Autopsy Round 1, 2024: Hawks fail against Bombers

[Strapping Young Lad]

Stats…Bahaha. Listen to what JB is saying, hardest CHF probably ever. That should be enough.

Who needs quantifiable data, when we can just parrot something that one of the games great thinkers, Jono Brown, has said during a game.

 

[TBoyleSuperstar]

How Finn was sub still baffles me.baffled me all day as Merrett cut us to pieces.
28 shots on goal though, defence worked hard with little support from the midfield and all the debutants showed plenty.
There’s plenty there to build on, but mids need to lift big time

 

[peetoo]

They walked it out of there the whole last quarter. There's no denying this.

And Chol got his niggle at centre bounces

 

[eldorado]

one of the games great thinkers, Jono Brown...

I'm not sure I'd trust him to tell me the time...

 

[cuttlefish]

We're still a relatively young side, right?
Missing chance after chance on goal, and watching them score goals immediately after we had almost every time caught up with us, I think. Looked to sap their energy a bit.
Onwards and upwards. Expect some harsh words will be spoken this week about kicking straight. They're certainly all on the same page, performance-wise, coach included, so they may just conjure something this season. As long as they grow as a unit.

 

[peetoo]

It’s a game of inches. The Wiz kicked 0.3. If he nailed them and kicked 3.0, we would of had 10 pages gushing about him.
Them there are the breaks.

Needed to wait his turn for a ‘lick of the ice cream’

 

[hfc70]

Watched the game on the TV from the safety of my lounge room.
Kicking 2.7 in the 1st quarter is never a great start but I thought, as a team, we fought it out to the end.
We slightly improved the rest of the game with 9.10….whilst the scum kicked an uncharacteristic 17.5 for the game (GGF) Quite a few of our shots 8/10 should have resulted in goals but it’s only Rnd 1, so not overly concerned just yet.
Like politicians in question time, the commentary is putrid to say the least, and these clowns get paid for the dribble they spout forth.

Super impressed with some newbies, namely, Ginnivan, D’Ambrosio and Chol to a lesser extent.
Disappointed with some of the senior players like Sicily, Breust (spl), Gunston and Nash.

There were opportunities where we could really have taken the ascendancy but poor decisions and footskills (resulting in goals to the scum) really took the ‘wind from our sails’

POSITIVES
Worpel - thought he was huge. Never gave in and showed true leadership.
MDA - great first game for the club, with elite footskills,great future ahead in the brown & gold
Moore - only recently returned from Glandular Fever but was awesome.
Connor Mac - really stood up today and was exactly what we expect from him, fantastic. Could have had a sausage roll but for Ginnivan not ‘seeing’ him in the goal square.
Reeves was serviceable but needs to offer more around the ground.
Ginnivan - was outstanding (pure & simple)

NEGATIVES
Sicily - had his colors lowered today (by a no-one in Gwelfi)
Lewis - needs to work harder when he is struggling
Nash - not his normal game today , poor disposal ; needs to take an extra split second to execute better disposals and decision making
Amon - we missed his normal run & carry that we know he can do
Weddle - massive fan , just needs to read the play better to know when to pull the trigger

Few changes for next week I reckon but the blueprint is slowly taking shape

Go Hawks

 

[Mercy Seat]

One more thing worth mentioning is just how assy the dons were in front of goal. Everything went in. Went with a scum supporter and they couldn’t believe how accurate they were. That won’t happen every week.

On the flip side, Sam said in the presser that a lot of work went into goal kicking this preseason so here’s hoping it’s just an anomaly.

 

[The hands of stone]

yes i love day however we r going to have to do without him for a while.

Bloody Goldstein. He lifted in the second half. Was the impetus in that last qtr. 36 year old age less gun. Reeves will learn from this. Reeves just ran out of gas. It was a hot day and round 1. Ward did a lot of defensive running. His opponent Duursma never looked like having an impact. He did a lot of thankless running. A really gutsy effort in the heat.

We still lack polish going forward and through the middle. So many kicks ill directed. Over kicked or under kicked. So many handballs at players feet. Fatigue did play its part. So many times we were out in space only for the next handball to be at someones bootlaces or miss the target to turn the ball over.

The good - we were able to execute to have so many inside 50s. We should kicked away in the second qtr

The bad was obviously firstly our kicking for goal and our defensive intent in the middle of the grounds. Too many times we set way too aggresively only for the ball to waltz out of the middle for a score.

Plenty of positives our forward line with so many new faces could have won us the game. The good news they are only going to get better.

Looking to inject more speed into the side with bailey and seamus in the near term and Cj not too far away. Lets see how far we go against Melbourne next week

The other good news Dear kicked 4 against the bombers

Agree 100%

Fantastic re Dear . Only saw him fleetingly at a training pre Christmas , very raw but looks to have some real natural ability

 

[Mojo]

Reading some of the comments and you can't help but think we're still devoid of high-end/elite talent, which is non-negotiable when constructing a premiership team.

2024 will be the year we learn about, generally, half our list - they're into their 3rd+ years of AFL footy. Will they stand up and demonstrate enough to be the players that will take us to our next premiership?

 

[AlwaysHawks15]

Our midfield simply needs to learn how to defend. Kick straight, Finn plays best 22 we win.

* the scum. Enough there to win games this year. But our mids simply need to defend better if we're gonna be a real threat. Wasn't good enough. Go next

Also, he wasn't like a star or anything. But given the unnecessary vitriol he gets day in day out. Frost was very good. Better than our captain today. So many big efforts from him, was very pleased with his performance.

Gets an extremely poor rap for his clangers but as a defender first is very underrated. There's a reason he never gets dropped which hopefully people an start to work out for themselves.

 

[Mercy Seat]

Mitchell made a few Blues this week unfortunately. Sicily playing more 1 on 1 when you have a bloke as an emergency who we could have utilised to free Sis up. 2MP didn't dominate but Stringer had an influence because we didn't have the right matchup for him. These things could have been avoided with more logical thinking and n ot trying to be too clever McGuiness should never be sub again.

Who’s the emergency? Not sure Phillips is ready yet.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

How Finn was sub still baffles me.baffled me all day as Merrett cut us to pieces.
28 shots on goal though, defence worked hard with little support from the midfield and all the debutants showed plenty.
There’s plenty there to build on, but mids need to lift big time

I'd assumed we'd make the swap a lot earier on. Perhaps we second guessed ourselves through the third as it became an arm wrestle and as we were still so close and didn't want to negate the chance that we might start converting shots on goal by being too defensive in the middle.

That's the only thing that makes sense of Finn being sub to me and then not being brought on until it was all too late.

 

[killerspud]

I'm not sure I'd trust him to tell me the time...

One more hit to the body (head)..

 

[The hands of stone]

Stats…Bahaha. Listen to what JB is saying, hardest CHF probably ever. That should be enough.

Brown is possible the best example ever of a gun athlete not meaning they are a great coach/analyst .

The guys one wood is 'not working hard enough ' or ' not going hard enough '

John Smith at the pub can tell you that

 

[Blackhawk42]

We'll upset the Dee's next week. Just have a feeling.

 

[KermitJagger]

I'm not sure I'd trust him to tell me the time...

You'd definitely check your phone just to make sure

 

[SSSSSS]

Finn on a hot day would have played into his strengths.

Subbing him in was a bizarre decision especially so late.

 

[CliffMcTainshaw]

Memo to Ginnivan:

You’re a small forward, so your job is in this order
1. Chase, harass, tackle and annoy the opposition to try to cause turnovers
2. Link up with other Hawks, giving the ball to a teammate in a better position than you
3. Kick the odd goal

Try to wash the Collingwood stink out - it may take some time …


.

Memo to Davo23:
1. Make sure to have an alcho lock fitted to your keyboard.
2. Always make sure it is turned on before posting.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Reading some of the comments and you can't help but think we're still devoid of high-end/elite talent, which is non-negotiable when constructing a premiership team.

2024 will be the year we learn about, generally, half our list - they're into their 3rd+ years of AFL footy. Will they stand up and demonstrate enough to be the players that will take us to our next premiership?

Knee jerk reactions of a Round 1 loss. None of the kids we loved watching last year have any less talent in 2024, but only 1 more game under their belt.

 

[Brownbird]

Lost in the coach’s box (and from poor kicking). They targeted Sicily, Newk and Lewis and we did nothing to quell their best players. Can’t believe Finn sat on the pine while Perkins and Merrett tore us up.

Moore, Worpel, Weddle, Mass, Dimma Frost and Ginni can hold their heads up.

We generated chances but weren’t good enough. Bruest, Gunston and the other forwards wasted too many gettable shots.

Very disappointing

don't forget Connor McDonald - he was in our better performers

 

[A Diakos]

Weddle was our most disappointing defender today, for mine.

He’s a wingman not defender

 

[ahhhhhh]

I’m starting to get worried about Ward. We need more from him quickly.

 

[Guardian Hawk]

We support a confusing team at times.

In 2022, we had the worst midfield in the league, couldn't win a clearance and all our talent was perceived to be stacked in the backline.

We focused on our area of weakness, overhauled our midfield and in 2023 it was one of the best (certainly our strongest area) but our forwardline was atrocious and couldn't convert inside 50's into scores.

We have overhauled our forwardline and whilst it's very early, they were elite at converting inside 50's into scores (albeit mostly behinds) but our midfield was destroyed at clearance/stoppage (and our backline looks very thin in key areas).

It's very hard to keep track of which areas are ok and which need further work.

 

[barbster]

Who’s the emergency? Not sure Phillips is ready yet.

Thought he didn’t look out of place against the dogs. Is a mature recruit (24) and has the height we sorely need.