Game Day Community Series. North Melbourne v wc Saturday 1/3/25 Bunbury WA

[kool kangas]

l know he's on big money but gees cant we play Zuurhar in the VFL to start the season. Starts off well and then goes missing for the next 2 1/2 quarters, then gives away unnecessary frees. While everyone else plays their guts out he goes wandering...

Besides the inaccurate kicking l was pretty happy with the overall game...

 

[trooroo4life]

LOL!

McKercher is no A Grader. He was instrumental in West Coast winning the ball back all day.

Based on today FOS is a country mile in front of McKercher.

Won’t go as far as all this, but I was really disappointed with his intent to defend. For a bloke blessed with so much pace, he just jogs back the other way far too often. I mentioned to a mate that was watching with me, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him dropped back to the vfl at some stage for a kick in the pants if he doesn’t address this. Did not want contact at all today, and same again last week.

Our key backs are a shambles. Comben can’t be trusted ball in hand, Logue looks overweight and has seemingly lost his agility, Corr looks underdone and simply put, just shit.

I’m prepared to die on this hill alone if I have to, but we are wasting everyone’s time playing Chom in defence, I know we aren’t blessed with ready made options but he is not and will never be a defender. His 1 on 1 stuff is shockingly bad. The only effective thing he does back there is take a few uncontested intercept marks a game but then he has to kick it. Still think he’s better served at CHF so we can complete in the air up forward.

I don’t think Logue was that bad tbh, Corr was a mile off it, every time you seen him he was trailing Waterman by 5-10m. I can’t see us getting ourselves too far off the bottom with this defensive unit.

 

[Better Loosen Up]

Played well ??? Can’t cop that . Lost the clearances , poor defending in the D50 , shocking kicking for goal . That’s not playing well .

Did we really lose the clearances? Against West Coasts shitty midfield? After being 10 v 1 up in the first quarter? WTF?

 

[Sphynx]

Dominant?

He runs into space and handballs it to the opposition or a teammate under pressure.

He will never be dominant with decision making like a reserve grade suburban footballer.

Yes he can run, but what’s the point if you just torch it.

Are we going though the same period when this board claimed Sheezel couldn’t kick during his rookie year?

Colby got more of it than Sheezel and Daicos last year in the role, he didn’t “torch” it then and he won’t torch it this year.

Just had a bad game.

 

[shinboner magic]

I'm in the second camp: fos killed it and there was more to like than hate.

How’s my boy Draper going.

FOS was very good indeed

 

[Themanbun]

Did we really lose the clearances? Against West Coasts shitty midfield? After being 10 v 1 up in the first quarter? WTF?

Sure did

 

[Better Loosen Up]

Everybody outraged about Corr like this isn't typical of every year for him. He hits his top gear middle of the season.

Well he can play in the two's until then thanks.

 

[buttox]

My Richmond mate "fos looks good"
Me "yep you picked wrong"
Silence

 

[Themanbun]

How’s my boy Draper going.

FOS was very good indeed

Draper and FOS the two standouts thus far. Draper was excellent the other night.

 

[LB2Snake]

Have loved seeing Souva get owned by a sub 15 gamer.

 

[Roosurgence]

Are we going though the same period when this board claimed Sheezel couldn’t kick during his rookie year?

Colby got more of it than Sheezel and Daicos last year in the role, he didn’t “torch” it then and he won’t torch it this year.

Just had a bad game.

Take the rose coloured glasses off. He torched it a lot.

You were too busy jizzing over his 20m sideways crab kicks from kick outs.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Epic melts from a praccy match in Bunbury
Never change BigFooty!
Save the temper tantrums for next week

 

[4cunningTonneTruck]

Thought there was great signs, especially coming off last week's performance. We left so many goals out there it isn't funny, and we gifted them some of the easiest goals with terrible turnovers. Plus umpires went against us a fair bit at both ends. Which resulted in goals from them and took goals off us. Eagles shouldn't have even been close.

McDonald and Tucker will eventually get pushed out in favour of Goater/Hardeman/FOS. Comben should go forward and we'll have WDawson as a far more capable defender. Our defense will look way better.

Forward 50 pressure was elite. Contest work elite. Some of the transition looks elite. We look much stronger and bigger.

Still have Simpkin, Wardlaw, Parker and Goater to come in.

It was a practice game and we had no injuries. I think we saw enough to see we are heading in the right direction. Bring on Round 1 under the roof with no wind and Bulldogs VFL midfield

 

[Rod Stroker]

From those highlights;
Corr gets beaten in every contest, and coughs up a goal.
Phillips misses a 25 meter pass in the middle to a vacant forward under zero pressure. Unforgivable.

AAMI Match Highlights: West Coast v North Melbourne

The Eagles and Kangaroos clash in the AAMI Community Series

www.afl.com.au

 

[shinboner magic]

Draper and FOS the two standouts thus far. Draper was excellent the other night.

I’d start him at hbf and drop Lmac

Everything he did was very good and didn’t look fazed at all - put his body on the line as well.

 

[Roosurgence]

From those highlights;
Corr gets beaten in every contest, and coughs up a goal.
Phillips misses a 25 meter pass in the middle to a vacant forward under zero pressure. Unforgivable.

AAMI Match Highlights: West Coast v North Melbourne

The Eagles and Kangaroos clash in the AAMI Community Series

www.afl.com.au

Corr is a wage theif, same with McDonald.

 

[shimaburnsgrieg]

Did we show more than against the Dees? Yep.

Did about 5 players who were previously considered to be at the bottom of our best 20-26 players just produce surprisingly solid performances? Yep.

Did we actually show the ability to change gears when its important? Yep.

Did we show up with a game plan that was likely to produce a winning score, and did we mostly fulfill it? Yep.

Were two of our best 10 players traded in for a second and third rounder respectively? Ahuh.

Did Powell continue to show every likelihood he's about to have a breakout yeah? Yup.

Did we have no injuries? Looks like it.

Yes our current mix of key defenders aren't going win us finals, yes it would have been nice to Bull to show up for a day's work, yes the late Bergman inclusion didn't help us, yes Kerch blazed away too often for someone of his talents, but if you ask me, the weight of evidence is that we're looking better poised to perform well this year than any other this decade.

The pass mark for this year is 8 wins.

After each game in the next 23 weeks the question to ask ourselves is - are we closer or further away from meeting that benchmark?

After the last 2 weeks my view is that we are alot further away - however the real stuff starts in 2 weeks and that is when we start to assess this.

The rest of this talk is just noise.

 

[buttox]

I’d start him at hbf and drop Lmac

Everything he did was very good and didn’t look fazed at all - put his body on the line as well.

I wouldn't.
He'd be good at it for sure.
But I'd be concerned with his good contested marking getting smashed.

 

[gokangas]

The pass mark for this year is 8 wins.

After each game in the next 23 weeks the question to ask ourselves is - are we closer or further away from meeting that benchmark?

After the last 2 weeks my view is that we are alot further away - however the real stuff starts in 2 weeks and that is when we start to assess this.

The rest of this talk is just noise.

Agree re 8 being the pass mark. I'm living in hope that our preseason form is just that - warm up stuff.

 

[LB2Snake]

You're welcome to your take, unlike McDonald though Corr actually has to stand next to an opponent for most of a game and win 1 v 1's. He's a little short of run still, but has a couple of extra weeks to come good.



Tucker was fine from a role playing point of view. Comben / Corr is what we had to work with. Stephens won't start Rd 1. If I was choosing between Tucker and McDonald it wouldn't be a hard choice.

Corr has been a massive disappointment for me for his whole time at North. Looking forward to him not being required. Massively over rated

 

[Ocha905]

Don't care about the result since it's preseason. That said -
+110 possies
7 more I50's
8 more scoring shots
indicates improvement.

But...

Jumps on soapbox

When we lose a close "home" game to WC or Freo in WA, I will go bananas.

Club is putting the dollar ahead of competitiveness. We got pumped by Sydney when we sold home games to them in the early 00's (perhaps playing a part in our demise). This strategy also worked so well for Melbourne's culture when they sold their home games to Brisbane.

Ross Lyon was an idiot to use Hobart as an example (obviously in a desperate attempt to win over LDU) as at least Bellerive Oval was neutral with the potential to develop into a second home. However, gifting an opposition team one of the few natural advantages you get is diabolical. It'd be like a Grandmaster volunteering to play with the black pieces or a tennis player letting the opponent serve every game. It's a self-destructive strategy and I guarantee it will cost us wins.

As a reminder (posted this before in the post-Tassie thread) -

"Against North Melbourne -

West Coast are:
17 wins, 10 losses at home
11 wins, 14 losses away

Fremantle are:
12 wins, 9 losses at home
5 wins, 10 losses away

Ergo, we've won 60% of our home games against WA opponents.
And 40% of our away games against WA opponents.

Based on these historical results, if we played all 23 games at home/neutral site against West Coast and Fremantle we'd finish with 14 wins a season. Good for 6th place in 2024.

All 23 in WA? We finish with 9 wins and place 15th."

Don't let the club's BS spin of "we play so great in WA" fool you.

 

[kool kangas]

Epic melts from a praccy match in Bunbury
Never change BigFooty!
Save the temper tantrums for next week

Like the game, posters need to practice...

 

[perplexed]

Just finished watching second quarter on delay. …….can anyone name me a more over rated defender than Corr. He’s the worst I can think of. Everyone loves to bag LMac, including myself, but at least he looks like he gives a shit. Corr is on 500K+ and has effectively stolen a wage from us. What a shocking recruitment in hindsight.

Nonsense, other than the toe gangrene, he has been what we paid for.

Prepare for a double take in the last 2 minutes. For some reason he is inside 50 and crashes the pack like nobody has since Duck.

 

[Frank Thring]

Oh yeah, Stephens. What happened to him after quarter time?

Potato

 

[kool kangas]

Did we play with a full squad as l saw Hardeman on the sidelines but never saw him in the game...