Autopsy Cats get belted by Suns by 50 odd

[ndduyk6]

quite harsh but i laughed

 

[dangerwood]

I actually liked Clark tonight has actual class and his attack on the footy cant be doubted. For me the mystery is the TOG. Is his tank still really that bad? I wouldnt have thought so as all the coaches said he had a great pre season. I would have thought that and his size are all that will stop him from being a really good player.

Geez he is polarizing, I feel like we all watch him through a different lens. I completely acknowledge game time, he got very little, was very happy with the goal. I want him to be good but people keep saying he had class when what I saw was someone who absolutely crucified us with his disposal.

 

[UnitedWarrior93]

The regression of Ollie Henry needs to be studied

He needs to be a lead up forward to link our ball movement from defence to attack, but constantly finds himself next to Neale, either not flying for a mark or offering nothing once it hits the deck.

If he makes no inroads this year he could be on the trade table.

 

[joe444]

He needs to be a lead up forward to link our ball movement from defence to attack, but constantly finds himself next to Neale, either not flying for a mark or offering nothing once it hits the deck.

If he makes no inroads this year he could be on the trade table.

And gosh we do have a forward line which loves jumping together. The days of Hawk and Jeremy never getting in each other's way are fading into memory ...

Last night I'm sure I saw Neale, Knevitt and Martin all fly for the same ball.

Meanwhile, in Breaking News: "Team loses 4 of its Top 8 Goalscorers ... struggles to score in shock outcome"

 

[TheEscapeClub]

The problem is the same thing can be said about OHenry, who is literally only four days older than Neale.

Yet people cut him no slack whatsoever, and we've already seen Ollie almost win a Prelim for us. Shannon has massive upside, but gosh he gets in the way up forward. I won't even bother with the ruck debate. And he's had five chances now to be anything except a liability in finals.

I think it's others getting in his way.

 

[ndduyk6]

Geez he is polarizing, I feel like we all watch him through a different lens. I completely acknowledge game time, he got very little, was very happy with the goal. I want him to be good but people keep saying he had class when what I saw was someone who absolutely crucified us with his disposal.

feel like he'll never crack it hes to undersized and been in the system but stil looks very undeveloped in strength but thats just from my view

 

[STPer18]

Others have already brought up the poor tackling - have to wrap the arms up too, but the kicking out of defence was equally as bad. Not even talking direct turnovers, eg Z. Guthrie had our highest disposal % and he was far from the worst at it but there were so many of those Harry Taylor-esque wedge kicks that just hung in the air half a second too long to get spoiled around 70m from goal.

Bruhn for example, even Clark, both made mistakes but with their kicks they try and punch them low and hard at least. Could've just been not having confidence in those conditions, but those loopy kicks are a bugbear of mine. Normally we're not like that at all.

 

[cats_09]

Which state league ruckman should we have gone after?

The “decent state league ruckman” is a myth. They are state league for a reason.

Here's (part of) my to the same question from during the week

Here's the starting rucks for the team of the year selections for the 3 main state leagues:

• VFL starting ruck, Ned Reeves (Hawthorn)
• SANFL starting ruck, Lachlan McAndrew (Adelaide, former Swan with 2 AFL games under his belt)
• WAFL starting ruck, Scott Jones (30, former Freo player with 6 games under his belt)

The rucks that are doing the best at state level are already connected to AFL teams


The whole idea of, "just select one, we've got nothing to lose" doesn't really stack up in reality - sure we could look at a journeyman ruck option, but when they get shown up their first game against an experienced senior ruck like Witts, Gawn, Grundy etc, the boots will be stuck in

A journeyman state ruck is a journeyman state ruck for a reason

 

[rocker_oz33]

Kudos to O'Henry for trying something different and going full on Shane Kersten last night my patience has come to an end time to put some games into Polkinghorne.

Forwards Hardest spot to play.
And first players we seem to slag off.

IMO we launched our forwards attacks so far back they already had a wall set up.
They had little chance.

 

[Footy Smarts]

It's pretty funny that we won the clearances and dominated the center clearances but still the ruck and Worpel are copping the most heat.

They were not the issue in any way. If Worpel gives us that output every week (game high clearances, game high tackles and mid 60s disposal efficiency) he'll be a great recruit.

 

[Play it Sam]

To me, Clark is still 2 or 3 years away from not being a net negative.

I'm actually seeing a couple of things here and there that look promising.

The issue is that until he can go into the middle and win his own ball (hopefully like Atkins) he will be a bit of a liability.

He still doesn't have the size or class to play as an in-the-guts mid full-time, so he is getting games playing more outside (certainly not what he was drafted to do), but it is what it is.

He will do the odd ok thing on the outside, but it won't be enough to hang your hat on long term, he needs to win the ball and then use some of that outside stuff as a bonus area in his game.

Still at least 2 years away imo.... but that's better than just not having what it takes, like a Knevitt type.

Him being able to get big and strong enough to win his own ball more often than not is the key to him being a success or not... IMO that is.

Clark deserves a bit of patience, he almost busts out of his skin trying, gets in and under, tackles (although rarely clears the ball) at full strength and if he gets free skills look fine. The one thing he needs to learn is taking more time and steady before delivering or shot on goal, when he has the space.
Will come with more TOG.

Knevitt appears uncoordinated, equals slow to position or pounce. Also inaccurate, which we can't afford.
They'll probably persist, but gee he's pushing a fine line.

 

[Commando]

It's pretty funny that we won the clearances and dominated the center clearances but still the ruck and Worpel are copping the most heat.

They were not the issue in any way. If Worpel gives us that output every week (game high clearances, game high tackles and mid 60s disposal efficiency) he'll be a great recruit.

Seems turnovers were the big problem
5 in d50 led to goals!

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

It's pretty funny that we won the clearances and dominated the center clearances but still the ruck and Worpel are copping the most heat.

They were not the issue in any way. If Worpel gives us that output every week (game high clearances, game high tackles and mid 60s disposal efficiency) he'll be a great recruit.

If Worpel gives us the same output as last night every week then he’s going to be playing reserves.
He’s was shit along with everyone else except Bruhn.

 

[MisterMarcus]

quite harsh but i laughed

I guess I'm dense but I don't get it?

 

[TomsBulgingDisc]

A wet rainy night where we consistently lost ground level contest and couldn't take marks and you want to add a guy who is going to add value by tapping it to ground level contests and marking?

Firstly, I didn't say I wanted him in there, I was curious why you thought he would have made things worse.

Secondly, It rained for about 20 seconds. It was Humid, but heir talls (and everyone else) managed to hang onto it just fine.

Thirdly, we played with zero target at CHF, therefore bombed it deep and long 99% of the time. Having a guy of his size might have been an advantage in marking it or bringing it to ground deep, while someone like Neale could have played further up the ground. It would certainly have stretched their defense more than last night's set up.

I'm not saying he would be a panacea to our problems across a season, but I do doubt a tall target deep that's hard to match up on, who can actually compete in a ruck position around the ground, would have been a disadvantage last night

 

[Play it Sam]

It's pretty funny that we won the clearances and dominated the center clearances but still the ruck and Worpel are copping the most heat.

They were not the issue in any way. If Worpel gives us that output every week (game high clearances, game high tackles and mid 60s disposal efficiency) he'll be a great recruit.

That's living in hope, in that game maybe the best of a poor performance line.
I think the BF consensus is jury still out.

 

[allrighty]

Just like Debbie does Dallas, that was a hard watch.

Really paying the price for not having high draft picks for a decade, and not playing the kids we do have anywhere near enough.

Edwards needs to be played regardless.

Polk in, Henry out

SDK out, some kid from the managatang thirds in for all I care.

COS and Atkins joint captains next year.

Yeah I was a little surprised and disappointes we went with the same old leadership. Tommy would have been a great pick.

 

[joe444]

Professional sport notwithstanding, we are also looking at a slightly traumatised team after last year. Reminds me of 1990. Round 1 was a 120 point loss to Hawthorn.

Might take a few weeks to get up and going

 

[CHAWKS2]

I actually liked Clark tonight has actual class and his attack on the footy cant be doubted. For me the mystery is the TOG. Is his tank still really that bad? I wouldnt have thought so as all the coaches said he had a great pre season. I would have thought that and his size are all that will stop him from being a really good player.

TOG was pre planned. Not to do with tank but rotations. Each game teams are really going to have to pick someone to play 50%. And it was him

Effectively we have moved to a “flexible sub” arrangement now. Without an injury the 25th player will play “sub like”minutes

 

[UnitedWarrior93]

Professional sport notwithstanding, we are also looking at a slightly traumatised team after last year. Reminds me of 1990. Round 1 was a 120 point loss to Hawthorn.

Might take a few weeks to get up and going

Not sure why they’d be traumatized. Wasn’t exactly a Sydney 2024 or 2022 shitshow where they weren’t near it all game. We convincingly beat Brisbane in the QF, then that result was pretty much flipped margin wise in the GF, in which it was only the last quarter where it all fell apart.

I agree that teams that do cop a heavy margin defeat in GF’s struggle the following year, but I’m willing to brush last night off a bit and give us a few weeks before I start thinking this year is doomed.

 

[CHAWKS2]

Mason Cox would have made us worse last night

Googles wouldn’t have handled the humidity

 

[CHAWKS2]

Here's (part of) my to the same question from during the week

Here's the starting rucks for the team of the year selections for the 3 main state leagues:

• VFL starting ruck, Ned Reeves (Hawthorn)
• SANFL starting ruck, Lachlan McAndrew (Adelaide, former Swan with 2 AFL games under his belt)
• WAFL starting ruck, Scott Jones (30, former Freo player with 6 games under his belt)

The rucks that are doing the best at state level are already connected to AFL teams


The whole idea of, "just select one, we've got nothing to lose" doesn't really stack up in reality - sure we could look at a journeyman ruck option, but when they get shown up their first game against an experienced senior ruck like Witts, Gawn, Grundy etc, the boots will be stuck in

A journeyman state ruck is a journeyman state ruck for a reason

I hear Conway is pretty good

 

[rocker_oz33]

It's pretty funny that we won the clearances and dominated the center clearances but still the ruck and Worpel are copping the most heat.

They were not the issue in any way. If Worpel gives us that output every week (game high clearances, game high tackles and mid 60s disposal efficiency) he'll be a great recruit.

Our Footy smarts we left them at home .

 

[Hinkley29]

But the point is he'll improve. SDK is going backwards. COS has overtaken him as a defender in a year. I'm interested to hear a single aspect of SDK game that anyone can point to which he's improved in in the last 2 years? Send him back to the twos until things change.

That is a fine strategy if you have given up on the season and are tanking for draft picks.

To do it after the first game of the season played in the most disadvantageous conditions imaginable would be an epic knee jerk reaction.

 

[CHAWKS2]

Forwards Hardest spot to play.
And first players we seem to slag off.

IMO we launched our forwards attacks so far back they already had a wall set up.
They had little chance.

Agree. It would have been really tough being a forward for the Cats last night (compare that to the suns who were laced out many times).

Pure example of that was watching Dempsey get 6 possessions in first half as a forward (I think that was the most of any forward at that time!) and then get 14 and 4 goals as a wingman. None of those goals were “lace out” forward type plays but mostly broken (cats player going for goal or dumping long) but as a wingman (the way he plays it anyway) he had more room to create than as a forward