Review R10: The Good, Bad and the Ugly vs. Collingwood

[Crow till I die]

I’m not shocked. Absolutely frustrating losing to them again.

You just felt it in the first half. Every loose ball went right angles away from us to get to a collingwood player and the umps screwed us with som shocking non calls and soft collingwood ones. The second half then played out with them and their tails up and it was a bridge too far to recover from

 

[moses]

Depth isn’t our problem.

It will be if we refuse to test our depth.

 

[TubbsFarquhar]

Another game that went according to last year's result.

We're not improved, we're just playing teams in different orders.

Yep, the only different result was winning the away Showdown.

 

[King Elvis]

The (only) beauty of Nicks being our coach for 6 years is his identity is clear.

He has no answers. He panics. He reacts after the fact. He diverts blame and responsibility. He makes poor decisions. He is a boring, vapid speaker.

And our players play EXACTLY like that when it gets tough.

We will never succeed under Nicks because he has a loser identity. We need a winner

Even the commentators are finally waking up to this, they discussed us playing right into Collingwood's hands, no apparent Plan B/C, not doing anything to try and change the game until it was too late.

 

[Crow till I die]

As frustrating as this is again to lose a close one to them, i am not that angry as i expected it. Our season won't be won or lost on beating collingwood at the G in the minor round. But it does show we are not quite there. We need to aim for top 4 now with our remaining fixtures and if we achieve that this year, its a big tick overall and hopefully sets a strong foundation for next season

 

[Mattrox]

Depth isn’t our problem.

Our midfield depth is a massive issue.

 

[spenze]

We played Tex over Draper you mean. Berry was perfect for those conditions.

No, we are playing a fringe player above a generational player. We have been doing it for 3 matches and we will probably do it next week too.

We shouldn’t have given a contract to Tex this year but that is the club, too scared to make unpopular decisions.

 

[Cromulant]

Our midfield depth is a massive issue.

Not really, we just refuse to use it

 

[Vader]

I couldn't watch the game today but caught snippets on radio

At three quarter time, Campo said that Collingwood had 6.0 from set shots 0-30m from goal, whereas we had 1.1.

... and how many OOTF did we have as well?

 

[Coopers]

Our problem this year is not having midfield ascendancy.

The 3rd quarter we had it and we miiiised with our kicking. 3 huge misses.

Then several dodgy balls lead to elliot marking it pretty much unopposed on the siren. 50m penalty vs Fog. Rankine and Curtin in the pocket.

We shat the bed in Q3. That was it.

 

[lacrow]

Leaving aside Matthew Nicks

Matthew Nicks

Age

50

Ht

187cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

13.6

3star

K

9.4

4star

HB

4.2

3star

M

4.1

4star

T

1.7

4star

G

0.7

4star

No current season stats available

D

6.6

2star

K

4.4

2star

HB

2.2

2star

M

2.2

3star

T

1.4

4star

G

0.4

3star

for the moment.....

Milera: said this in another thread earlier in the year, but WHY are we even persisting with him? He has never, not once in his entire career, broken a game open. Where in god's name is the love coming from??? Maybe he had potential to be amazing, but after so many injuries, the guy is not really an upgrade on Brodie Smith

33

Brodie Smith

Age

33

Ht

194cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

19.5

5star

K

12.3

5star

HB

7.2

4star

M

4.2

4star

T

2.1

4star

MG

500.1

5star

D

17.1

4star

K

12.6

5star

HB

4.5

3star

M

3.5

3star

T

2.3

3star

MG

438.9

5star

D

17.2

5star

K

10.8

4star

HB

6.4

4star

M

3.8

4star

T

3.6

5star

. Hinge is the level of play that we should be seeing from Milera, given all the hopium for so many years.

Berry: Not the answer. Has played in enough games that you all should know by now. Depth only. I don't know why people keep calling for him to play. Would rather have seen Pedlar tbh.

Crouch: debatable, but might have been handy today when we needed strong bodies on the ground.

Tex: definitely should have been rested. Guy looks like he is really struggling badly

Curtin: yes has been quiet but I'm 100% in support of us just continuing to play him. If he's ever going to reach the heights that we all feel he can get to, he needs to just keep playing and gathering experience and working through the grind

Hinge: spectacular player. Kicks out of defense are elite. THIS is what Milera should be giving us.

O'Brien: what can I say that hasn't already been said?

Draper: kind of glad we did not play him in this game. Collingwood are big, tough players and honestly I don't think it's safe or a good long term strategy to play an 18-year-old in that situation. Asking for long term injuries. In fact, I don't really think AFL should be allowing any 18-year-old kids to play with fully grown men in a heavy contact sport like this, but that's just my opinion.

Nankervis: not really setting the world on fire this season at all. Does he have it? Honestly I don't know and am starting to doubt it. Sholl also not the answer.

Really missing Nick Murray in our back six.

 

[Mattrox]

Not really, we just refuse to use it

I'm not sure its genuine depth.

 

[DJ75]

We don’t and won’t win these types of games while Nicks is coach.
He shits the bed every time. He doesn’t coach to win, he coaches not to lose. There is a big difference.

We had a big advantage in one area - our key forwards. So we chose to play a slow game style that allowed Collingwood to get players back to help out.

And if anyone ever tries to tell me that Milera is ok, I might just lose my shit. He’s a symptom of the disease that has infected the club for 30 years.

 

[Cromulant]

I'm not sure its genuine depth

Again we don't know, we don't use it

 

[Albert Bruce]

How much talent do you want in one group ? Nicks is out of his depth, the lack of ability to control the ball is about poor coaching. We have gathered some proper talent but it will amount to nothing unless we get a board who understand what they are looking at. Dawson, Thilthorpe, Rankine, Fogarty, Curtin are absolute elite talent ... this will all go down the gurgler unless there is a change. Tex Walker is a champion of the footy club but they also need to start rotating his games more regularly and plan for life without him. Watching Tex getting increasingly frustrated with the softness in decision making and lack of clarity within the group is hard - can someone in the football club administration please stand up and agitate for the coaching change which is needed .

 

[1970crow]

So Crouch this year averaged 65.7% ToG. Prior to Crouch being out Peatling averaged 82.1%, the last 3 weeks it's down to 70.6% (and at 65% today). Have we gone as simple as just swapping Crouch for Peatling in our planned rotations and not at all accommodating Peatling's ability to play other positions which Crouch can't do?

We don’t want to undo any of the cohesion we’d built up with Crouch in there.

 

[King Elvis]

We kicked 10.8, them 11.12.

Missed some easy shots, so did they.

 

[spenze]

As frustrating as this is again to lose a close one to them, i am not that angry as i expected it. Our season won't be won or lost on beating collingwood at the G in the minor round. But it does show we are not quite there. We need to aim for top 4 now with our remaining fixtures and if we achieve that this year, its a big tick overall and hopefully sets a strong foundation for next season

We showed once again not to have a killer instinct and a team that carries players who don’t perform in big matches away from home.

We are fooling ourselves if we think we are a team that can perform in September…

We will come close in the match though

 

[lacrow]

I will also say this:

I thought we played hard and the game was there to be won, but Collingwood is an excellent team just firing on all cylinders right now and they just looked a LOT physically stronger that we did. They have a ton of hard, battle-tested players. Hopefully by this time next year we will be at that level.

 

[Interloperer]

One think in common I noticed in Rankine's shots at goal, was that the one he kicked was a weird almost side-footed angled drop punt, off the outside of the boot, that curved with the wind. Which worked perfectly in the dry.

His shanks almost seemed to be attempting the exact same thing in the wet, but getting the center of the ball as is common in the wet.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

We kicked 10.8, them 11.12.

Missed some easy shots, so did they.

Rankine also kicked 2 out on the full.

 

[happy_knackers]

Curtin belongs.

It was a finals-style game, so we can see who is up to it.
Hinge, in particular, seems to rise to the occasion, Milera, not so much.

Berry hasn't improved with the haircut. He still thinks he is fast, ignores the oppo, and gets run down. It's a systemic fault.

Rankine had a shocker, apart from the sublime goal in the first. Is he a finals player?

Rankine missed shots he should have kicked today that cost us no doubt, but he has plenty of runs on the board in tough games and just had a dig of day (they happen). Curtin doesn't have that luxury and needs to extract a digit.

 

[pjcrows]

How much talent do you want in one group ?

This is the core issue. Yes, our drafting pre 2020 was poor, but since then it's been pretty good plus we brought in Dawson and Rankine, and traded in three decent players this year. Our list has definitely improved but the performances are stagnating.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

We showed once again not to have a killer instinct and a team that carries players who don’t perform in big matches away from home.

We are fooling ourselves if we think we are a team that can perform in September…

We will come close in the match though

Need to make the most of when you have ascendancy.

We just don't against teams like the Pies.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

I will also say this:

I thought we played hard and the game was there to be won, but Collingwood is an excellent team just firing on all cylinders right now and they just looked a LOT physically stronger that we did. They have a ton of hard, battle-tested players. Hopefully by this time next year we will be at that level.

They are better drilled by their coaching group no doubt.

Felt we needed to be conformably ahead to beat the Pies.