Roast Skills That Kills (Us)

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Jones is an absolute plodder. Get rid of him for the rest of the year, let him play his goodbye game and then bring him round the back of the shed.
 
this is what the next 3 drafts will go a long way to sorting out.

Jones and Ray are two that spring to mind immediately that will be gone within this time period....
 

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we don't work hard enough when we dont have the ball. My dad mentioned that and so I started paying particular attention to this and he was right - we don't......we start doing that, it will go a long way to improving results...
 
Pelchen's got a job to do.

It's like all preseason they were told "I don't care if you make mistakes as long as you're trying" so the players just think "Alright then I can make as many mistakes as I want. At least I'm trying".
 
sverik25 said:
The number of times we scrambled kicks out of congested areas without really looking that were marked by Port's loose player in defence was infuriating. Sometimes a little composure would be nice.
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That's a top teams pressure against a bottom teams lack of composure.
Its always gonna be ugly. Especially when the top team is coming off a bad performance the week before.
What happened tonight was what was expected. There still was a few positives though. But YES it can be infuriating.
 
CALL ME SNAKE said:
That's a top teams pressure against a bottom teams lack of composure.
Its always gonna be ugly. Especially when the top team is coming off a bad performance the week before.
What happened tonight was what was expected. There still was a few positives though. But YES it can be infuriating.
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I know, I fully expected it to be ugly - I tipped Port by 77 points, I was just disappointed with the performance after half time after a reasonable first half.
 
The reason why we are suddenly s**t at our work rate and effective tackling is because the team is either relearning or learning how to actually do it.

Richo is demanding and pushing a brand of footy that we havent been trained in before. We werent as fit and relied more on switch ups and fancy s**t like that to try and be competitive. Now the players are asking to do something that they arent ready for yet but are building towards. Its like learning to kick a ball, its easy to do it really averagely all the time but real hard to relearn it properly, be s**t for a while and then find and master the skill.

Preseasons are MASSIVE in development of players. Those that have interrupted ones are a shadow of themselves. Lenny last year was effected, Steven, Lee and all the others who have missed preseason time have suffered. It will simply require more time for these fundamentals to be 100% and then everything else will flow.

Believe me, skills are much much better when you're fighting fit and not exhausted all the time. Patience!
 

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The focus at the start of the season was obviously to pressure and to be tough. Go watch the replays of our first few games. We were tough, we bullied our opponents - we were mongrels. Focussing on other aspects of the game, losing confidence after getting beaten by better teams, and losing half our team to injuries has obviously taken its toll. We still show glimpses, but once the team gets a bit more settled, gets used to playing with each other, and gets another pre-season in, we'll start seeing some consistency.

From memory, our focus this pre-season was building a fitness base, a work ethic and setting our objective of making things difficult for our opponents. Expect our next goals to be to build on this, while improving our skills, spread, and positioning by focussing more on the game plan.
 
Agreed. It's all about building a foundation of fitness and ethic. Silky skills mean s**t all if you cant run out the games or lay tackles. Billings is exactly this, his skill set is going to make him elite one day but a team of Billings right now would get smashed because the fundamentals aren't there yet.
 
Not just skills, we drop heads and lose focus. The boys scrapped and fought through the second quarter then utterly fell to pieces. Got lazy with manning up, let Port do what they wanted, nobody wanted the ball.

We also need to develop our own brand of footy, because our attempts to overlap and be precise aren't working.
 
goodie23 said:
Not just skills, we drop heads and lose focus. The boys scrapped and fought through the second quarter then utterly fell to pieces. Got lazy with manning up, let Port do what they wanted, nobody wanted the ball.
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Much of that was fitness too. Shenton was about to collapse after chasing Westhoff 100yds, probably for about the third time in the Qtr. Murdoch was struggling too - I noticed him in the background a couple times, halfway between two Port players, running as much as his body would allow but it was hard to work out who he was meant to be marking up on.
In many ways this is a good thing, as it is something that even the worst player in the world, could improve.

goodie23 said:
We also need to develop our own brand of footy, because our attempts to overlap and be precise aren't working.
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We're just not very good at it. We're trying to move the ball quickly, but our skills and composure aren't there, so we turn it over loads.

Every bad decision/kick/hanball etc cascades down and makes everyone else's day harder. It was the same last year;
Our defenders were outmanned, unable to win contests when the ball rained down near the goalsquare.
This was exacerbated by our midfield being outgunned, so the ball was coming inside 50 a lot and from opposing players under not enough pressure.
However our defenders being unable to win contests, meant the opposition didn't have to be as accurate with kicks inside 50, so could release it quicker - making the job harder for the midfielders.
The attackers were just happy to see the ball a couple times each quarter, but were working so hard to give leads to clear out from the back, they were too knackered to give inside 50 support when we went forwards.

Massive contrast between us and Port (not just this year but also last year) is how many smalls they have inside the fwd 50 when attacking. They come in waves, at times there's 5 of them all within 30 yds of Schulz. We're lucky if there's anyone at all inside 50 other than Roo or the other tall we play next to him.
 
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Agreed, I think our structure has fallen apart more from the lack of Milne then anyone else in the forward line. His presence basically mopped up poor entries and provided another excellent target inside 50 that was not easily defended against. It didn't matter so much bombing it in because even if the mark isn't taken the crumb is still there.
 
Nutsngum said:
Agreed, I think our structure has fallen apart more from the lack of Milne then anyone else in the forward line. His presence basically mopped up poor entries and provided another excellent target inside 50 that was not easily defended against. It didn't matter so much bombing it in because even if the mark isn't taken the crumb is still there.
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If Milney was still there Maister would have had a field day crashing packs , bringing it to ground, all that Kosi superstar stuff.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
If Milney was still there Maister would have had a field day crashing packs , bringing it to ground, all that Kosi superstar stuff.
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I reckon that Maister benefited from the presence of proper small forwards like Milney. Crashing a pack only to see the ball turnover immediatly and shoot the other way must be a massive confidence destroyer. A crumbing forward picking up the ball and holding it inside 50 changes the entire dynamic of play. Suddenly your pack crashing actually has some merit and is not as big a risk.
 
I will offend here but I thought Milney's negatives outweighed his positives in the end so I don't miss him. But you are correct in saying that we haven't had a pure forward like him - at least until Eli came along! I miss Eli already!

Nutsngum - you are spot on. It is easier to kick it straight and choose the right option when you are not knackered. What I would add to that however is that fatigue affects skilfull players less than the tryers.

I can't see Ray or Jones getting many games next year because both are crappy kicks and Ray has lost all confidence and turned into the side-ways crab again. It kills our momentum and makes his choices even worse because the opposition has had a chance to get back. The opposition simply stand off Jones and wait for his stuff-up. I don't understand why Jones is ever used as a defensive forward because he can't hurt the opposition even if he gets it. Saunders is better at it but his skills are terrible. He actually can't handball. His kicking is second rate. For those reasons I can see him being taken over by fresh talent coming into the team over the next few years.

Curren is an interesting one. He actually has the skills but chooses to bomb it too much. At least that is an attitude and composure thing which can be worked on. IMO the lack of skill (ever) is always harder to fix.
 
tbarker said:
I will offend here but I thought Milney's negatives outweighed his positives in the end so I don't miss him. But you are correct in saying that we haven't had a pure forward like him - at least until Eli came along! I miss Eli already!

Nutsngum - you are spot on. It is easier to kick it straight and choose the right option when you are not knackered. What I would add to that however is that fatigue affects skilfull players less than the tryers.

I can't see Ray or Jones getting many games next year because both are crappy kicks and Ray has lost all confidence and turned into the side-ways crab again. It kills our momentum and makes his choices even worse because the opposition has had a chance to get back. The opposition simply stand off Jones and wait for his stuff-up. I don't understand why Jones is ever used as a defensive forward because he can't hurt the opposition even if he gets it. Saunders is better at it but his skills are terrible. He actually can't handball. His kicking is second rate. For those reasons I can see him being taken over by fresh talent coming into the team over the next few years.

Curren is an interesting one. He actually has the skills but chooses to bomb it too much. At least that is an attitude and composure thing which can be worked on. IMO the lack of skill (ever) is always harder to fix.
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Jones had seven goal assists in the first five games. He's out of form at the moment, but you cant say that his good form didn't contribute to our early strong performances, and help to instill a winning culture in the young players.
 
SaintsSeptember said:
Jones had seven goal assists in the first five games. He's out of form at the moment, but you cant say that his good form didn't contribute to our early strong performances, and help to instill a winning culture in the young players.
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I remember a certain kick to Eli that he may not have intended which would register as a goal assist.

I'm happy to give him that one though!
 
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