Analysis Review v Bulldogs

[_Mike_]

We all know Newnesy played a ripper but it was the first game where I thought he could become an actual mid 4 clearances and 13 contested posessions. Also his marking has really imrpived and last night was exceptional. I feel as though he could potentially be our Luke Parker

I had the pleasure of meeting Jack last year and spent a good 1/2 hour talking to him. He's a great kid and I think that in the long run he has the ability to become a very good midfielder.

Your team will always be our bugbear, no matter where the sides are on the ladder the Saints always match up well against us. I think like us, you guys are on the right track and heading in a good direction.

all the best

 

[saintbill]

Based on what I saw tonight, neither side will be playing a pre-lim. Bookmark it now.
We need to improve and get some more good young players in to the side. Replacing Joey and Roo will not be easy. People should not be pleased with tonight. The Dogs werent good and are guaranteed to be bottom 6 this year imo.
Having said that - last time we had a younger side than them and we won/ Tonight we had an older side and we lost.
Our improvement has to be generated from the bottom up. Yes we need SOME experience, but we cant be too heavily reliant on guys like Schneider, Ray, Dempster, Gilbert, Fisher. These guys need to be phased out in an orderly fashion.

Pretty much agree with this. Not disappointed in the loss, but really disappointed in the standard of the game. What concerns me is that we are giving 100% effort at the moment and we are still capable of really bad footy. Our intensity is likely to drop off at some point, and it could get ugly if/when this happens.

The positive is we do have a lot of depth within the younger group. We still had McCartin, Goddard, Sinclair, Acres, Templeton & McKenzie who are a good chance of being AFL standard, some possibly A graders. The next tier of Lee, Murdoch, Saunders & Wright are still a chance also. Add 2 more good players at the end of the year and we have good depth. Also confident in the coaching staff and recruitment team.

However, we would be wrong to assume we are going to walk into a prelim in a few years. There are other clubs building quality young lists. The Pies are a long way ahead of us and the Doggies and GWS are obviously going to be a big problem. We need a lot to go right if we are to challenge these guys. We can't afford to play a team as old as last night for the rest of the year. I would start trying to phase 1 out at a time, starting with Farren Ray personally. He is still probably best 22, but only just. Ray out, Acres in. By the end of the year, I reckon Acres output is better anyway.

 

[psychosaints]

Not the worst result. We played horrible football and nearly stole it.

Lessons to be learned -

Man up the 7th defender. Wood was BOG.

Seb Ross is a starting player.

We look better with Hickey up forward. Lets Bruce and Roo get a better run at things.

Gilbert looks a yard off the pace. Was ok up forward at the end. Maybe a game in the middle? Need to limit his turnovers while he picks it up otherwise Acres/DMac are right back in.

While our flat out attcking gameplan is amazing to watch, we need to learn how to SLOW THE **** DOWN when we are under pressure.

Lots of positives despite the loss. Looking forward to next week!

Spot on regarding the forward set up. Hickey in for Membrey. Mainly because I don't like bruce as the 2nd ruck man. Remember the swans used to play Goodes as a 2nd ruck until he hurt his knee in a ruck contest? I cringe every time Bruce is rucking, praying he doesn't hurt himself.

 

[psychosaints]

Pretty much agree with this. Not disappointed in the loss, but really disappointed in the standard of the game. What concerns me is that we are giving 100% effort at the moment and we are still capable of really bad footy. Our intensity is likely to drop off at some point, and it could get ugly if/when this happens.

The positive is we do have a lot of depth within the younger group. We still had McCartin, Goddard, Sinclair, Acres, Templeton & McKenzie who are a good chance of being AFL standard, some possibly A graders. The next tier of Lee, Murdoch, Saunders & Wright are still a chance also. Add 2 more good players at the end of the year and we have good depth. Also confident in the coaching staff and recruitment team.

However, we would be wrong to assume we are going to walk into a prelim in a few years. There are other clubs building quality young lists. The Pies are a long way ahead of us and the Doggies and GWS are obviously going to be a big problem. We need a lot to go right if we are to challenge these guys. We can't afford to play a team as old as last night for the rest of the year. I would start trying to phase 1 out at a time, starting with Farren Ray personally. He is still probably best 22, but only just. Ray out, Acres in. By the end of the year, I reckon Acres output is better anyway.

and I pretty much agree with this. I think the pies could be scary as they have had 5 or 6 picks in the top ten in the last 3 years and are still biding their time. GWS is the other obvious one. On the flip side, I'm looking forward to seeing hawthorn drop off.

 

[psychosaints]

Liked his game. Love his committment.

Same with Jimmy Webster.
Seany D said ..... "If Spud doesn’t give him a Golden Fist this week, I mean he’s kidding himself"

That may be taking it a little too far.

Jwebb is going to be a jet.

 

[CALL ME SNAKE]

Jwebb is going to be a jet.

already is

 

[psychosaints]

If Koby Stevens is going to continue to turn his body to create a block in marking contests, which he did all ******* night, we need someone to drop a knee into his ass like Dempster did last game....

The umps were shocking at adjudicating this rule last night

agree 100% rors. Yet we got shafted the other way standard umpiring.

 

[hayes]

Crap game, so much butchery, not hard to see why poor teams don't get the FTA coverage very often.

So many turnovers due to a lack of options up the field. Neither team seemed to want to play more than one forward at a time!

Sav needs to find his way to the backline again. Close attention from opposition shouldn't mean we just give up on him there surely? The backline continues to be the only place where we tolerate multiple bad kicks, but to be fair we do seem to be slowly phasing them out. One or two more to go.

Wood had I think 7 intercept marks, I reckon 4 of them were from Farren bombs. Working our way forward with a chain of possession and just for no reason whatsoever he'd just throw it onto his boot straight into Wood's lap. Of course he wasn't alone but from a senior player it's unbelievably frustrating.

I just can't rate Weller. One of the few younger guys who needs to be overtaken at some stage IMO. The only kick he's capable of is a 50m bomb to an outnumbered situation. Not good enough.

Newnes is a gun. We need Webster to start doing what he's doing either this year or next year because that will seriously lift us. Jimmy's not far off it though so I'm sure it will come.

On the bright side there's plenty of polish that didn't play yesterday. McKenzie, Billings, Sinclair, Eli to name a few with plenty more yet to be drafted.

 

[hayes]

And one more thing, clearly the choice comes down to either Hickey or Membrey and ATM I'll take what Membrey will do over four quarters plus the better ground level work over 5 minutes a quarter rest for Longer. Unless one of Roo or Bruce are injured I'd go with Membrey no doubt.

 

[Smoke_Me_AKipper]

If they had Libba they win, blah, blah, blah.

The bottom line is this, WE ARE IN A REBUILD.
Who gives a stuff what people like Maxwell etc are saying, we should be 6 goals worse than the doggies, remembering they have the 2013 number 1 and number 4 pick.

Boyd is not a footballers bootlace, certainly not worth 300k let alone 1 ******* million! He is fat, lazy, scared and soft, and they are his good points. Trust me, we will spend $1 million on two free agents or recruits in the next two years who will run rings around him.

If people knew what is going on behind the scenes you would be doing backflips, so enjoy the new defensive strategies we are working on in game time situations and remember if we kick straight tonight we win.

Sam Gilbert played very well tonight but had no support when under the pump, no options at all, so give him a break.

As is well known on here, I hope tonight showed why I don't rate Michington. He's just not good enough yet, but has time on his side.

We don't want to win too many games, it's pointless at this stage of our development and will cost us long term if we miss out on one of the gun mids in this draft, plan A is Parish, let's stick to the plan and win no more than 6 games.

One last thing, this is the lowest point of our rebuild cycle, its all upwards if we nail this upcoming national draft. Hopefully we draft our next Brownlow medalist and Norm Smith winner.

This!!

people can have their views about Gilbert and I'm cool with that but some of the abuse was OTT and when I called it out I get abusive posts and messages too. lol You can see something is going on as we are so frigging competitive this season as opposed to last season. 3 losses under 10 points too. We're setting ourselves up nicely...

some people need to calm down. lost a game we should of won which is disappointing. In the scheme of things it literally means nothing.

i saw a lot out there to be happy with. a lot we could fix and not very much that we cant.

Also for all the talk about how great and talented these young doggies are - we are better. IF we had Billings and Sinclair tonight we would of won.

for those upset about our disposal - yes it was disappointing but the club are aiming to add a quality midfielder to the side in the draft and we can add a handful of great kicks into the side over the next 18 months.

and just some info - a lot of our players had the flu, Gilbo was pretty bad for one.

Geez the flu - what a superb effort then. Makes you wonder how we were able to get so close against a team who are meant to be 2 years ahead of us with more top 10 picks with players under the weather!!

 

[VDS66]

Gilbert was under pressure, but he kicked across goal trying to hit Farren Ray 20m away, but instead hit Jarrod Grant 15m away.
The 2nd time Riewoldt was free by about 10m but Gilbert hit a dogs player 45 out from goal.
He then picked the ball up, side stepped one dogs player then took way too long and got tackled dropping the ball.
You can't justify these basic errors by saying 'oh but he was under pressure'.

No you cannot, but he wasn't alone last night. Some of Steven's clangers were first class.

 

[psychosaints]

already is

Well played sir, well played.

 

[Smoke_Me_AKipper]

If Koby Stevens is going to continue to turn his body to create a block in marking contests, which he did all ******* night, we need someone to drop a knee into his ass like Dempster did last game....

The umps were shocking at adjudicating this rule last night

Yet the umps pay a blocking free against us last night!!!! Terrible inconsistency....

 

[TheLastEmperor]

I'm certainly not going to slag Gilbert, as much as he had me pulling my hair out last night BUT for our club to move forward and improve we need players such as Gilbert being overtaken by more skilful and better decision makers. As long as we have players like Gilbert in our backhalf we won't become a finals contending team again. Surely this is his last year, if not his second last.

 

[AuntieBarrels]

Great effort, but skills were just horrid. I think there are some concerns for both sides actually, that was a really poor standard game. The Pies are now emerging as a far superior list at this stage as well as the obvious GWS factor. Confident we can bridge the gap, but need another big off-season.

Personally not worried about what the Doggies will look like in 3 years, I just don't see how Boyd is ever going to be elite and the Bont has to be the most overhyped player I can honestly ever remember. People getting caught up with his height, maybe because Fyfe is currently the best player in the comp and suddenly this is the new prototype. The difference is Fyfe attacks the ball like an animal, the Bont will never be this kind of contested beast. Couple this with his lack of pace and he will always be susceptible to a tag. He actually plays just like his cousin just a slightly taller build.

In short, we can take these guys in a couple of years. The Pies and obviously GWS are going to be a much bigger problem.

Haha, he is nothing like NDS mate. NDS could hit targets whenever he wanted to, one of the best kicks in his prime along with Lindsay Gilbee. Bont is still more of an inside player that can go and play up as a key forward because of his height. Not many similarities to be honest.n

How could you degrade Nick like that?

 

[pebblesofsand]

I'm happy to Gilbert a bit more time to readjust. He's played two games this year which brings him to a grand tally 17 in the last three years. Hi sclangers were more obvious than others because of the position he plays (like someone else who shall not be named) but seriously he wasn't on his own in the occasional poor disposal count.

Wonder whether McCartin will actually play the blinder he was supposed to have played yesterday.

Jeez Spencer named full back in the Magoogoo's. Next step out the door?

 

[FlyingSledghamer]

I don't disagree with what you say but Blake has only played three full AFL matches, DMac had a run of five games and hasn't had one vest.

Acres, being a taller, longer term midfield prospect is obviously being given more time to develop - but I don't think it's fair to think we've seen enough of either Dmac or Blake to be preferring one over the other.

Personally, I wish both were in the team over say, Ray and Gilbert, just for the sake of their development but I'm not an expert in developing AFL players.

I think so far im noticing big differences in their game. To me McKenzie looked better than Acres when he played. McKenzie noticably gets to the contest quicker and harder than Acres. Disposal under pressure seems to look better so far... They could play in the same side together but Acres looks too slow ATM IMO.. Often gets caught with the ball. Im not even really sure why McKenzies not playing.
Not being allowed to play sinclair is just a ridiculous rule too. They have to change it next year.

 

[Saintos The ITK]

We really gifted them "outs" from our F50 by kicking directly to them and giving them uncontested possession. Maybe we should wear our away jumper against them. There can be no other explanation for it.

 

[SaintLex]

Sorry, I don't buy the 'he was under the pump' excuse for Gilbert. Yes, he was as is every player who plays deep in defence. But twice he kicked it straight to a bulldogs player in the hotspot when a kick 5 metres to the left would have hit Roo on the chest or at least made it a contest. The other mistake was a htb error, which is fair enough.

I don't mind these mistakes at this stage of our rebuild, but Gilbo is part of that group of older b-graders that, once replaced by our young guns, will see us shoot up the ladder fairly quickly.

We should hope to have him replaced in our 22 by next year, imo.

 

[AuntieBarrels]

Wasn't able to watch the game last night, got up and early and watched the replay this morning.

Just a bloody frustrating game, we could have won and we played no where near out best brand of footy. I guess that's a good thing in a way.

Thought some have been a bit harsh on Gilbo, will come good in a few weeks, he's still getting rid of the cobwebs, the bye came at an awkward time for him. He did a great job defensively; Stringer didn't even kick a snag, and he's been one of the in- form forwards in the competition, and everyone is labelling him as "the whole package" and being "unstoppable." But by no means am I saying Gilbo had a good game. Would have been a perfect game for him if he didn't screw up those kicks.

Loved everyone's grunt, our contested ball numbers were great, and we beat them in that stat they pride themselves on. Our i50 numbers were better, we had more shots on goal, we pretty much had them in every important stat. We just didn't have that finishing polish/class. And we missed it through a few players who were out.

Billings, Sinclair, D-Mac, Acres (although his DE% has been poor, his class is there, and it will come), and Fisher.

Would like to see Goddard get a game next week, we really need to start putting more games into our younger players. I hope Paddy kicks a bag today

 

[HayesTheChamp]

FFS Brucey can't earn himself a free kick. He gets held and blocked out of marking contests each game - in each quarter. It is the most frustrating thing to watch, everyone knows now that when he gets a jump at it, he brings it down. All the matchups on him seem to just ground him - No frees at all.

 

[FlyingSledghamer]

Sorry, I don't buy the 'he was under the pump' excuse for Gilbert. Yes, he was as is every player who plays deep in defence. But twice he kicked it straight to a bulldogs player in the hotspot when a kick 5 metres to the left would have hit Roo on the chest or at least made it a contest. The other mistake was a htb error, which is fair enough.

I don't mind these mistakes at this stage of our rebuild, but Gilbo is part of that group of older b-graders that, once replaced by our young guns, will see us shoot up the ladder fairly quickly.

We should hope to have him replaced in our 22 by next year, imo.

Did you see when he extracted the ball out of a pack of 3 dogs players twisted and hand passed it directly to newnsy all in the one motion.

 

[SaintLex]

Did you see when he extracted the ball out of a pack of 3 dogs players twisted and hand passed it directly to newnsy all in the one motion.

He definitely didn't do all bad things. That's classic Gilbert. His best is electrifying and his worst is horrid. No consistency. FWIW, I think he did a better job defensively on Stringer than any of Shenton, Acres or Dmac could do and that's why i'm comfortable with his selection.

I hope at least two of those guys can push him out of that spot by next year, though.

 

[AuntieBarrels]

I think so far im noticing big differences in their game. To me McKenzie looked better than Acres when he played. McKenzie noticably gets to the contest quicker and harder than Acres. Disposal under pressure seems to look better so far... They could play in the same side together but Acres looks too slow ATM IMO.. Often gets caught with the ball. Im not even really sure why McKenzies not playing.
Not being allowed to play sinclair is just a ridiculous rule too. They have to change it next year.

The only reason is that he doesn't find enough of the ball.

 

[bird_man]

A lot of people really frustrated at the moment, but I think if we put it into perspective it's not a bad outcome.

The dogs are probably two years ahead of us in their rebuild, yet we beat them the first time and if not for some bad errors, should have beat them again. The Dogs will quite possibly make the 8 this year with the good run they have which will not give them a top ten pick, while we'll most likely get a top 4 pick and if our plan goes the same way as the last two years a third pick in the too 25.

They threw a large percentage of their salary cap at an unproven young forward that may or may not turn into an elite player, while we have got McCartin developing similarly for us on a basic wage, not to mention we got Bruce for a bit of spair change. This leaves us with more money to spend a a proven player or two in the coming years.

We still have plenty of work to do over the next couple of years but I'm quite happy with the way things are ticking along.