Rexcellent
11 Jul 2007, 15:32
thought i'd put it up, considering a couple of threads relating to what we will learn...
Tuesdays with Todd
WE’VE done all our reviewing of last week's game, and it was a tough to get through it. It was a terrible performance on Saturday night.
It was a good reality check for us though. The Crows are a very good team, although they haven't been in great form, and they were starting to get some players back. Mark Ricciuto was back and after a couple of games, found some form.
Goodwin came back into their team and Burton came back, so they were probably a little bit closer to full strength. We got a good dose of reality that we still have a lot of work to do, if we're going to challenge the top teams.
I think physically, it just showed that they were a lot stronger around the ball. It was a wet night, it was a bit slippery, and I just thought their body strength and the way they handled the footy was a class above what we did.
As well as they played, we played just as poorly. We couldn't kick the footy, we couldn't grab it, we couldn't pick it up, we couldn't handball it, we were very sloppy with our disposal, and we didn't really give ourselves the opportunity to play well and kick goals because we made so many fundamental mistakes.
A reality check can be a positive thing. We've been sitting up the top end of the ladder for a big part of the year, and sometimes that can be a bit misleading. It's such an even season that you can quite easily drop from where we are to out of the eight, and teams that are out of the eight can jump in.
We understand that we're still a developing club. We've still got the youngest list in the competition, and we've got to keep working on improving, week in, week out.
We can't rest on our laurels and what we've done so far, because that's just not good enough. We haven't beaten teams that have been good in the past couple of years like Sydney and Adelaide, so we've got to keep working to get better.
The players were disappointed after Saturday night. They were disappointed in their performance when we were going through the game and viewing some of the missed opportunities that we should have taken.
If we'd used the ball and marked cleanly and taken the ball first grab, if we'd taken our chest marks inside our forward 50, we would have been a lot more in the game.
The result says we lost by over 10 goals, but we still look at the review and take the positives out of it, and say, "If we'd done X, Y and Z to the level we know we can, we would have been a lot closer".
It was a coaches' nightmare in the box during the game. With modern technology, you presume that when you walk into the box at the start of the game, all the phone lines are going to be up and running.
What happened was we walked in and just about sat down for the first bounce, and the phone wasn't working. All of a sudden, we couldn't communicate with the bench and the coach couldn't communicate with the runner.
It was a major issue for the box. It didn't affect how badly we played, but from a coaching perspective, it was very frustrating.
Losing Danny Jacobs and Chance Bateman early hurt us – Bateman is one of our hardest runners, and we were one down right from the start with our running capacity.
Danny unsettled us a bit, and we were stretched. We are hoping both guys will be okay for this week.
Buddy has had some ripping games this year, but in the last few weeks, he just hasn't been able to shake his defender. He's still had some opportunities, but he dropped a couple of chest marks in the forward half and missed a set shot at goal.
I think everyone forgets Buddy is only 20, and thinks he's already made his name and is going to kick nine goals each week. He's still very young, and being a forward, his performance depends on what is happening up the ground.
Buddy does still get opportunities to kick goals. Our forward generally didn't get a lot of opportunities on Saturday; I think we only went inside our forward line 43 times, which wasn't enough to give the forwards enough supply, but he still dropped a couple of chest marks and one overhead he should have taken.
When you're playing well, you do take your opportunities, so I don't think he's that far away from it.
The Tigers have been really competitive this year, even though they've only one won game and drawn another. They've been pretty competitive the last three or four weeks, so they are playing good footy and like to take the game on.
We're going to have to play a lot better than how we did against Adelaide if we're going to be any chance to beat them. We like playing at the 'G, and we're hoping we'll get back into some good form this week.
Tuesdays with Todd
WE’VE done all our reviewing of last week's game, and it was a tough to get through it. It was a terrible performance on Saturday night.
It was a good reality check for us though. The Crows are a very good team, although they haven't been in great form, and they were starting to get some players back. Mark Ricciuto was back and after a couple of games, found some form.
Goodwin came back into their team and Burton came back, so they were probably a little bit closer to full strength. We got a good dose of reality that we still have a lot of work to do, if we're going to challenge the top teams.
I think physically, it just showed that they were a lot stronger around the ball. It was a wet night, it was a bit slippery, and I just thought their body strength and the way they handled the footy was a class above what we did.
As well as they played, we played just as poorly. We couldn't kick the footy, we couldn't grab it, we couldn't pick it up, we couldn't handball it, we were very sloppy with our disposal, and we didn't really give ourselves the opportunity to play well and kick goals because we made so many fundamental mistakes.
A reality check can be a positive thing. We've been sitting up the top end of the ladder for a big part of the year, and sometimes that can be a bit misleading. It's such an even season that you can quite easily drop from where we are to out of the eight, and teams that are out of the eight can jump in.
We understand that we're still a developing club. We've still got the youngest list in the competition, and we've got to keep working on improving, week in, week out.
We can't rest on our laurels and what we've done so far, because that's just not good enough. We haven't beaten teams that have been good in the past couple of years like Sydney and Adelaide, so we've got to keep working to get better.
The players were disappointed after Saturday night. They were disappointed in their performance when we were going through the game and viewing some of the missed opportunities that we should have taken.
If we'd used the ball and marked cleanly and taken the ball first grab, if we'd taken our chest marks inside our forward 50, we would have been a lot more in the game.
The result says we lost by over 10 goals, but we still look at the review and take the positives out of it, and say, "If we'd done X, Y and Z to the level we know we can, we would have been a lot closer".
It was a coaches' nightmare in the box during the game. With modern technology, you presume that when you walk into the box at the start of the game, all the phone lines are going to be up and running.
What happened was we walked in and just about sat down for the first bounce, and the phone wasn't working. All of a sudden, we couldn't communicate with the bench and the coach couldn't communicate with the runner.
It was a major issue for the box. It didn't affect how badly we played, but from a coaching perspective, it was very frustrating.
Losing Danny Jacobs and Chance Bateman early hurt us – Bateman is one of our hardest runners, and we were one down right from the start with our running capacity.
Danny unsettled us a bit, and we were stretched. We are hoping both guys will be okay for this week.
Buddy has had some ripping games this year, but in the last few weeks, he just hasn't been able to shake his defender. He's still had some opportunities, but he dropped a couple of chest marks in the forward half and missed a set shot at goal.
I think everyone forgets Buddy is only 20, and thinks he's already made his name and is going to kick nine goals each week. He's still very young, and being a forward, his performance depends on what is happening up the ground.
Buddy does still get opportunities to kick goals. Our forward generally didn't get a lot of opportunities on Saturday; I think we only went inside our forward line 43 times, which wasn't enough to give the forwards enough supply, but he still dropped a couple of chest marks and one overhead he should have taken.
When you're playing well, you do take your opportunities, so I don't think he's that far away from it.
The Tigers have been really competitive this year, even though they've only one won game and drawn another. They've been pretty competitive the last three or four weeks, so they are playing good footy and like to take the game on.
We're going to have to play a lot better than how we did against Adelaide if we're going to be any chance to beat them. We like playing at the 'G, and we're hoping we'll get back into some good form this week.