Review Bulldogs Lose To GWS (113 - 55)

[Hobdog]

On to next year, hopefully without Hayes seeing much senior playing time. Hate to be brutal, but VFL is his level.

I find there are always players on lists that sit in a space between too good for VFL and not quite potent enough to be consistent AFL performers.


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[Mojorisin]

No doubt he worked hard and got his usual amount of ball, but he was less clean and put some players under the pump.

I’m not too hard on him, Bont and Dunks because they were met by a mature and talented midfield group but the reality is we lost it badly in the middle.

Maybe with Wallis and Libba back and Smith, West and Lipinski a year older and stronger we’ll have better support.

That's mean playing 8 midfielders

 

[Braybrook Son]

You find out a lot about some players in finals. Schache and Hayes. They’re who we knew that were. Absolutely no chance they would be getting a game at any top 8 side.

Praying to f*****g god Naughton hasn’t done his ACL. Has the heart of a lion and one of only a handful who were up to the standard of finals footy. He’s an absolute gem.

I didn’t think Schache was that bad. Hit a lot of contests but where we lost the game was stoppages. Haven’t seen us smashed like in years

 

[hamwell]

Two of the big points of difference between this game and 3 weeks ago were Mumford and Hopper coming in.

In round 22, they had Dawson Simpson in the ruck. He was actually dominant for most of the first half, especially the second quarter where the GWS midfield got on top of us. Then for the whole of the second half, he could barely move and jump. Trengove was pushing him to his physical limits in the stoppages, and easily got on top the longer the game went on, which lead to us smashing them in the middle.

Today they had Mumford who, even if you hate him, is a far better player than Simpson, and was a physical presence in congestion for all 4 quarters. On top of that, Bev dropped Trengove for no good reason, so we were left with poor old Tim as our only good ruckman. Tim had a good game, but he's still skinny, and should never have been given such a difficult solo job in his first final. Schache is a dismal second ruck, and like many of our other players today, no finals experience.

Add in Hopper (30 disposals) to further reinforce GWS's midfield and all of a sudden, the midfield battle from 3 weeks ago has done a complete reversal.

 

[Dogsman16]

We are going to be ok. 2-3 great additions in trade week will be beneficial.

We missed some experience. I often say libba is close to the being on the fringe but he’s absolutely required in finals. Daniel, Wallis etc would have been handy.

 

[Ash1337]

I find there are always players on lists that sit in a space between too good for VFL and not quite potent enough to be consistent AFL performers.


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I think Hayes will become good enough to be a regular with enough time and experience. Still under 10 games. He was 1 that probably would of needed to move more into a mid role today because he wouldn't of hesitated to go at the ball.

 

[Sharkey66]

Why would you take an injured player as the emergency?

This'

 

[Dogs Rule]

Very young and inexperienced team got beaten by a team that many thought should be doing much better than it has been, just need to reset and reload for next year. Chase Bruce, Keath and Smith for some more mature bodies that will improve the team and keep on improving our bottom six.

Yep, this is 2015 all over again. Need all of Smith, Bruce and Keath. Throw the chequebook at them. Martin perhaps.

Let’s face it, the Plastics had the far more mature bodies and they roughed up a very young side. They won’t make it past next week, which’ll be good for a laugh.

Richmond v Pies Grand Final.

 

[stefoid]

I don’t usually pick on coaching selection but what was the point of Hayes playing? He’s a gut running wingman. I was at the game and the entire time he lined up in the forward line and often in the goalsquare. Literally Dickson’s role.

Hayes has baffled me. his contest skills are not up to scratch and his work with the ball in hand doesnt make up for that.

 

[hamwell]

Cut Hayes some slack. The guy is an outside running midfielder; a good portion of his game style depends on our mids winning it on the inside, which they didn't today. Hayes has been playing a handy role for us since he was re-introduced to the side.

There's a reason GWS dragged Mumford's fat arse out of retirement. His bodywork in the stoppages makes a significant difference to the midfield battle as a whole, even without winning much of the ball himself.

 

[Anja_Nees]

Don’t want to be too critical

That's mean playing 8 midfielders

Probably needed to today.

In all seriousness, we need some more support when our stars aren’t in there.

 

[Hobdog]

I think Hayes will become good enough to be a regular with enough time and experience. Still under 10 games. He was 1 that probably would of needed to move more into a mid role today because he wouldn't of hesitated to go at the ball.

I’ve always liked him as a VFL player but I’ve struggled so far to see where he could potentially belong as an AFL player. But that said, he’s another guy who’s played next to no games.


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[Dogs Rule]

Don’t want to be too critical

Probably needed to today.

In all seriousness, we need some more support when our stars aren’t in there.

We can only hope that support is coming via trade.

Time to shoot for the stars, Dogs. All in on trades.

 

[Dogsman16]

Time to win trade week mofos. All in.
Bruce, Keath and Martin.

 

[Mattdougie]

We play a high possession game but this team lacks the midfield depth that previous teams have had. Libba, Wallis, Jong and Daniel would have been handy. Some of our guys played liked flankers who were trying to be mids, and are simply not good enough.

Sorry but I disagree with every word of this other than Libba

 

[Jeff 1975]

Giants were out for blood as expected but won from bigger bodies and more experience. Doubt that would work against Tigers next week though. Expect them to be sat on their arse.

Agree

 

[Dogs Rule]

Time to win trade week mofos. All in.
Bruce, Keath and Martin.

And Smith.

No good saving the cash. Time to spend up and fill some gaps.

 

[stefoid]

Our mids offered fu** all support to bont.

yep, that could have been handled a lot better. We let GWS dictate those terms.

We needed every player next to DeBoer smacking him in the ribs and shoving him in the collarbone, on rotation. That would have prompted GWS players to retaliate and then there would have been punchons every 5 minutes until the umps start handing out random free kicks to settle it down.

As long as we were prepared to take it without complaint, the umps were happy to let it go.

 

[Snarls Barkley]

Yikes! Rough day. Midfield was due for an off night after carrying us all season and it was a smashing.

-12 in clearances, -42 in contested possessions. With the talent they have at either end of the ground we're not getting close if we are beaten in those categories. Thought the defense held up really well for the first half and a bit but soon the resistance broke and it got ugly.

Still a positive season. Didn't think we'd be close to the 8 preseason, definitely didn't think we'd be close at the bye. Found some players, our best players got better and the system looked like it was beginning to work how Bevo had planned it.

Let's hope to add some quality at the trade period and come back next season.

Prayers for Aaron Naughton's knee

 

[Rocketsurgery]

Felt that GWS players constantly seemed to outnumber us all around the ground. To me that's workrate. They just out ran and out worked us the whole game. Hats off to them, they were the better team

 

[Mutt]

yep, that could have been handled a lot better. We let GWS dictate those terms.

We needed every player next to DeBoer smacking him in the ribs and shoving him in the collarbone, on rotation. That would have prompted GWS players to retaliate and then there would have been punchons every 5 minutes until the umps start handing out random free kicks to settle it down.

As long as we were prepared to take it without complaint, the umps were happy to let it go.

I couldn't agree more - when we face a heavy tag on one of our midfielders we should go all out to physically smash the tagger. We were way too meek tonight...but we were young, inexperienced and out coached.

 

[Hobdog]

At least it wasn’t another prelim loss


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[Dogs_R_Us]

Hope whoever that was gets a week for punching Bont in the stomach.

 

[ThirdLegUp]

Mids let us down. Pretty simple. When bont tried to fire the boys up with a tagger hanging off him, by being the Ruck/Mid/and Forward, the others didn't stand up. Cameron put all his eggs in the midfield basket, he knows our defense is suspect and will break down eventually without the Midfield to protect it, and that our forwards won't touch it let alone kick cricket scores for the same reason. The key to our entire 2nd half of the year was our midfield and there is no tactics that will fix only 1/3rd of the core players turning up.

It gets experience into our kids, which much like 2015 was what this finals was about. The only sour point is naughts injury, that sucks hardcore, the loss feels no different to a H&A loss for me. It's annoying, but im feeling rather "meh" about it. If we had something to prove to ourselves we already did that by coming from 15th to make the finals, if anything this performance will make the team hungrier for next year.

 

[Leon]

Hayes has baffled me. his contest skills are not up to scratch and his work with the ball in hand doesnt make up for that.

I just don’t see it with him.

He’s the quintessential excellent VFL player and mediocre AFL player.

Don’t doubt his heart, and endeavour, but yeah, not quite up to it for mine.