Review Round 1, 2024 - Fremantle vs. Brisbane Lions

[Gadzorks]

You have to keep positive right.
But you know what I've seen enough from this group, and I am coming to the conclusion that we simply are not that good or we aren't great when it comes to learning how to be well rounded footballers.
Look at bailey when tackling a player front on , how many times , he still runs straight at a player full speed only for them to sidestep him, such a waste of effort, just hasn't learned any skills here , and that's why he looks like a downhill skier, just ineffective when it's his time to stop players. Bailey is not alone with this over running either, it's mind boggling.
And this is only one aspect of defending.

The biggest worry is , the way we have relied or won games on individual briliance , not collective ball movement, it's fools gold.
eg. kidd'y 1st class kicks over the tops of defenders, Charlie when he has a chance, up forward.
How many games last year did we win and after the game you were thinking the other side played better when it camed down to ball movement , but just fell over at their inside fifty kicks and we won cause we had first class brilliance to score.
Think of Richmond when they were in their window, well oiled machine, easy for second tier players to play roles when coming into their system .
New players coming in our side, just would be so unclear on what their roles are ,poor game plan , that's on our coaching staff.
I think if Fagan can"t get someone in to help him turn our plan into something that is worthy but also easier for players to know their roles then we won't be winning anything of note.

As I mentioned in the pregame thread we needed somebody like Zorks to stand back up to lead us, that midfield was a shambles.
The other thing I mentioned in the pregame thread was keep Rayner forward of center and let him run midfield duties there.
But he was friggan useless even there.
Probably because he was trying to be in the centre of the park or in defence, who knows.
Or is he just a spud, I blame our system, or confusing roles.
How many years do you give a coach to get high calibre players to work together like a MACHINE.
Time for a new approach.

I am en eternal optimist. Well, not during last quarters but in general.

I think winning does require independent brilliance. And we have a lot of that on this list. We do need to get that brilliance working together.

I've not been on the replace fagan (bless him) bandwagon but it is starting to interest me. Maybe another coach could get more out of this group.

 

[Squizz89]

One obvious criticism of Cam when playing forward which call it natural instinct or whatever is that he invariably contests for the same marks and crashes packs that our key forwards are flying for ultimately meaning no one marks it. Yes he occasionally pulls off the speccy but like late against Carlton it’s detrimental to the team.

To be fair, Linc is also guilty of this on occasions

As is Charlie. All the small forwards like to think they're a 200cm tall marking forward at times, instead of staying down for the crumbs. Probably the only one who doesn't get sucked into flying for marks is Bailey.

 

[KissKiss]

What did people think about Dev's game?

He was mostly invisible in the first half, not sure where he played. Then he mostly went to tag Serong (way too late) and he did massively stop Serongs influence, but with such a hard tag we still had no positive flow in our midfield. Then last quarter we stopped the tag and looked like we banished Dev to the forward flank again

 

[royboys4eva]

Suddenly we have gone from a team who was 5 mins from winning a Grand Final to a team who looks devoid of speed - stamina - desire and even more concerning awful decision making and structure.

I reckon from the moment Fremantle kicked their first goal you could see we were in massive trouble. Our forwards are not set up right. We kicked to out number so many times. I was never totally convinced we needed to play three talls but right now I think we have to because we have no idea how to play any other way. Charlie is struggling to beat his opponent more and more in his last 50 games and seems to lack motivation - if it's not a big game.

Daniher is better up the ground I think where he played ok yesterday. Hipwood needs to play out of the square. He needs to use his pace and lead directly at the kicker. Hippy just can't out muscle the big monsters from the opposition.

Oscar can't play ruck one out. He needs a chop out. I would get Fort into the centre bounces and Oscar deep forward. Switch them around during the match. Charlie will be more effective when he is roving off the crumbs.

Rayner just can't impact games enough. He has X factor which every team needs but we see it once every 5/6 games. He either needs to be dropped (won't happen) or play him deep forward as well. Wish he would stop trying to take mark of the year five times a game. He might have taken two in entire career.

Berry looks devoid of confidence. Makes poor decisions. Lyons as always has a crack and wins the ball but as soon as their is a turnover he can't chase and we get burnt. I think we need to move on from him. Dev Robbo was bang average yesterday but get's a second chance as he had a interrupted pre season. But he needs to take his chances quickly or the club will be happy for him to move to West Coast even for a 3rd round pick!

Was a sad indictment on the current team when the oldest player Zorko was one of the few who was willing to work hard and move the ball quickly.

Neale and Payne will come in for Pies and we need to get Fort in to help Oscar. Maybe Prior or Sharp as well for extra run.

Fagan needs to make a few changes otherwise players will continue to serve up this mediocre efforts without fear of change.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Some interesting comments from David King this morning. All in the first 10 minutes pretty much.

 

[M Malice]

We are the classic down hill skiers.

We down hill skied all the way to the Grand Final with the same group of players not that long ago, and very nearly down hill skied to a Flag.

 

[Lion_LegacyXL]

View attachment YouCut_20240318_120900087.mp4

 

[twhowler]

Some interesting comments from David King this morning. All in the first 10 minutes pretty much.

At work - what stood out?

 

[Lionheart182]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

 

[mpal6]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

Too much belief in the pre-season hype possibly.
It has come crashing down now and may be players are struggling to deal with the loss of confidence.

 

[Nathan Barley]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

It's been 2 games and the first we should have won with some decent goal kicking

 

[Lionheart182]

Too much belief in the pre-season hype possibly.
It has come crashing down now and may be players are struggling to deal with the loss of confidence.

I'm hoping it was the earlier than usual season start plus the delayed pre-season...but I'm losing hope of that now.

 

[Lionheart182]

It's been 2 games and the first we should have won with some decent goal kicking

It's been two games that went the exact same way...look great until we don't.

 

[M Malice]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

It's been two games that went the exact same way...look great until we don't.

Yes. losing much the same way ie. great start and then our intensity dropping dramatically to allow 2 8 goal runs against us, is a major concern.

If it happens again against the Pies a definite pattern is established and the drinking their own bathwater problem could be the answer.

I still have strong hope though, a win against the Pies is what we need, if they can't get fired up against them at a sold out Gabba something is seriously amiss.

 

[Morbidly_Obese]

I hope everyone takes a moment to consider this before posting - we don’t lose, we learn.

No, we definitely lost.

 

[Morbidly_Obese]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

Coaching staff didn't adequately prepare the players for the start of the season.

 

[Grasshopper17]

At work - what stood out?

He reckoned we looked better with Zorko behind the ball running off half back in the last quarter.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Yes. losing much the same way ie. great start and then our intensity dropping dramatically to allow 2 8 goal runs against us, is a major concern.

If it happens again against the Pies a definite pattern is established and the drinking their own bathwater problem could be the answer.

I still have strong hope though, a win against the Pies is what we need, if they can't get fired up against them at a sold out Gabba something is seriously amiss.

 

[dlanod]

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My take away is that I'm shocked it happens on average more than twice a year.

 

[WhiteLionfever]

Rayner played awful. Never mind the speccie do the basics son

Oscar cdnt mark and was a liability with his hack kicks

Why did the conditioning staff not have the kicks in the shade like freo did on a 25deg day?

 

[FFB1]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

Cos they work out our plan A, and we have no plan B to keep the foot down to switch to?

 

[Nathan Barley]

He reckoned we looked better with Zorko behind the ball running off half back in the last quarter.

Kind of what we do with him starting at half forward and pushing back. Avoids him having to defend

 

[Paul Mac]

It's been 2 games and the first we should have won with some decent goal kicking

The first game we should have won with decent goal kicking? We were 46 points up so i think our goal kicking up to that stage was spot on. Dont care who we were playing, you cant lose a footy game if you are that far infront and blame goal kicking, especially when we are supposively a premiership favourite.

 

[Nathan Barley]

The first game we should have won with decent goal kicking? We were 46 points up so i think our goal kicking up to that stage was spot on. Dont care who we were playing, you cant lose a footy game if you are that far infront and blame goal kicking, especially when we are supposively a premiership favourite.

Yeah you're a much worse team if you've conceded a big lead rather than never having it in the first place

 

[Paul Mac]

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Geez, you notice the crap teams it has been happening to and where they have finished on the ladder. You dont expect it to happen to a premiership chance team.