View Full Version : Melb/WC- the good bad and ugly
Well that was a really depressing game to watch. Excuses aside, full credit to the Demons- they were a bit better than us in most positions around the ground for most of the day- I thought the margin was a fair reflection of how much they controlled the game.
So anyway-
the Good: Kerr was probably one of the few of our players who could walk away with his head held high.He toiled all day, kicked well, and was for large periods of the game our only leading light in the midfield. After a quiet first half, the Energizer Bunny hopped up in the third, and probably played his best half of football for the year then,although poor disposal still hurt his game. Judd played well all day, in fact i think some of our players need to take a good long hard look at the way this kid plays, because right now, he's done more to earn his spot in the team in three weeks than they did all last year. Rowan Jones was consistent, Peter Matera was good all day, and truly magnificent in places, whilst Williams and Wirrpunda were good, if inconsistent. On an entire team scale, I was proud that, out of the game early in the last quarter, we didn't fall away, credit to the team for sticking with it till the end.
The Bad: (almost) everyone else. Fletcher did nothing all day- after three mediocre weeks, the king of inconsistency's spot should be given to someone else. Braun did little after a good start whilst Embley managed to drop X amount of easy marks inside the fifty. Willow was well held, but in his defense the big fella just was not getting any sort of delivery from the midfield- you can't kick goals if they don't put it on your chest- I would have liked to see Wilson stay on for the entire game and maybe push out to CHF- If he had have been the guy running at all those marks that Embley dropped in the last two quarters, the result might have been very different indeed. However my primary rant is reserved for Drew Banfield. Sorry, Banners, but this guy should not be out there in his present form. He was comprehensively beaten against collingwood, was one of our worst against the doggies, and his failure to *either* gather some ball or perform a decent tagging role this game was probably one of the single most significant reasons the Dees got on top of us.
The Ugly: First prize goes to Nicholson, The BeeMan, who has to be the rudest looking bloke in the AFL. Not a pretty face, but a very efficient defender-he fully deserves the props that Melbourne fans have been giving him of late. It was pretty ugly to see McIntosh go off the field again- early on he was well on top of Neitz- again, if he had have been out there, we would have been a lot closer. Philip Matera pushing the umpire out of the way with both hands made me sit up- What the??? Finally though, is it just me or is Optus Oval a very very slippery ground? Looked like the grass was too long or something- in any event, both teams spent the entire game sliding all over the place- how many times did you see someone slip over for no apparent reason? Finally, the Umpiring was bad to pathetic in places. That had little to do with the final result, indeed, some of it cut both ways, but frankly, the AFL standard of umpiring is consistently very very poor indeed, why the hell is this so?
Nice sum up there Mead. I agree that Fletcher and Banfield should be dropped for next weeks big game against the Lions. Bring in Humm, Wooden or Green....not sure Hunter should stay on for another game but we may need him in Milli's absence.
White killed Gardiner in the first half but then 6 or 7 minutes before the break Melbourne took him off for a long half time rest but then Gardy absolutely dominated the ruck and we threw on 3 quick goals. They were forced to bring White back on with about 3 minutes to go but it looked like Gardy got some confidence and from there on i thought the ruck was pretty even.
Originally posted by jod23
Nice sum up there Mead. I agree that Fletcher and Banfield should be dropped for next weeks big game against the Lions. Bring in Humm, Wooden or Green....not sure Hunter should stay on for another game but we may need him in Milli's absence.
White killed Gardiner in the first half but then 6 or 7 minutes before the break Melbourne took him off for a long half time rest but then Gardy absolutely dominated the ruck and we threw on 3 quick goals. They were forced to bring White back on with about 3 minutes to go but it looked like Gardy got some confidence and from there on i thought the ruck was pretty even.
I was one of the 9,000 odd who actually showed up at the ground today.
Jod, I fully agree with you about the ruck situation. White (Melbourne) were well on top until Whitey was spelled before half time (I think our lead was close to 7 goals at that stage). Jolly (who we'd been begging to be brought back to help Whitey) just wasn't up to it today & Gardiner took over.
Whitey & Gardy probably did break even after that & we're lucky that we didn't concede the initiative completely. Credit to West Coast for not chucking it in, I thought they were gone a few times only to find them clawing it back.
At times the football was laughable, some horrendous play from both sides (made me cringe!) However when both teams are on, they look great.
Both teams suffered at hands of the maggots too, very poor umpiring display all day :mad:
Originally posted by BT
I was one of the 9,000 odd who actually showed up at the ground today.
Jod, I fully agree with you about the ruck situation. White (Melbourne) were well on top until Whitey was spelled before half time (I think our lead was close to 7 goals at that stage). Jolly (who we'd been begging to be brought back to help Whitey) just wasn't up to it today & Gardiner took over.
Whitey & Gardy probably did break even after that & we're lucky that we didn't concede the initiative completely. Credit to West Coast for not chucking it in, I thought they were gone a few times only to find them clawing it back.
At times the football was laughable, some horrendous play from both sides (made me cringe!) However when both teams are on, they look great.
Both teams suffered at hands of the maggots too, very poor umpiring display all day :mad:
Yep we were getting KILLED by White but then after the short break he had, it was pretty even. I thought it was a mistake to take him off at that stage because no offence to Jolly but Gardiner is in the top 5, 6 ruckmen in the game and he gave Jolly a bath and then when White returned, Gardy seemed to have his confidence back and it was even...
I too thought the footy at times was cringe worthy, your run off half back killed us though, breaking the lines and streaming forward in numbers. Still we could have chucked it in but we fought it out. So after my initial disappointment im ok about the loss. Lots of skill work i think at training this week.
Originally posted by jod23
Yep we were getting KILLED by White but then after the short break he had, it was pretty even. I thought it was a mistake to take him off at that stage because no offence to Jolly but Gardiner is in the top 5, 6 ruckmen in the game and he gave Jolly a bath and then when White returned, Gardy seemed to have his confidence back and it was even...
I too thought the footy at times was cringe worthy, your run off half back killed us though, breaking the lines and streaming forward in numbers. Still we could have chucked it in but we fought it out. So after my initial disappointment im ok about the loss. Lots of skill work i think at training this week.
Jolly's capable of better than he showed today, it was his first senior appearance of the season & I hope we persist with him, but Gardiner showed him up, he's class (easily in the top 5 ruckmen in my opinion).
Whelan,Ellis,Bizzel etc certainly attacked from defence well today, it was the reason why we were so sucessful in 2000, I hope we can keep it up.
Voice of Reason
21 Apr 2002, 11:11
Good:
Tried to win the game.
Never gave up - we won the last quarter.
After getting thrashed for most of the first half, players, especially midielders and ruck, showed character by sticking with it and kept the game alive.
Kerr - best game this year.
Spread of goalscorers.
The periodic skills/genius of Matera, Wirrapunda and Judd.
Chambers and Hunter of the younger guys did quite well.
Jako and Glass defensively (it's not all about possessions - if it is then Nicholson had as bad a day as Jako).
Bad:
Delivery into the forward line from midfield gave our forwards virtually no chance.
Failure of the half forward line to apply sufficient defensive pressure on their half back line to stop the running through the lines KILLED us. Whoever plays there has to stop the Wheatleys, Whelans etc running through and players like Embley, Judd, Chambers need to work on that aspect of their game. (Haynes too if he gets back in).
Lack of drive off the half back line ourselves - in terms of either running with the ball to convey it through the lines or accurate kicking.
Our inability to stop run-ons (although at least we seem to be able to score successive goals ourselves).
Banfield and Fletcher seem very out of form (the only place I can see Drew retaining his place is as a defensive half forward - see above), which means we only have Jones as a decent tagger (hence the Powell problem).
Forward line except Embley stopping leading (though it must be a frustrating place to be - see first point of Bad).
Gardiner's failure to at least break even with or spoil White early and his taps don't seem to go to where our players are (whether that's him or them I'm not sure).
Wilson - first off day out of four. Stay out of the limelight and be a quiet achiever is my advice.
Phil Matera just couldn't get into it.
We lost the first three quarters.
Ugly:
TV and Commentators - Campbell and Bennett should be barred from commentating on the Eagles until they know anything about them. First the transmission failed. At least Allen Jakovich is in good form. And Tony McHale (brother of Jock no doubt) on the sub title. And their inability to tell the difference between (say) Jones, Chambers, Fletcher and whoever (next week probably Wirra) really grates.
Umpires - they're crap every week.
Nicholson's face.
How exposed we are when a turnover happens - see my explanation for skill levels on another thread.
Taylor and Matera if they get suspended.
Overall, not too bad and certainly not ugly.
dees*gal
21 Apr 2002, 14:31
Originally posted by BT
I was one of the 9,000 odd who actually showed up at the ground today.
as was i :D
i thought it was a very good game, you guys came out looking like you wanted a win for the first few mins, but after that - i guess we just took over. good match, good luck for the following weeks, until we meet again later on it the season
Mead, once again, I agree with you!
here are my thoughts on yesterday's game.
- Melbourne don't have many true supporters.
- Agree with rant on Banfield, he is AWOL.
- Someone was having a go at Jako and Glass, in another thread, don't believe it, they were admirable yesterday. Glass was beaten by neitz, but he bounced back (didn't drop his head) when moved to Schwarz, and Jako had the better of Neitz easily. He kicked one goal of a misskick from a team-mate, but the rest of the time, Jako was beating him at his game (leading, not bodying up). Unfortunately, Woosh was 5 goals too late in the move. This game wasn't lost by our defenders, look at the midfield (explain later).
- List of players who impressed me yesterday in no particular order. Chambers, Judd, Kerr. Pe. Matera and Cousins.
- Team selection, i said all week we needed an extra ruck, I think that was vindicated yesterday. As much as I have wraps on Travis, he is no ruckman, henceforth, when Gardy was moved out of the ruck, we were slaughtered. I was advocating Siera, then Tuckey, but if they were injuried, then Cox is still worth a run.
We still need a specialist back pocket, drop a midfielder and bring in Humm. I must sound like a broken record.
- Woosh's forward line setup. So we went small for virtually the whole second half. Embers though resembled an English slipsman rather than a full-forward. IMO Williams would have been a better bet given his status as a stronger mark. I was angry though at the use of Travis, he was on the bench far too much, and should have been used more as a focal point on a forward line short of a few.
On the subject of Williams, when he is good, he is very good, but he went miissing (don't think he was on the bench) far too much. Just when I was thinking, "he is playing well", he goes quiet. Quite frustrating.
The midfield rotation. I don't agree with Tom Hafey very often, but a few weeks ago, I heard him say, don't rotate players just for the sake of rotating them, if they are tired, yes, by all means, but not just for the sake of it. At the time, I thought, what do you know old man, you are past it, but I stand corrected. Keep yesterday's game in a time capsule of why you leave "hot" players on the ball.
Think of it this way, out Kerr, Wirrpunda, Cousins, Judd, Braun, Banfield, Taylor, FLetcher and Jones, how many could you expect to be on "fire" on a particular day? Well yesterday in patches, I could make cases for the first four of them. Now, did these players "cool down" because of their opponents or because of the rotation? It wasn't their opponents, that's for sure. Now if these players were tired, yes they should take a rest, but were they? Why place players on the bench who are playing well? Was it just a case of, West Coast beating themselves..... think about that. ....... not that it would have changed the whole result, but it would have made it a lot closer.
- I am also of the opinon that the 2001 version WCE would have been thouroughly schlacked.
- The accountability of our midfield. Now whoever bagged Jako, Glass and Collica, let me point something out to you. Being at the game this point becomes obvious, and TV rarely shows it. We just failed to man up all over the midfield, someone mentioned the word "waves" or was it "tides", that was what it looked like. somehow, they just always had free players on when they were coming forward. How can you expect our defenders to stop their men, when the midfield doesn't put pressure on the players delivering the ball????
This is the best way I could describe it. When you have a zone kick in, the biggest danger is turning the ball over, because the zoned defenders aren't manned up, they are guarding space not men, hence if you lose the ball, these players are free in areas. When they came forward yesterday, there were just players all over the place, on the wings, in the middle, and the west coast players were just .... not there, they were not manning up!!
- Richard Taylor should not be allowed in our defensive 50m until he is taught how to defend.
- buy Cus some long studs PLEASE.
- the bald umpire should never be allowed in the AFL again. How he missed Craig Ellis holding the ball when roo tracked him downed is beyond me, it was the single most pathetic umpiring decision i can remember in a very long time.
rant over
thegur
Originally posted by Voice of Reason
Jako and Glass defensively (it's not all about possessions - if it is then Nicholson had as bad a day as Jako).
Bad:
Ugly:
Umpires - they're crap every week.
.
Jako was taken away from CHB to mind Neeta, who stood on the goal line most of the day, that limited Jako's opportunities to win the ball at CHB & send it inside West Coast's 50.
Worsfold had no choice, Glass was getting killed in the 2nd quarter & Melbourne would've been happy that Jakovich had little attacking influence on the game, despite being good defensively.
Hopeless display from the men in white, enough said!
Thegur, i liked the quote about waves or tides of demon players, for much of the game it was like that- Whenever you see a team with two or three midfielders running down the field in the clear, handpassing it back and forth, there is a good chance that team is well and truly on top of the game. My god, though, talk about a hell of a weekend, i got 3 out of 8 in tipping, the Eagles lost, the frockers won, and I broke up with my gf. Life is good:mad:
Raelene
21 Apr 2002, 20:33
Mead - I agree with your remarks, but is it just me or are they back onto the old track again and will not change sides when it may help. They just seem to bang away on the one side all the time and it is very depressing to see.
I agree with the quotes on the umpires. It seems that any umpire regardless of which state they come from gains the 'Vic mentality' when they umpire in that state and can see no other teams but a Victorian one - or is it as I have heard - that the interstate teams do not pay the umpires as much as the teams in Victoria!
That one particular call on Matera when he ran down a Melbourne player was a shocker. He just dropped the ball but play continued. I was mystified! And when they dont reward you, you stop chasing....and thats bad for football.