Autopsy Round 8, 2023 : Positives and Negatives vs Richmond

[BOND 007]

I specifically stated roleplayer/depth midfielder to distinguish from the elite midfielders. I'm not saying we should have drafted a heap of gun mids at pick 32 or 45 or something, just some solid best 25 or so midfielders, but the cupboard is pretty bare.
Come on, even you can't justifiably make out that XON & Clark (or pretty much any midfielder we've drafted between the Sheed pick and the last draft or so) compare to guys like Braun, Fletcher, Rosa, Lamb etc etc.

2 things as stated previously

1) Clark and XON would look better as 4th or 5th banana rather than as a main act.
2) it depends on who is available in the draft to actually draft.

 

[squashface]

I would suggest it's because at present, WC have too many players who lack foot speed at stoppages

So problems we have are:

a) Gaff is a liability on the wing as his opponents run off him
b) we have poor foot speed at stoppages

And the club's solution to a) and b) is to play slow Gaff at stoppages instead of the WAFL rather than slow Clark who is an actual inside mid?

 

[Godfather32]

2 things as stated previously

1) Clark and XON would look better as 4th or 5th banana rather than as a main act.
2) it depends on who is available in the draft to actually draft.

Sorry...but when have Clark or XON played as a main act?
Of course, definitely depends on who's available in the draft.

 

[Kempy the legend]

Look I know it's the reality of where we're at right now...



But I am sick to death of watching the WAFL brigade go about it. It's giving me IBS 🗑



The crew of Foley, Xon, Rotham, West, Clark and Trew are just so so so bad and out of their depth in this league. Cannot wait until they are all gone.

Petch and Ledwards on notice.



3 on 2's that we should easily win, but cough up the ball. Players having no foot skills. Players not being able to kick on their opposite foot. Not being able to ride a tackle. Not being able to asorb pressure. Not sheparding. Players missing uncontested targets 15m away. Players dropping marks when they are in space.



At one point it was just a wave of them in the last quarter. 15m chip kick in transition to a free teammate ends up being a lollipop that hangs in the air.



Grim days being a West Coast fan with yet another injury to our rising star from 2 weeks ago. I mean gee whiz.



Then you've got Dinosaur Hurn. Nowhere near our worst, but still stuck so far in Simmos old game plan. Kicks backwards. Kicks sideways. Doesn't mix up the kick ins ever. Doesn't get creative. Stale and vanilla kicking it long to an undersized Darling in a 1v1 against Balta, who he's lost to the last 5 times you kicked there.

How can Petch still be on notice?

 

[Bender_]

He's not on notice anymore, he's been bumped up to under notice now.

 

[langdon19]

Agree with everything besides edwards I thought he’s shown a bit the last few weeks

He lost a year to OP ???
Give him a. Year to catch up

 

[Kempy the legend]

This was kinda difficult to watch. Simpson was flat as a tack right from the outset when asked about Culley - clearly they’re fearing the worst and this one has hit hard as you’d expect

Asked about it (him being flat) Simpson expressed his disappointment at the Culley injury and “apologised” for not jumping out of his skin

Whatever you want to say about Simpson and his coaching ability, you can’t deny he cares for his players.

Looks a bit sooky. Going to take a while he said, didn't he say the same a year ago? Not much has changed.

 

[Matera92]

Looks a bit sooky. Going to take a while he said, didn't he say the same a year ago? Not much has changed.

Pull your head in, he's flat as * after losing one of our few remaining bright sparks to a season ending injury.

 

[eaglesnutcase]

We weren't in a hib last year, or this year. Plus a lot of the guys on the list currently weren't at the club.

How is this relevant again?

Because the rot set in in 2019 and hubs just exacerbated it.

 

[Obeanie1]

So problems we have are:

a) Gaff is a liability on the wing as his opponents run off him
b) we have poor foot speed at stoppages

And the club's solution to a) and b) is to play slow Gaff at stoppages instead of the WAFL rather than slow Clark who is an actual inside mid?

Well at least we have an explination why Gaff isnt playing wing.

Its a real problem as we now have two players not playing their best and natural positions. Clark is on a wing not on ball. Gaff is on ball not a wing as he's too slow and opposition exploit that weakness.

Geez. Talk about handicapping yourself at selection.

Its a tough call as we are still paying him $800k and he's a team player who has a crack every week. The pace of the game has simply past him.

 

[FKASC]

we are still paying him $800k

this is the crux of it, and a good example of the risks of giving out large contracts

 

[wirra44]

He lost a year to OP ???
Give him a. Year to catch up

Yeah exactly, looks a lot calmer with ball in hand then some of the other youngsters we’ve got, hopefully he can stay injury free and play out the year.

 

[ThePuma #9]

Well at least we have an explination why Gaff isnt playing wing.

Its a real problem as we now have two players not playing their best and natural positions. Clark is on a wing not on ball. Gaff is on ball not a wing as he's too slow and opposition exploit that weakness.

Geez. Talk about handicapping yourself at selection.

Its a tough call as we are still paying him $800k and he's a team player who has a crack every week. The pace of the game has simply past him.

Here's the thing i can't work out. We need to clean out our list come the end of the year and Greg Clark would be one of the players in the conversation. If we don't play him in the middle then he is being judged by his form as a wingman. How does that work? Since we aren't winning any games woudln't the pragmatic thing to do be to play him in his preferred position?, especially since we have someone to cover the wing (whether he's being run off of or not) so we can truly gauge if he's worth persisting with as depth.

Or has the club has already made it's decision on Clark for next year one way or the other and he's only playing due to the size of the injury list.

I'm all for playing/developing our youth but considering 4-6 players will be cut the end of the year maybe we can work out who is worth keeping since we are having to bloody play all of them at the moment.

It is possible to accomplish multiple goals regarding the future of our list, especially when we are low on personnel and we are getting to see the majority of them play.

 

[Bender_]

Match Committee: "We need a place to play Andrew Gaff

3

Andrew Gaff

Age

31

Ht

184cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

26.6

5star

K

15.9

5star

HB

10.7

5star

M

4.8

5star

T

2.0

4star

CL

2.5

4star

D

24.5

5star

K

15.6

5star

HB

8.9

4star

M

5.4

5star

T

2.0

3star

CL

2.5

4star

D

11.2

3star

K

8.0

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

3.2

4star

T

0.6

3star

CL

0.6

3star

where no one will notice how bad he's become."

Simpson: "What do you mean?"

MC: "His lack of strength, pace, defensive ability and kicking penetration has been targeted by opposition clubs and they're exploiting it."

Simmo: "We could always drop him to the WAFL."

MC: "No we're paying him far too much for that. Also he's got a lot of credits in the bank."

Simmo: "True, credits up the wazoo. What do you suggest?"

MC: "I say we hide him in the middle - contesting at the drop of the ball for centre bounces and other stoppages - no one will notice how bad his form is there."

Simmo: "Genius. Make it so."

 

[SloppyJoe]

I only saw the first half, but I liked what I saw from Luke Edwards.

He seems to be a very tidy user of the footy; we should try get it into his hands more often.

 

[Obeanie1]

Here's the thing i can't work out. We need to clean out our list come the end of the year and Greg Clark would be one of the players in the conversation. If we don't play him in the middle then he is being judged by his form as a wingman. How does that work? Since we aren't winning any games woudln't the pragmatic thing to do be to play him in his preferred position?, especially since we have someone to cover the wing (whether he's being run off of or not) so we can truly gauge if he's worth persisting with as depth.

Or has the club has already made it's decision on Clark for next year one way or the other and he's only playing due to the size of the injury list.

I'm all for playing/developing our youth but considering 4-6 players will be cut the end of the year maybe we can work out who is worth keeping since we are having to bloody play all of them at the moment.

It is possible to accomplish multiple goals regarding the future of our list, especially when we are low on personnel and we are getting to see the majority of them play.

Agreed.

Clark is getting shafted here.

A big bodied, tall centre player getting played on the wing because our long term and contracted winger isn't capable of playing wing any longer because he's too slow.

You read that in isolation and ask yourself. What are we doing here. Really?

Boarding on tanking but really due to injuries we have our hands tied.

I'd play Gaff on the wing and Clark in the guts.

We aren't playing finals so how about giving Clark a fair crack.

 

[VicBased]

Let's just do a Hawthorn then and purge anyone over the age of 28.

This is a great idea and then we can all whinge about all the new young players and wafl editions while we are getting spanked.
At least we won't know their names.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

Going to try real hard to find some positives.

-I think this was the first game i didn't hate West in the hard running half forward role he's inherited from Cripps. He got to a heap of contests, generally used it okay and bobbed up with a goal.

-Sheed didn't miss a beat, he tried hard all game and looks match fit.

-Barrass/Rotham did the job on reiwoldt. JJ got a lot of it but got murdered in the other direction.

-Allen and Kelly's fine seasons continue.

Except for that, * me its grim. It's really really grim. If it weren't for richmond's dreadful accuracy and fumbles I think this would have been 12+ goals and neither them nor carlton are even in good form- we're currently the team that other teams playing bottom 4 calibre football can easily brutalise, this is probably the absolute rock bottom in West Coast's history.

I'm low key dreading this weekend, GC are actually in very good form compared to our last two opponents whilst our playing group looks physically and mentally spent- we get noone significant back, we just lost one of the genuine bright sparks this season, allen looked proppy, and *. Suns' biggest ever win against any opponent is 86pts and I think that record will be smashed on friday night.

 

[ziad]

Agreed.

Clark is getting shafted here.

A big bodied, tall centre player getting played on the wing because our long term and contracted winger isn't capable of playing wing any longer because he's too slow.

You read that in isolation and ask yourself. What are we doing here. Really?

Boarding on tanking but really due to injuries we have our hands tied.

I'd play Gaff on the wing and Clark in the guts.

We aren't playing finals so how about giving Clark a fair crack.

Blind to the failings of Clark, wgo is not AFL quality unfortunately. Slow. slow, fades in and out. We dosn't think quick enougt to be dangerous as part of a modern AFL game plan but does provide leadership and maturity. Would be a road block like Waterman if in the center. Role player as a defensive winger until we build a list.

 

[stylish]

What I've noticed about Clark is that his hands aren't particularly sharp. He fumbles a lot of balls & thats in open play. I'm not sure that makes for a successful player in and around a contest.
I'd suggest he's only getting a game due to injuries. I can't in any world see him on the list next year.

 

[Obeanie1]

Blind to the failings of Clark, wgo is not AFL quality unfortunately. Slow. slow, fades in and out. We dosn't think quick enougt to be dangerous as part of a modern AFL game plan but does provide leadership and maturity. Would be a road block like Waterman if in the center. Role player as a defensive winger until we build a list.

Oh I'm not saying Clark is AFL quality at this stage. He most definitely won't forge a career as a winger.

But he isn't a winger. He's a big inside mid.

Maybe we should play people in the position where they got noticed and drafted because they play well there.

It's almost as bad as drafting a mature kp forward and then throwing them into full back because our existing full back now become too slow to play defence so we move them to FF. And he does SFA as a forward.

And then we say the new guy playing out of position is not a good full back. When he was never a good fullback.

 

[Eaglemaniac]

Seems a lot of posters have hit the nail on the head for me too. I don’t understand why if Clark is deemed too slow to play in the middle, we are playing other players who are slower in there(Sheed, Gaff, Culley).

I also get very frustrated when we draft guys due to their ability in one position and then we play them in a position they’re not used to. If they don’t dominate they are then cut. It’s pure stupidity to me and I don’t understand how this happens at a so called professional football club. Whoever is in charge of development should be fired with that strategy.

 

[ZergMinion]

Oh I'm not saying Clark is AFL quality at this stage. He most definitely won't forge a career as a winger.

But he isn't a winger. He's a big inside mid.

Maybe we should play people in the position where they got noticed and drafted because they play well there.

It's almost as bad as drafting a mature kp forward and then throwing them into full back because our existing full back is too slow to play defence so we move them to FF. And do SFA as a forward.

And then we say the new guy playing out of position is not a good full back. When he was never a good fullback.

You'd think with Culley going down, there'd be a spot for a tall, slow inside mid that Clarke could fit into. If he stays on the wings then the MC clearly don't rate him inside.

 

[Obeanie1]

You'd think with Culley going down, there'd be a spot for a tall, slow inside mid that Clarke could fit into. If he stays on the wings then the MC clearly don't rate him inside.

They are hiding Gaff on ball. That's where this conversation started.

So until Gaff gets injured or the MC change their view looks like Clark continues to get played out of his preferred position where he is best suited and proved himself.

 

[javaguice]

Bunch of negative nellys