Autopsy The plastics defeat Hawthorn

[Argy]

Umpiring was really inconsistent today. Some decisions were impossible to decipher watching from the stand.

Given the state of our injuries and the fact that we're building, I was very happy with the game today. Lots of skill errors, but that's to be expected when we fielded a VFL team.

Burger was just great, Brand competed well, Langers was good, Big Boy fantastic all day, Smith butchered it uncharacteristically often, TO'b was excellent, Burton continues his good form. Lots of good stuff to take away.

 

[Billyc]

We tried today. That's something

Nobody here would trade what we've had for anything else but we are in for a tough few years. Our side is just rubbish

 

[tige19]

We don't need high picks. Look at today's game. We actually had the right mix, they just need a few semi-decent players to slot in, something that can be easily accomplished thanks to free agency

We do not have the right mix, our side is really 60% VFL level footballers, 30% ageing stars and 10% quality kids/23 and unders.

 

[hk89]

Left the ground feeling somewhat more optimistic than after previous losses this year.

This mob smashed us by 86 last time we met, and this time around we were missing these players that were available last time:
Rioli,
Hodge,
O'Meara.
Frawley,
Sratton
Breust

Not to mention Vickery

Those 6 players are a third of our starting best 18. More than a third if you add Birchall who missed last game too. Starting to get close to half our starting 18 if you also add Ceglar. There is a chance we could have all those players back on the park at once before the season is over, and while it might be too late to make a play for finals, it should at last keep the Saint's pick out of the top 4!

This should have been a massacre, and at 3 quarter time it looked like it was about it to be, but we stood up for one of the few times this year in the face of what could have been another big loss, and kept it to a respectable margin. Until GC kicked two in a row later in the quarter, it even looked like we might get an unlikely win.

I agree with most that Hartung was terrible, but I still have some hope for him, as his atrocious decision making seems to stem from very poor confidence. Too often he chose the wrong option because he tried to shirk responsibility and give it to someone else who was almost always in a worse position than he was. If he can start to trust himself more , his positive impact might go up too.

Thought Langford had one of his better games. Watching Roughy get his way around the ground, it is hard to believe he has full match fitness. He'll be a beast again when he does because his impact on the contests he is at is huge, but I think his fitness is preventing him from having more impact than he does.

 

[lickmerocks]

Before we played GC in round 3 I made a comment that Ablett would slaughter us as our midfield and so-called taggers (Shiels Langford) were rubbish and I was met with nah "ablett is crap" "he doesn't want to be there" blah blah blah.

2 games later he has averaged 36.5 touches and 2 goals per game.

He has bent us over and without lube given us an almighty rodgering of the highest order.

Not bad for a bloke that is supposedly finished and doesn't have his heart it in anymore.

 

[Thaihawk]

from where I sit it's difficult to tell how our youngsters went today. I don't think Huddo called any of them more than a couple of times, but a few observtions.

We only lost be 16 points, but Brand gifted Lynch an easy goal, DOC, an even easier one to "the little bald bloke," and finally they combined to let a forth gamer Ainsworth, I think, goal when Brand thought the shot he was taking was too difficult for him so offered him 50.

My question to the umpire is if Brand was not behind your imaginary 5 metre line, and you had warned him that there would be a 50 meter penalty if he didn't move back, why did you wait until the ball was kicked before blowing your whistle?

the commentators inferred that the 50m Razor paid against Rough was for abuse in the previous quarter when he didn't pay a arms chop to him. Can you believe that?

However we will hear what a good job the umpires did, and 15 frees each must confirm that.

Before the gifted free and goal to the bald one, was Hardwick pushed squarely in the back, which went unseen?

We probably would have won with some more experience in the back half.

 

[Mr Lizard]

My favourite part was when every player stopped because holding the ball...

<surprise ending>

...but the umpire called play on!

 

[Ned Ryerson]

Before we played GC in round 3 I made a comment that Ablett would slaughter us as our midfield and so-called taggers (Shiels Langford) were rubbish and I was met with nah "ablett is crap" "he doesn't want to be there" blah blah blah.

2 games later he has averaged 36.5 touches and 2 goals per game.

He has bent us over and without lube given us an almighty rodgering of the highest order.

Not bad for a bloke that is supposedly finished and doesn't have his heart it in anymore.

I'm really not looking forward to him reuniting with the Cats next year.

 

[GAS PANIC]

Not as many as you think to be seriously competitive,once you add injured soldiers and improved youth and gain some development from currently untried youth.

Thats based largely the assumption thats our youth turn into good to very good players. Given we have very few young first round players the odds are not in our favour of this happenning realistically for the majority of these players your talking about.

Free agents generally want to head to teams on the up. We are currently heading in the opposite direction. Sure we have senior players out but they arn't going to turn us into premiership or even serious finals contenders. Our 3rd quarter fadeouts have been occuring both with and without senior players in the team this seasn.

 

[Walshawk]

Yes but how many of those were actually quality touches? Not saying that he wasn't getting his hands on it - it's what he was (or mostly wasn't) doing with it when he had the ball in hand.

Was at the game. Hartung got involved, but whilst you can get away with one or two players with poor disposal who are bad decision makers, we have some of the worst in the league in these areas. Put Hartung, Langford, Brand, the 2017 Gibbo, Duryea, etc in the same team and you will get todays performance each week.
If you have poor skills and are a poor decision maker, you need to be outstanding in every other area.

 

[Furn2]

In Hartungs defence a lot of the time there was literally nothing to kick to.

So it's either bomb it to a 3v1 or stop and get pressured and turn it over.

Other times he brought it on himself but at least he was running and talking it on.

Worth persisting with over Henderson.

 

[Sleutheren]

I thought today was about growing pains for the young players. At the game you could almost hear them thinking about where to position themselves. Alot of Stewart's work around the ball goes unoticed on tv.Needs to stay in team ahead of Poopy.Hardwick today gave the first indication he may be much better than a useful player. Also the fearless attack on the ball of Howe more than makes up for his occasional lack of composure.That will come with time.
Generally a pleasing effort including Hartung taking the game on.
One thing for sure.We will win our next flag way before that artificially fertilised piece of Demetriou dung i.e Gold Coast does.

poopy

 

[SA HAWK]

Before we played GC in round 3 I made a comment that Ablett would slaughter us as our midfield and so-called taggers (Shiels Langford) were rubbish and I was met with nah "ablett is crap" "he doesn't want to be there" blah blah blah.

2 games later he has averaged 36.5 touches and 2 goals per game.

He has bent us over and without lube given us an almighty rodgering of the highest order.

Not bad for a bloke that is supposedly finished and doesn't have his heart it in anymore.

Amazing that people wrote off Ablett after 1 bad game he would still be in the top 20 players in the comp.

Has smashed us on a consistent basis his whole career.

 

[RustyHawk]

Couldn't believe they would replace Hodge with Hartung. Like asking for hard butter and getting soft margarine instead...


That 4th fight back (for at the first half of it at least) was manic, great to watch. But, but what was really good, the guys went down the CORRIDOR!! No, none of flapping about going back to full back from around the centre square area and turning it over giving them an easy goal...no we went FORWARD!! Hurrah! That was great to watch.

The other was at half time. GC 26 entries into their forward 50. 10 marks inside their forward 50! Game over. We had 3 marks inside the forward 50.

Was sooooo happy to see Gunston and O'Brien back in the mid deep forward line, finally looked like we had someone to kick too.

Loved Roughies game in the last..human bulldozer. Also he wasn't going to let the Suns get away with a cheap shot last quarter against Stewart. Good leadership.

 

[LuckyHawk]

Smith butchered it uncharacteristically often

Lots of Billy bashing going on then this appears and Smith was terrible for mistakes against Port too.

 

[magut]

Still chuckle at the residual salt on the main board, especially from the Cat supporters

You can't change history

Go hawkers

 

[grumbleguts]

Our 2015 premiership side:

 

[Furn2]

Thats based largely the assumption thats our youth turn into good to very good players. Given we have very few young first round players the odds are not in our favour of this happenning realistically for the majority of these players your talking about.

Free agents generally want to head to teams on the up. We are currently heading in the opposite direction. Sure we have senior players out but they arn't going to turn us into premiership or even serious finals contenders. Our 3rd quarter fadeouts have been occuring both with and without senior players in the team this seasn.

Who are these teams on the up ?

GWS and ?

 

[Sleutheren]

In Hartungs defence a lot of the time there was literally nothing to kick to.

So it's either bomb it to a 3v1 or stop and get pressured and turn it over.

Other times he brought it on himself but at least he was running and talking it on.

Worth persisting with over Henderson.

While I don't agree Hartung is worth giving any more gametime, the rest of your points are all true. One of the key reasons why our players keep looking so incompetent with ball in hand this year is because we continually fail to spread and provide options. When we switch the play, practically every time the oppo gets to the space on the wings/flanks before our mids/forwards do. Often it's not even a race to the spot, our mid/forwards just are refusing to head there. I'm not sure if it's a tactic to try and bluff the opponent and then use the corridor (because that's where the Hawks seem to congregate, all with no obvious purpose) but it's not being used. So many times we switch or get a quick one over the top from the half back line and there's literally nothing to kick to ahead. Either the gameplan message isn't getting through to the players, we're gassed from defending or we're lazy.

 

[Hawk Dork]

Free agents generally want to head to teams on the up.

FA have lots of reasons to move,get a regular game,a role is available for them, a change, move back to Melb,mates at the club,faith in the coach,the medical team,play on the MCG,money,faith in a quick turn around etc etc.

 

[hamohawk1]

Couldn't believe they would replace Hodge with Hartung. Like asking for hard butter and getting soft margarine instead...


That 4th fight back (for at the first half of it at least) was manic, great to watch. But, but what was really good, the guys went down the CORRIDOR!! No, none of flapping about going back to full back from around the centre square area and turning it over giving them an easy goal...no we went FORWARD!! Hurrah! That was great to watch.

The other was at half time. GC 26 entries into their forward 50. 10 marks inside their forward 50! Game over. We had 3 marks inside the forward 50.

Was sooooo happy to see Gunston and O'Brien back in the mid deep forward line, finally looked like we had someone to kick too.

Loved Roughies game in the last..human bulldozer. Also he wasn't going to let the Suns get away with a cheap shot last quarter against Stewart. Good leadership.

Mate i could not have said it better myself. Hodge with Hartung is like going to bunnings for bricks and walking out with a teddy bear.

 

[Crankyhawk]

I think its time to cut our losses with Billy, the guy looks okay but the breaking away and then stopping to handball sideways so he doesn't take responsibility is no longer acceptable. It demoralises the team and costs us goals when it results in turn overs as everyone is running the other way expecting a long kick in. They get caught out on the turn over.

He has been given enough game and TBH barely shows enough to warranty persevering with, sure he has endurance - BIG WOOP. Not smart enough to use it...

Also Gibbo going down due to injury (whilst i don't want to wish that on a club great) it might mean that we get to see Heatherly and Brand play together. So might be a blessing as Clarko is stubborn and always backs his vets in for the detriment of the team.

The best billy did was a kick to Langford and kept running took the handball then bombed into deep f50. Unfortunately too many times there was no option forward for him to kick to.

 

[Leather Poisoning]

Are you serious?!
You can't be happy with an honorable defeat to the friggin Suns. What a joke.
Oh how quick the mighty have fallen.


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I'm really happy with the fight back. It was a 15 point loss, which given the lack of personnel out there I'm fine with.

We've fallen off the cliff and are in a massive rebuild.

If you're expecting performances like 08-15 you're gonna have a bad time.

 

[hamohawk1]

The good
Mitchell - Bloke is everything you want for culture and heart for a football club
Langford - Keep this bloke in gives it 100%
Brand - In trying conditions think he stood up well
Smith - Till he got injured was doing great, still did well after he came back on
Burton - Give this man a contract extension soon please
Roughy - Took himself defensively and tried his heart out.

Bad
Hartung - Not AFL level, looks worried at every contest and can't break lines. seriously watch smith (and other line breakers tapes). Feel that might have been his last game
Gibbo. Once the returning backs are in he's out

 

[crazywildhorse]

If in 2016 you would ask if we could come close to beating anyone with Hodge, Mitchell, Lewis, Rioli, Birchall, Stratton, Breust, Frawley and Gibson all missing from the side, you'd say GAGF. This is growing pains, and our next generation is being given a chance that they wouldn't have been given yet had the above mention players been there. I'm looking forward to 2018.