AFL Autopsy 87 pt loss to the Bulldogs, Round 18 2015

[kelvin_sheedy]

I suspect Melksham and Zaka are injured. Why were they played?

There was a tweet by Tom Browne from Channel 7 who said there was a bit of a bug at Windy Hill during the week which may have knocked a few players down.

 

[monty1104]

There was a tweet by Tom Browne from Channel 7 who said there was a bit of a bug at Windy Hill during the week which may have knocked a few players down.

Unless that bug was Ebola, it's no excuse for that performance.

 

[Mr Mojo Risin]

We must be in the same boat. I've been waiting for him to come good but instead of going from average to good, he's tailed off to go from average to shyte.

I'm wondering whether the saga has got to him. Look at his 2013 season, it's not as if he cannot do it. It's affected Watson badly and god knows how many others. He doesn't look up to it but I think he should take the rest of the year off. If we can get a trade for him do it, if not there is enough other players in front of him to be delisted.

 

[MarkG]

I almost threw s**t at my TV yesterday watching us go 3rd man up in the ruck contests around the ground. It's been happening more often this weekend and it need to stop, we're terrible at it.

It'd be ok except we're continually hitting it out into space on the defensive side where there are almost always their players between the ball and our guys. This means they are getting the ball and running towards goal with space in front of them. I understand tapping to the defensive side, but not into space where we're not.

If you're going to go 3rd man up, please for christ sake do it to advantage us and not them.

The other thing that shits me is we're not great in the contest anyway so we might as well leave that extra down to contest the ball, especially when it's someone like Heppell that's going up.

True re Heppell when 3rd up. He continually hit it straight to Mitch Wallis.

Stupid part was that Giles was winning in the ruck and hit it to Heppell who continually did nothing with it.

We had no run out of the centre whatsoever.

 

[Ashton Agar]

There was a tweet by Tom Browne from Channel 7 who said there was a bit of a bug at Windy Hill during the week which may have knocked a few players down.

And it just happened to work out that it was Zaka and Melksham that were affected?

 

[frenchfri12]

Didn't see the game. Were we outplayed, or as I suspect, effortless?

 

[MarkG]

Didn't see the game. Were we outplayed, or as I suspect, effortless?

Both

 

[bresker]

We legitimately got the ball out of our defensive 50 once when BJ rolled the dice with a long kick...
Every single other time, the ball would eventually keep coming back until we conceded a goal.
On the flip side, if the we kicked a behind the ease in which they could walk the ball out of our 50 was just an amazing contrast.
Not sure if that coaching or players but its extremely worrying.

I thought your tactics against us were worrying, did Hird watch any Bulldogs games this season or was he showing us a massive disrespect by not taking our forward pressure seriously?

Those stupid short passes around the defensive 50 allowed us to setup our press and hem you in. I've never seen a team overpossess the ball so much. I reckon you perplexed us with it in the 1st quarter (to no effect) until we worked out what was going on.

There are ways to beat the Bulldogs press, such as getting the ball out quickly - preferably with a long, quick kick to someone tall on the wing with marking ability.

If he marks it, you get another quick kick & space opens up. If not, you should get a stoppage on the centre wing.

Getting numbers around the stoppage and slowing us down isn't pretty but it can help stem the flow.

I don't understand what Hird was trying to achieve, we're not only quick but well orgainized and if you piss about with the sideways chip kicks - it's like Christmas come early.

 

[theboxmike]

I've never seen a team overpossess the ball so much.

I've see it on an (almost) weekly basis for a couple of years now.

 

[daffo]

We love to over possesss. It's our trademark.

It has to do with our current back six set up. We need someone creative behind the ball along with having quick switch kicks after a counter.

Strangly enough this is what we were great at in 2013 (under hird).

Hooker/Carlisle would intercept then handball to Dempsey or Hibberd who would run/carry and create counter attack. it was so simple and would win us SO MANY games.

Please go back to that. It was simple, easy and worked. The dogs play a bit like that but instead of intercept mark they get possession then put it in the hands of Boyd or Murphy who start their counter.

IMO we have to play Carlisle CHB then play someone like Winderlich, Goddard or dare I say it Dempsey behind the ball and get the ball in their hands.

Gleeson can also do it but he is very tired.

 

[man in outer]

The opposite is actually true. The worst the team, the easier your fixture gets. Look at the Bulldogs run this year.