Review Round 1, 2024 - Fremantle vs. Brisbane Lions

[royboys4eva]

Suddenly we have gone from a team who was 5 mins from winning a Grand Final to a team who looks devoid of speed - stamina - desire and even more concerning awful decision making and structure.

I reckon from the moment Fremantle kicked their first goal you could see we were in massive trouble. Our forwards are not set up right. We kicked to out number so many times. I was never totally convinced we needed to play three talls but right now I think we have to because we have no idea how to play any other way. Charlie is struggling to beat his opponent more and more in his last 50 games and seems to lack motivation - if it's not a big game.

Daniher is better up the ground I think where he played ok yesterday. Hipwood needs to play out of the square. He needs to use his pace and lead directly at the kicker. Hippy just can't out muscle the big monsters from the opposition.

Oscar can't play ruck one out. He needs a chop out. I would get Fort into the centre bounces and Oscar deep forward. Switch them around during the match. Charlie will be more effective when he is roving off the crumbs.

Rayner just can't impact games enough. He has X factor which every team needs but we see it once every 5/6 games. He either needs to be dropped (won't happen) or play him deep forward as well. Wish he would stop trying to take mark of the year five times a game. He might have taken two in entire career.

Berry looks devoid of confidence. Makes poor decisions. Lyons as always has a crack and wins the ball but as soon as their is a turnover he can't chase and we get burnt. I think we need to move on from him. Dev Robbo was bang average yesterday but get's a second chance as he had a interrupted pre season. But he needs to take his chances quickly or the club will be happy for him to move to West Coast even for a 3rd round pick!

Was a sad indictment on the current team when the oldest player Zorko was one of the few who was willing to work hard and move the ball quickly.

Neale and Payne will come in for Pies and we need to get Fort in to help Oscar. Maybe Prior or Sharp as well for extra run.

Fagan needs to make a few changes otherwise players will continue to serve up this mediocre efforts without fear of change.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Some interesting comments from David King this morning. All in the first 10 minutes pretty much.

 

[M Malice]

We are the classic down hill skiers.

We down hill skied all the way to the Grand Final with the same group of players not that long ago, and very nearly down hill skied to a Flag.

 

[Lion_LegacyXL]

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[twhowler]

Some interesting comments from David King this morning. All in the first 10 minutes pretty much.

At work - what stood out?

 

[Happy_Neale]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

 

[mpal6]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

Too much belief in the pre-season hype possibly.
It has come crashing down now and may be players are struggling to deal with the loss of confidence.

 

[Nathan Barley]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

It's been 2 games and the first we should have won with some decent goal kicking

 

[Happy_Neale]

Too much belief in the pre-season hype possibly.
It has come crashing down now and may be players are struggling to deal with the loss of confidence.

I'm hoping it was the earlier than usual season start plus the delayed pre-season...but I'm losing hope of that now.

 

[Happy_Neale]

It's been 2 games and the first we should have won with some decent goal kicking

It's been two games that went the exact same way...look great until we don't.

 

[M Malice]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

It's been two games that went the exact same way...look great until we don't.

Yes. losing much the same way ie. great start and then our intensity dropping dramatically to allow 2 8 goal runs against us, is a major concern.

If it happens again against the Pies a definite pattern is established and the drinking their own bathwater problem could be the answer.

I still have strong hope though, a win against the Pies is what we need, if they can't get fired up against them at a sold out Gabba something is seriously amiss.

 

[Morbidly_Obese]

I hope everyone takes a moment to consider this before posting - we don’t lose, we learn.

No, we definitely lost.

 

[Morbidly_Obese]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

Coaching staff didn't adequately prepare the players for the start of the season.

 

[Grasshopper17]

At work - what stood out?

He reckoned we looked better with Zorko behind the ball running off half back in the last quarter.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Yes. losing much the same way ie. great start and then our intensity dropping dramatically to allow 2 8 goal runs against us, is a major concern.

If it happens again against the Pies a definite pattern is established and the drinking their own bathwater problem could be the answer.

I still have strong hope though, a win against the Pies is what we need, if they can't get fired up against them at a sold out Gabba something is seriously amiss.

 

[dlanod]

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My take away is that I'm shocked it happens on average more than twice a year.

 

[WhiteLionfever]

Rayner played awful. Never mind the speccie do the basics son

Oscar cdnt mark and was a liability with his hack kicks

Why did the conditioning staff not have the kicks in the shade like freo did on a 25deg day?

 

[FFB1]

So hard to understand how we can go from dominating to being smashed across the ground so quickly. How

Cos they work out our plan A, and we have no plan B to keep the foot down to switch to?

 

[Nathan Barley]

He reckoned we looked better with Zorko behind the ball running off half back in the last quarter.

Kind of what we do with him starting at half forward and pushing back. Avoids him having to defend

 

[Paul Mac]

It's been 2 games and the first we should have won with some decent goal kicking

The first game we should have won with decent goal kicking? We were 46 points up so i think our goal kicking up to that stage was spot on. Dont care who we were playing, you cant lose a footy game if you are that far infront and blame goal kicking, especially when we are supposively a premiership favourite.

 

[Nathan Barley]

The first game we should have won with decent goal kicking? We were 46 points up so i think our goal kicking up to that stage was spot on. Dont care who we were playing, you cant lose a footy game if you are that far infront and blame goal kicking, especially when we are supposively a premiership favourite.

Yeah you're a much worse team if you've conceded a big lead rather than never having it in the first place

 

[Paul Mac]

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Geez, you notice the crap teams it has been happening to and where they have finished on the ladder. You dont expect it to happen to a premiership chance team.

 

[Paul Mac]

Yeah you're a much worse team if you've conceded a big lead rather than never having it in the first place

Sorry i was talking about goal kicking costing us the first game. i must have went on a wrong tangent.

 

[martinson]

Fwiiw , just to me , this feels a bit different to any time we've been smacked in the last 5 years.

I've never been worried before about us coming back or our 'era' coming to an end. Always optimistic about what we had.

Also hearing a lot that it's only 2 games ,we've always come back ,late start to the year etc and all of that's true.

What has me a little disconcerted this time is Kiddy going down was a massive blow , players who have been here 4-6 years are now at the stage where if they don't start producing what we envisaged they never will , Oscar's deficiencies are pretty much exposing our M/F and he has been pivotal and we've gotten away with it in the past.

But particularly I've seen a couple of teams take a leaf out of the Collingwood playbook and extrapolate it with younger, faster players and produce some scarily good footy. Something difficult to combat with our gameplan and personnel.

So it's in our court . We still have some great players and to date shown great resilience in staying in the race every year.

The Collingwood game will tell us more. We'll be rested up on our home deck against an opposition that isn't going that hot itself. I'm expecting a Lions team that will be flat out doing everything to not cough up a run of goals in this match.

 

[beardancer]

I am en eternal optimist. Well, not during last quarters but in general.

I think winning does require independent brilliance. And we have a lot of that on this list. We do need to get that brilliance working together.

I've not been on the replace fagan (bless him) bandwagon but it is starting to interest me. Maybe another coach could get more out of this group.

Yeah, bollocks, we have brilliance in abundance. Charlie, joe, Clugga, linc, rat, etc all brilliant players......what we lack is hardened tough footballers that do the work, not the flashy shit that people on here love but the week to week grind that makes a good team great.

basically, we're flakey AF. flat track bullies.