” and the players. There is no skills development coach clearly. I just posted about forgetting about trades etc. Fix the skills of the 22 that play right now. Skills and decision making are CRITICAL 

It is not easy to improve skills and decision making mid season or maybe at all but I do believe skills and decision making improves automatically when players have more time and space to work in. you may have noticed how much time and space the Cats players had last week as they played keepings off. 

Our game plan doesn’t seek time and space it encourages contests and rapid ball movement, players banging it forward to the next contest or attempting low percentage passes that get intercepted. 

Every loose ball yesterday seemed to go to a Tiger on the outside, where were our players positioned? I need to watch a replay to try and work out what our players are doing off the ball. 

6 Gawn

5 Hibberd

4 Petracca

3 May

2 Fritsch

1 Hannan

8 minutes ago, Tarax Club said:

This may appear to be a loser's sour grapes and no way excuses the disappointing performance on show this arvo. But the umpiring did appear to favour the victors. Petracca was crucified by the "infamous' no prior opportunity decision. The umpire told the player, there was no prior opportunity, but penalised him for not attempting to dispose of the ball, with no prior opportunity. A contradiction that defies logic. More goals is good for business.

Dustin Martin's arms are pinned to his body and he does not drop the ball to his boot. The ball in broad daylight, moves miraculously by divine intervention to his team mate who commences a scoring chain from half back. The disposal was not actioned according to the rules. Dusty's two handed rugby 'toss' was apparently kosher according to the officiating referee. Everybody's going to Sydney right?

Other overlooked rule breaches included late, prolonged tackles. Mitch Hannan releases a handball to be crash tackled to the turf. Next contest, Tom MacDonald is tackled with ball, turnover free is given. And the Hardwick 'Special', from his playing days under Sheedy. Contact with the opposition needs to be as physically punishing as gameday officials will allow or myopically ignore. Bailey Fritsch on the half-time siren. The lack of a team mate(s) remonstrating with the instigator was not a good look.

Yes there were at least two Dusty miraculous ball releases while being tackled that should have been penalised. Hannan’s was diabolical, then there was the obvious blocking for Lynch marks! Interesting. 

23 minutes ago, nosoupforme said:

Lockhart did better than Smith. He was out there Did you watch the game?

 With J Smith you will get what you saw today..... Mistakes!  and does not take the game on. Has no idea, You don't need him to be just a stopper. He can't play that role well. 

On the mark when Reiwoldt kicked a goal. I think Smith was adjusting his sock when on the mark  and wasn't paying attention 

Ball smothered  by Townsend off  Smith's boot and the goal was kicked. I can go on. 

If J Smith isn't  dropped this week l promise I will not criticise him  again regardless.

However he will finally be dropped, Maybe for good l hope. NO FOOTBALL BRAIN.

 

You did note that Townsend opportunistic goal came off Smith’s smothered kick after he made position to receive a 7 meter handball from Oliver that should have gone straight to his midriff but instead dropped to his feet. He did well to scoopthe ball up in full stride but then it got smothered. Who do you blame? 

4 minutes ago, Satyriconhome said:

Of course he demands excellence, see his press conference, he is as [censored] off as the rest of us

The execution and skills on display today were appalling, what's the the answer, keep changing the team?

The players need to take responsibility,  they train the skills week in week out, they need to use it them consistently week in week out

Not sure which bit some on here don't get, you can't coach skill errors

 

The trouble with demanding excellence is you will only have a very few lining up, Max, Tracc.......the rest are mortal and need coaching and guidance. 

1 minute ago, daisycutter said:

no excuse for losing, but how is that the umpires can change the rules for holding the ball, not just this game but this round

all after clarkson complained tacklers aren't being rewarded

again the afl/umpires change the interpretation quietly mid season with no warning

i'm sick of the amateurish way of running the rules of the game 

Well the AFL did announce that they would reward the tackler if the ball carrier did not release the ball when tackled. He had to make a genuine attempt to release the ball and if he did that would be play on. So as usual on the first week of the new interpretation they got it wrong. The free against Petracca in front of goal was ludicrous! Then there were two similar frees for us that were just play on. But that is footy when you keep changing the interpretations. 

1 minute ago, brendan said:

Get Craig Jennings back Goodwin has no idea when it comes to strategy

But I don’t think Jennings did either! 

5 minutes ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

Our disposal and decision making were pure mince today, yet the game was there for the taking once again. Having the playing group together for an extended period is all well and good but if the current training protocols remain unchanged then fixing things could be difficult. Still, today's [censored] is tomorrow's fertilizer. 

On a positive note the Victoria Hotel in Footscray has now reopened and is showing live games again. It's also 500 metres outside the 3012 lockdown zone. My Plan B if I can't get get a table at The Rose next Saturday. 

The Rose in Fitzroy? My local. 

10 minutes ago, President Dee Trump said:

Jones should retire. Jetta is on the way out the door.

Why blame Jones or Jetta for today’s debacle? 

Just now, President Dee Trump said:

Jones should retire. Jetta is on the way out the door.

Think about it for a minute. Jones in next week might just provide some on field leadership but even more importantly Jones so often provides an option, a release for a player under pressure. That was a real problem today, players getting the ball surrounded by Tigers and either coughing it up or going for a laser like pass to a player that was often covered. Why did so many 50/50 chaos balls in contention that were slapped, punched or kicked to no target nearly always go to a Tiger on the outside?  Says a lot about our game strategy. 

3 minutes ago, Hogan2014 said:

We are a club that’s going nowhere again and will no doubt burn another list of players! Goodwin can fix the continued poor turnovers & decision making, we have 2 marking forwards not getting a game yet we are struggling kicking goals & taking marks inside 50, whilst witnessing Lynch & Reivoldt  taking marks, were is the logic there??? 

On a related note I intend to watch the replay to count the number of times Reiwolt blocked a Demon defender, usually Smith to let Lynch take a mark unopposed in the forward 50. I thought with 3 umpires they were cracking down on this stuff but not this week.  

1 hour ago, P-man said:

As much as I’d like to drop Oliver, we can’t afford to lose his ability in the contest. Brayshaw however would not be missed one iota.

Well I was saying that Goodwin should make a statement so I would drop Oliver myself. Brayshaw and Viney are limited players but trying hard. I am sure Oliver is trying but he is potentially elite but not getting better, something is not right, maybe he needs a wake up call? Give him a rest to reflect and get some hunger. We are shot for the season, let’s face it so I would be trying some new talent and maybe even Jones comes in because our on field leadership is rubbish. 

11 minutes ago, WERRIDEE said:

I don't understand the hatred for Smith he is a young kid making his way and kept Riewoldt to 1 goal. He did his job, Lever is a bigger problem on big bucks and does nothing week in week out. The worst recruit we have had by a country mile.

Didnt have a great game and the smothered kick out of defence that resulted in an opportunist goal wasn’t all his fault, he made position for an Oliver handpass. Oliver was under some pressure and managed to give off a 7m handball to a running Smith’s feet that he gathered well but the delay was enough for Tigers to intercept. Not sure what was going on with Oliver but he had a 27 possession shocker! Repeated kicks and handballs to no one at best and opposition at worst. But OK he still gets to the contest, that is something Viney used to do, but he seems to have dropped off. 

1 minute ago, ProperDee said:

Clayton Oliver. As an earlier post suggested, “an arrogant lair”. I thought that he would be a superstar but his game is so predictable now. All opposition players know he will handball. 80% of his handballs are ineffective “ hit and hopes”. It’s about time he got the arze from the midfield.

Brayshaw’s 3rd in a Brownlow must have been one of the flukes of the century. The bloke plays he couldn’t care less. Pizz him off to Freo.

Salem needs a rocket up him too. Rarely gets out of a canter. I think the apparition that was 2018 had some of these blokes thinking they were actually very good footballers. 

Outs: Lockhart, Kossi, Smith, Hunt, Tomlinson

Ins: Jetta, Jones, Oscar, Bennell, Weideman

I think I would make a statement and drop one of Oliver or Brayshaw and bring in one of the young mids, Dunkley, Jordan or Sparrow and we have to bring in Weideman, let’s see what he has got. 

26 minutes ago, MF-C said:

training v match day are two different things

perhaps at training we are train with the intention to lower the eyes, hit those smalls up and have them take shots. 

but game day we bomb it in and game day there is pressure and kicks to the top of the square. There is nothing wrong with bringing the ball to ground then going to work - it's the out marking that kills us and that's what happens. 

[censored] I would take 0 goals from Tmac every day of the week if he could bring it to ground then our smalls pounce. But it doesn't happen. 

This stat is alarming and we simply have to play 2 talls just to compete. 

Well I thought TMac did do that last week on a number of occasions and watching the game again he did. But he needs tall support to spread the defence, he was double teamed all day but was competitive. Our mid sized forwards struggle because our delivery is poor and they aren’t exceptional in the air or on the ground. Melk crumbed a couple for snaps but only kicked points. Kossie looks dangerous but needs more games under his belt and I wonder if we are better to have Bedford up forward for the chaos ball rather than one of Hunt, Melk, Hannan, AVB? 

Interesting I watched the game again to look at our ball movement and we do seem to have a problem seeing the best loose man option down back and obviously up forward. I thought one of our problems for years is players who don’t present as an option forward of the ball carrier and I believe it is still not perfect. However watching the replay we often had players running into space but were ignored by the ball carrier who then kicked down the line. I noticed Lockhart repeatedly running into space to be an option only to be ignored by the carriers. Is it that hard to see free options at ground level? It’s too long since I played and back then you just kicked it forward so I can’t remember. 
Reminds me of when we used to see Jack Watts alone on the half forward line yelling out for the ball only to see Maloney or Jones bomb it long to a contest. Things don’t change much. 

Christ remind me not to go to Wellsies place, how many doors are there? 

Come on who amongst us hasn't got on the spirits, walked out the wrong door and found themselves naked in the street and then picked up by the cops? Well I might have but then that was a long time ago when streaking was all the rage and I wasn’t VC of an AFL team in COVID lockdown! 

6 hours ago, daisycutter said:

hardly a real scratch match

14 a side on a full size ground, them with 4 interchange, us with none

not sure what you learn from this

Why did we only have 14? We have 4 long term injured so have about 40 available. Of the 18 reserves did we have 4 emergencies for the ones? 

Should be playing up at half forward not so deep and TMac has to contest deep if we are not playing a second tall. Hard to tell on TV but Fritsch is playing deep and Mac just trying to make a contest to every inside long bomb! 

10 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

I agree.

Right now, one thing we need is continuity.  We made five changes last week, so I'd like to see no more than two this week.

At the minimum I think one of Weideman of Brown needs to come in to the side, for either Melksham or Hunt.  

Other than that I think we're okay across the board.  Making more major changes will achieve nothing right now.

A Hawks friend said they are tending to minimise any changes and sticking with players who have played together a lot in previous seasons. It may be a bit unfair to those trying to get a game but it is due to the limitations of training this year. Makes some sense to me and we are going with 5 or 6 unforced changes each week playing newbies who may have ability but don’t instinctively know how their fellow line players play. So let’s limit the changes next week. I would say bring in Weid for forward structure and Bennell. 

56 minutes ago, Return to Glory said:

When's Petty ready to go? Was starting to look like a real player before set back.

Indefinite! Osteo pubis I suspect.