Review R4: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly vs. Fremantle

[cleanhands]

Imagine your captain asks for the ball and you, being a giant right wing slop enjoying dumb campaigner thinks "Nah, I'm Riley O'Brien, I'm gonna do it myself" and proceed to kick the ball directly into the opposition ruckman's hands in such an uncoordinated way that it almost defies the physical laws of the universe.

Ok its been a couple of hours now, deep breaths, in, out

 

[Tika19]

He is a dumbarse that is overthinking (with his dumbarse brain) what is, at its core, a pretty simple game.

Correct. Nicks just isn’t it.

I really love how Fly coaches the pies. He encourages them all to take risks. He knows there will be mistakes along the way but still backs them in. You have to risk failure to succeed and become a better team.

 

[FAIRANDBALANCED]

Are we though. Laird, Fogarty and Cumming do not mean the difference between winning and losing. Young, McDonald and Walker are all very good players for Fremantle. Curtin is still developing and unknown so the only two are Keane, Butts and Ah Chee. But again, it was heavily relient on them missing.

I just think we need to stop blaming injuries, I dont think we have the injuries to blame losses like this on.

We will flog mediocre sides but do we exist to win flat track matches or do we exist to win finals.

McDonald is not a very good player for Freo, he won't get a game with Cox back, but Frederick would be in if fit.

 

[daniel_4tw]

We need to fix our ruck issues. It’s clear that McAndrew is our first choice, he can’t ruck the entire game. Playing Murray, Maley or ROB as the relief ruck at 30% TOG is not working and is a waste of a rotation.

I know the club doesn’t want Thilthorpe in the ruck but I don’t see what other options we have.

I think Sam Draper was the plan for ruck/forward and once that didn’t play out we had no plan b.

It was a really bad off season last year with us not addressing our holes. Went too hard on Petracca when there were other options we should have been looking at. No second ruck. No small forward. Losing Burgess and getting more injuries has amplified that.

Positive is with AFL rewarding mediocrity we’ll likely do enough to get 10th for a wild card position. Ugly that means Nicks will get another year.

 

[CrowBloke]

I'm convinced he isn't actually that smart, he can't be.

There's Academic/theoretical smarts (which it's accepted he has), Street smarts and footy smarts.

O'Brien doesn't have footy smarts. At all.
Funny thing: the game is called FOOTball, yet O'Brien has not mastered the simple knack of kicking, not long, nor to hit a target nor to goal from even 20m out.
He's big, tall and fit. Runs all day. That's it.
He's unco, cannot kick, has no footy brains at all (did anybody notice how often he tapped the ball down in front of himself, tonight?) and his stint in the last quarter, combined with Jones' total lack of composure and poor goalkicking by Soligo, Maley, Thilthorpe, Rankine and Keays,
well,
plus Nicks is our Coach, all cost us tonight's game.

 

[CrowBloke]

Nicks would have to win 119 games out of his next 163 to have a better coaching record than Hinkley. Ain't going to happen.

... "out of his next 163", please God, NO!!

I started doing that calculation myself but my head shut down at the thought of Nicks getting another 163 games, ie another 7 years of no-Flags.

 

[adelaidecrows]

Complete opposite. He thinks having the ball in defense is next to worthless. He wants to win the midfield

His game plan is entirely built around team defence control the ball tempo football. If we win the center, the plan is to bomb it in and lock it in. But if we lose, he has set it up to rebound from inside the d50 and work it up methodically with controlled risk free possession before bombing it in and locking it in. The only time we go quick is if we see free players but leads are ignored and we have an old school kick to the talls game plan with the smalls coming through.

Based on Nicks press conference. Either he doesnt know the opposition will clamp down on space with slow methodical football or he does and is complaining about it anyway.

Nicks changes a game plan strength week to week. He looks at the final score, gets frightened and designs the following week to crack down on it.

After the Geelong game in 2025 Nicks got frightened and almost overnight we became less attacking when it came to playing good teams. Went back to playing slow methodical football. Occasionally he released the shackles when playing weaker teams.

Once he got some confidence we started playing better football but every time Nicks gets scared of the high score he reverts back. You can almost pick the handbrake games

r5 Geelong kicks 119 points
r6 GWS kick 34 points to ours 52* I recall it being very windy but it was a terrible standard game by reports
r7 Fremantle kick 85 points to ours 67 and this was a horrid slow play game.

Nicks panics and releases the shackles next week we smash Carlton

r9 Showdown Port gets within 5 points
r10 we go back to that slow defensive shitshow against Collingwood.

We play back to back games against struggling sides and Nicks releases the shackles

reverts back to slow methodical play against Brisbane 68-63

Nicks sees us winning and keeps the shackles off for multiple weeks.

The eagles scared Nicks by keeping us down to 87 points and getting so close and all of a sudden we go overnight back to slow defensive football. Kangaroos scared him even further and without Rankine Nicks shut the games down in the finals. Well he tried.

This year he is trying to do the same thing by massaging the result rather than taking the game on. Watch next week it is going to be all hands on deck take the game on at home against a struggling side.

 

[CrowBloke]

I bet if we delisted him at the end of the year and Geelong picked him up he'd turn into a star

Yep.
Likewise Pedlar/ Dowling maybe even Edwards too.

 

[Samcro24]

One should have to earn the right to get extended.

One does not simply get extended

Except Maffew

 

[GreyCrow]

Dinkum? Guessing, or know something we don't?

He had some turmoil over summer which was Collingwood related and I feel an approach by us might give him some thinking to do

Yes a guess

 

[SugarShane]

Jones had 0 touches in a half in the trial game with 92% TOG. And he gets two games in the first month. Forget injuries - that's piss poor selection integrity.

Then to hear Matt Crouch, who is only a few months out of the internal machinations of the club, say on 5AA that Dowling and Edwards don't get games because "they're not A graders"?

What a bunch of morons.

David Mackay - 248 games
Lachlan Murphy - 120 games
Chayce Jones - 100 games
Ned McHenry - 70 games

But sure, we've figured out in 10 games for Dowling and 0 for Edwards that they aren't up to it.

 

[GreyCrow]

That Keays miss in the dying minutes proved costly, because he normally slots those.

I said in the game day thread he had everything going for him. Preferred side - plenty of time - just hoofed it too long

 

[Samcro24]

David Mackay - 248 games
Lachlan Murphy - 120 games
Chayce Jones - 100 games
Ned McHenry - 70 games

But sure, we've figured out in 10 games for Dowling and 0 for Edwards that they aren't up to it.

That’s 100 not out for chayce Ventura

 

[Pea Nut]

Plenty of talk about Nicks and the press conference quotes which highlight how we want to play. And fair enough. But the other damning thing he said during that press conference which I have not seen mentioned yet was when he referred to having continuity with our playing 23 and the requirement for connection and cohesion. There’s your answer when people wonder about selection integrity. Nicks has a one track mind when it comes to how our side needs to look and he ain’t gonna change. The second Laird can get back, he’s straight back in. Other players bang down the door demanding selection only to never get picked. There’s your answer. Why don’t we try another runner off a half back flank ?? That is why !!!

 

[GreyCrow]

This is 100% correct.

Early last year we kicked 160 points at the G against Essendon, but conceded 100 points. It scared the sh*t out of him.

Scared some posters in here as well

So many saying tighten up while the smarter of us were like '' who cares just kick more ourselves ''

 

[GreyCrow]

What is this "earn the right" bullshit? Sounds like loser talk.

Reminds me of Hinkleys ''you get what you deserve ''

 

[adelaidecrows]

I bet if we delisted him at the end of the year and Geelong picked him up he'd turn into a star

Good role players always perform well at clubs who build cohesive game plans. Nicks doesnt have a cohesive game plan and role players tend to get exposed. I admit Pedlar is likely to be a better player somewhere else.

 

[King Elvis]

We went in with 5 guys that can and have rucked - MacAndrew, ROB, Thilthorpe, Maley, Tex - why?

Poor planning with SANFL yesterday?

 

[Vader]

What has any of that got to do with my post?
He’s the same dopey lump rule change or no rule change.

I assumed that was the reason for singling ROB out.

But if it's just the usual ROB hate-fest garbage that's been festering on this board for years, then carry on shit posting as usual.

 

[Trenchies Park]

Every AFL side has

I'm convinced he isn't actually that smart, he can't be. He is a huge fan of Jordan Peterson, a guy who eats an all meat diet and got addicted to benzos while writing pop psychology books that tell people the most basic shit like clean your room. Peterson who before becoming a right wing grifter flirted with the idea of starting a religion based around his wife who he believes has prophetic visions, I'm not making this up.

This is the guy Riley is a huge fan of.

O'Brien probably knows how to study well, doesn't mean he is particularly smart.

Gee, what a diatribe

 

[WetCrow1991]

Every AFL side has
Gee, what a diatribe

A paragraph is hardly prolonged.

 

[Trenchies Park]

A paragraph is hardly prolonged.

A paragraph is hardly prolonged.

Make a speech next time. Rob has bad views, we understand mate

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

Mcandrew was in our best 4 and won his position imo. Rob cost us the game, not just from that kick, but allowed freo to get on top every time he was on

Won his position? I was fine with Rob coming in as second ruck. Reality is we don’t have any decent rucks on our list.

all of you have been so starved of a decent ruck that you think mcandrew is good.

He and Rob are not afl standard first rucks.

Our ruck stocks are rubbish and it’s showing.

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

I don't think so Mrs OBrien!

He was pantsed.

Adelaide haven’t had a good ruckman since Rehn.

Just like we haven’t had a good midfield since the early 2000’s

 

[jamesclean]

Rowey is a ****in muppet. It was probably xJamescleanx that rang in to have a cry to Rowey about me being mean to keays..

hahah he's having a truly terrible year. I also dropped my x's if you need to tag me xo