Review Lackluster Dogs Lose To The Suns, Rd 3, 2019

[dogwatch]

I was crucified on here earlier in the year for questioning Wood’s performance and leadership but I’ll reiterate it again... his form has been below standard for quite some time now and he is not the inspirational leader we need to stand up in the moments that count.

Positive - loved Bailey Smiths effort today and when he flew the flag for one of his teammates who went down... there’s a lot to like about the kid - he’ll only get better.


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Really? That surprises me. Lots of people have been questioning Wood's form for some time. You and I are only two of many.

Certainly agree regarding Bailey Smith. I said last week he had probably already gone past Richards and today's showing from both of them just convinced me further. Not sure what to do with Richards. He's definitely got some tricks but he needs to have higher production and do some of the hard graft to keep his spot. I'd like to see him spend some time in the VFL and give JJ or Lipinski or even Hayes a run.

 

[Doggiesfan14]

Couple of take aways from today's game
•Richards looks lost and adds nothing to the team with his lack of set position, needs a run in the VFL and at half back I feel
•Although English gets smashed in the hit outs I don't see the need for change, considering our mids are so dominant. Yes they could be even more dominant with Trengove or Sweet? But there's more important issues than making English the scapegoat
•Happy with Young in the last 2 games but I'm still wary if a key defender role fits into Bevo's mantra. Better with a tall id say
• I think we have under utilised McLean, especially today. Would throw him onto the ball more than Wallis, who I rate, yet feel he plays the role of a forward better
•Lloyd and Schache very very ordinary but prepared to let Lloyd play next week, he's used up his token however. Wider pockets of the MCG suits them better
•Finally Bailey Smith is improving by the week, great faith by Bevo and the selection committee, resisting the temptation to bring Lipinski in for him. Still feel Lipinski should be rewarded but now it's clear that Smith should not be dropped for him

 

[Bulldogs_6]

Haven’t been here in a while, so apologies if my perspective isn’t matching that of the board at the moment. Needed a deep breath after that game.

3 weeks ago, I’d probably have taken 8-10 wins for the season provided we were competitive and had areas of growth. First two weeks were a big tick, and frankly exceeded expectations, but they shouldn’t move them. Reality is, we are somewhere between the high of last week and the low of this week. Perspective people.

A couple of observations:

- Unfortunately big Tim isn’t quite ready to be a lone man at this level just yet. On the face of it, Trengove straight in next week. Deep-breath taken. We aren’t going to be a massive threat this year. Collingwood next week, Grundy might give him a bath and it might cost us more than a few goals. But he needs to learn from the best in the business.

- Off day for Schache, which is to be expected. Not having that he’s a soft player. He’s a lead up, sticky hands player who will more often than not slot his set shot. Didn’t exactly get silver service today. Aligns with MD’s point, sending it long is not playing to his strengths. He needs patience up the ground to be able to use his aerobic capacity to find some space. Persist with him.

- Worried about our captain. Is he sharing his role with too many players? Crozier, Suckling, Duryea, Young all wanting to be 3rd man into a contest. Bailey Williams too when he’s back. Do we send a Duryea or Suckling up the ground to de-congest?

- Set shots. Don’t think a lot needs to be said. I’m probably in the minority but I thought Billy showed composure using his 30 seconds. A lot of you are forgetting the toll 4 quarters will have on a players ability to kick a set shot. If he makes it, great. He didn’t. We still had 30 seconds. Sorry not blaming him for that.

Pies next week. I wouldn’t be making wholesale changes, that seems knee-jerky. I’d only be making changes given the 5 day break.

For me, Bailey Williams in for Lewis Young. Reward Lipinski, in for Ed Richards. Needs a spell. We know he’s great, and he’s going to be fine. Just needs to regain some confidence in the Poo’s.

Go Dogs.

 

[MJG14]

A few observations from wing Level 3:
Schache was very poor today, gave us nothing in the air despite multiple chances to take a mark - a very soft game.
Dickson now needs to be within 40m of goal to be a good chance to score, seems to be protecting his hammies.
Lloyd and Duryea both showed the form that made them fringe players at their former clubs.
If Wood doesn't take important intercept marks the rest of his game is bog ordinary.
Richards is hovering around too many packs and now needs to get bigger numbers of disposals in the VFL.
There were many concerns last season regarding our slow midfield and it certainly looked slow against a younger, keener outfit today.
Out decision-making was embarrassing today: so many silly errors which often proved costly.
Suckling and Daniel held the backline together, didn't fumble like so many others.
Smith is on a steady improvement curve, must stay in the side.
Every time I see Bont lining up a set shot now I have no faith whatsoever that he will kick it.
Lewis Young despite being 197cm and 96kg is so very fragile in a contest. I am ambivalent about giving him more games at this stage but if Naughton plays forward, what other options do we have?
The Suns are fit, have a simple but very effective game plan of flooding the backline and when gaining possession, kicking to open spaces to running players and they will trouble a lot if teams who take them lightly - like us!

I was also on the wing in Level 3 (Southern Cross Station side). Completely agree with your assessment here, very similar to my thoughts from watching the match.

 

[Bulldogs_6]

Forgot to add - Dunkley celebrating like he’s sealed the game when he pulled us back to 2-3 goals down was annoying. Really annoying. Great goal, but perhaps make a 15m set shot first, mate.

 

[VogonProsthetnic]

Forgot to add - Dunkley celebrating like he’s sealed the game when he pulled us back to 2-3 goals down was annoying. Really annoying. Great goal, but perhaps make a 15m set shot first, mate.

Not only that but his delivery to our forwards is pathetic.Could not even deliver a 15 m chip pass to leading forward in the first- result straight down the other end for a goal. Really getting sick of his stuff ups- especially when have Dale, Williams and Greene who can hit that pass with their eye closed and who are a lot quicker across the ground that Dunkley being denied chances.

Accept Hunters floating hospital passes but Dunkley is a liability.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

With the way some people are reacting, you'd have thought we lost by 50 points, not 5.

We win that if Dunkley doesn't miss his in the first quarter, if the siren goes 10 seconds later to finish half time, we draw that if Gowers nails his goal, but the 99% of what else happened in the game remains the same. Yet the reactions of people wouldn't be 99% the same...!

 

[Struggle]

Suckling needs to be taking the kick ins. With players able to take 20m before kicking it we're on the wing with no trouble. Daniel hitting 60m after the kick is okay but this new rule is built for someone like Suckling

 

[VogonProsthetnic]

With the way some people are reacting, you'd have thought we lost by 50 points, not 5.

We win that if Dunkley doesn't miss his in the first quarter, if the siren goes 10 seconds later to finish half time, we draw that if Gowers nails his goal, but the 99% of what else happened in the game remains the same. Yet the reactions of people wouldn't be 99% the same...!

If we had not missed nearly every set shot more than 35m...

If Don Sheed couldn’t kick straight....

If Buddy didn’t kick them 50 m out on the boundary.

Isn’t that what decides if you are any good or not?

 

[threenewpadlocks]

If we had not missed nearly every set shot more than 35m...

If Don Sheed couldn’t kick straight....

If Buddy didn’t kick them 50 m out on the boundary.

Isn’t that what decides if you are any good or not?

That isn't the point I'm making at all. It's not a "what if", it's not to lament or rue the loss.

More that looking forward, a goal wins us the game, but it doesn't really change anything on how well, or badly, we played. Yet the sentiment would have been a lot different.

 

[DognBones]

That man Witts must get swollen hands when he plays us: 52 hitouts this week to go with 58 against us at Mars last year. Good pickup by the Suns.

 

[VogonProsthetnic]

That isn't the point I'm making at all. It's not a "what if", it's not to lament or rue the loss.

More that looking forward, a goal wins us the game, but it doesn't really change anything on how well, or badly, we played. Yet the sentiment would have been a lot different.

Understand that, but the point is that are never going to be a top 4 team until we develop players who can convert. ATM Suckling aside we have no one who can nail a shot 45 m out.

 

[Mattdougie]

My old man used to say

Can’t pull your pants up if you don’t own any

Still think way too many people in here over rate this team and coach.

 

[Sentinel]

That man Witts must get swollen hands when he plays us: 52 hitouts this week to go with 58 against us at Mars last year. Good pickup by the Suns.

Lot of hitouts but of the 52, 13 were to advantage. That's not a bad number but when you have as many as he did, an absolute top line ruck would have taken greater advantage of their dominance than Witts did today.

Grundy will be a challenge next week.

 

[Yojimbo]

My old man used to say

Can’t pull your pants up if you don’t own any

Why would you need to pull your pants up if you don't own any ?

 

[Mattdougie]

Why would you need to pull your pants up if you don't own any ?

That’s what makes it impossible lol

 

[Iva Bigun]

No GCS haven’t been given the keys to the castle unlike GWS and Demons. Yet.

GCS have been god awful for years and have been pillaged of the little talent you had (thanks Tigers and Hawks). The AFL clearly wants the franchise to succeed...it is inevitable that they will eventually massage things to ensure that GCS becomes a strong side...and they will do it through the draft or some COLA like fiddle with the salary cap to allow for the recruitment of a Buddy Franklin type. If GCS continues to perform poorly then this AFL help will come sooner rather than later. If you can finish above 14th then it may be delayed for a couple of years though.

Just my humble opinion.

Thanks for the reply, We haven’t had the AFL help to date and are making our own way, just as the Dogs have had too. We are finally getting our s**t together and the Vic media have been selling us as a s**t sandwich so I can understand the angst on this board at the loss but we are building. Too many Vic media have been selling you all a BS story as they are too lazy to come and have a look at the work the club have put in

 

[footyfan000001]

its so sad that this young team is slower then those aged hawks and cats teams. leg speed has been an issue since the macca days,

the media goes on about melb having leg speed issues, yet no one brings up the dogs

leg speed makes us into 2 goals better in attack, and prob the same in defense.

watching at the ground, you really can tell it kills us

I believe this is why we added Smith, Vandermeer and Cavarra to our list. I’m excited about all 3 but obviously we’ve only seen one at this stage who isn’t exactly lightning quick. Certainly wouldn’t call Smith slow though and is going to be a star. Vandermeer is lightening though.

 

[Dogs Rule]

That isn't the point I'm making at all. It's not a "what if", it's not to lament or rue the loss.

More that looking forward, a goal wins us the game, but it doesn't really change anything on how well, or badly, we played. Yet the sentiment would have been a lot different.

Maybe, but I walked away from that game thinking I would’ve been disappointed still had we edged over the line by a few points.

We played poorly and didn’t deserve to get close.

 

[perro_loco]

Eddie is a terrible commentator.

Eddie is overdoing the coke. he is just not worth listening to anymore. he is starting to lose credibility in many areas, not just his mediocrity as a commentator.

 

[Snarls Barkley]

No team that has lost to Gold Coast during the H&A season has gone on to win the Premiership.

Marcus Bontempelli up to 2014-16: 58 goals, 43 behinds
Marcus Bontempelli 2016-present: 43 goals, 51 behinds

#SadStats

 

[perro_loco]

i disagree a bit with the thread title. we definitely weren't "on" and didn't have things rolling, but GC deserved a win where for the most part, we were working our butts off. Credit to them. They played a low turnover style where they really made us earn everything. For a while they had the edge on us in the contest and they capitalised better.

Stacks of positives despite the loss.

Jacko, Libba and Bont did eventually take control of the physical contest and we looked to hold sway for the majority of the final term.

The switch of Daniel up field was a good move by Bevo. Just got him into a game where he was struggling to have his influence. I've said it here before, he is going to draw a lot of attention because he's critical to our style.

Suckling was brilliant i thought.

Lewis Young settled into the game very nicely as a high ball protector and wasn't too clever with the ball and hasn't been the last two weeks either. Just taking the easy option which makes him a solid KPD.

Naughton's marking gave us a chance in that game. He didn't have an easy one out there but he built a solid performance.

The two biggest reasons we lost were ... 1, Our ground ball connectivity in the forward line is a work in progress. I think the right blokes are there but it didn't work and credit to gold coast they put on great physical pressure and inferred pressure by spreading so quickly. 2, the couple contested marks we conceded in the first quarter before we settled into the contests were poor concessions in my opinion.

I don't want to dwell too much on the negative, not why i watch footy, but I thought Sam Lloyd's contest was very poor. I thought Crozier started last year a bit soft too so that could build with the year. It all looked a bit much for him in today's game. The other thing was i think despite his nice goal, Dunkley simply didn't play his instrument today. I don't care about his meaningless easy touches. He's 190cm and can run all day. He should be physically imposing himself on the contest or make way for a better ball user.

I like your assessment on Dunkley. He has to improve his kicking skills. I have not been happy with the first quarter starts. I think the Dogs were overconfident and that they would take the points easily. English and Richards need a break in the twos. we had 16 tapouts in the ruck compared to more than 70. this is as shellacking and the reason we may have lost the game. the bont needs to improve his goalkicking. Poor effort overall, but liked libba, jacko, little diego, jacko. best game for smith this year. we must improve considerably against the pies next week. you never know, people say that you learn alot from a loss, and today's loss was a big learning experience to a fairly young side. were we yournger than the suns/ they deserved to win because they worked smarter and harder than we did. that is footy, work, and all other sports. go dogs!!!

 

[perro_loco]

No team that has lost to Gold Coast during the H&A season has gone on to win the Premiership.

Marcus Bontempelli up to 2014-16: 58 goals, 43 behinds
Marcus Bontempelli 2016-present: 43 goals, 51 behinds

#SadStats

all records are meant to be broken. so true about bonty

 

[perro_loco]

• When does boyd come back?

Does anyone know?

i run into him the otherday in west footscray and he said that he plays next week in resies. he looked happy.

 

[ossie_21]

Just looked at the stat line, holy crap McLean had a nightmare.