Autopsy Round 4, 2026: Positives and Negatives vs Sydney

[Goroyals22]

Go on.

He meant had their strengths….

 

[Eaglemaniac]

When I find incredibly scary when I watch us play other teams is that we don’t seem to have any powerful burst athletes that have size and pace and power, apart from Elliott Yeo and maybe Harley. Every other side seems to have a multitude of these players, and we can’t tackle them, we can’t run with them, we can’t make a contest against them, and we just get out powered every time.
To add to that the fact that most teams can hit a target easily and we don’t seem to be able to, we are just getting slaughtered in every facet of the game.

I’ve always said if you turn the ball over you look much more unfit than you really are because you’re having to chase much harder to get the ball back all the time. The first thing I would be doing with these guys is drilling skills constantly at training for the next couple of weeks because if you can’t hit a target, it doesn’t matter what your game plan is, you are cooked.

 

[Deplorable trumpster]

Go on.

Well, Cripps runs all day still and does get up and down the ground. And he gives his all. But he has no acceleration, pace or agility anymore.

I guess you could say Owies would be OK as a 3rd tall. If the opposition are overly focussed on your 1st and 2nd key forward he could be somebody who can bob up free in a dangerous spot and hold a mark. I assume thats how he kicked the goals he kicked at Carlton. Not that i am a fan of his.

 

[Truckosaurus]

Go on.

He makes a peach cobbler that is to die for

 

[Mighty Eagles]

When I find incredibly scary when I watch us play other teams is that we don’t seem to have any powerful burst athletes that have size and pace and power, apart from Elliott Yeo and maybe Harley. Every other side seems to have a multitude of these players, and we can’t tackle them, we can’t run with them, we can’t make a contest against them, and we just get out powered every time.

Spot on.

While it’s been great reward for the boys’ effort to win R2 & R3, our midfield is still quite concerning. We’re still a couple of inside mids short both in the short-term and certainly for the long-term. Robertson should return this week and I’d imagine we’ll draft one with our first round pick this year. But one alone won’t fix the problem, at least not in the short-term. If Harley seeks a trade in the next two years and Yeo likely retires by next September, it will expose this gap badly.

It’s good that both Duursma & Allan were given some opportunities there on Saturday. But overall, one of them working essentially offsets McCarthy not playing there. McCarthy trained as an inside mid in the pre-season and that was abandoned after R1, with him only playing the first-half there on Saturday before being returned to a HBF for the entire second half.

 

[Bender_]

Bo is that powerful burst athlete.

You've seen glimpses of it the past 3 weeks. You'll see more of it hopefully with some more midfield minutes.

 

[Corn69]

Honestly a great reality check for such a young team.

Sure we had confidence and form coming in but Coxy and Swans showed us the true difference between a rebuilding side and an elite well oiled machine with years of experience.

As sh*t as it was watching the train wreck, for a moment the pre match building build took me back to our dominant years.

It felt nice and this young team got a glimpse into what the future might hold.

We have absolute weapons but they are young and inexperienced. Guys like Harley, Duursma, CDT, Allan, Lindsey, Davis, Shanahan and AReid need time.

Also glad that Cox took no mercy us by fu*king around with players late in the game. They went all out for four quarters showing our youngsters how an elite team operates.

 

[ghostbat12]

When I find incredibly scary when I watch us play other teams is that we don’t seem to have any powerful burst athletes that have size and pace and power, apart from Elliott Yeo and maybe Harley. Every other side seems to have a multitude of these players, and we can’t tackle them, we can’t run with them, we can’t make a contest against them, and we just get out powered every time.

on one hand, you have fans complaining that we just get the powerful athletes. then another set of fans who say we don't get any. can't win.

when you are all playing better you also look a lot faster.

 

[HoneyBadger35]

For reference of the waters we were swimming in on the weekend. Expansion era stuff.

For comparison, Brisbane/Geelong was 81 points in a non 6-6-6, send spares into defence to slow it down era. Our Geelong game referenced above was 93 points, R24 at GMHBA with the pre-finals cue in the rack for the Cats.

Throw the tape in the bin.

 

[Astro7]

 

[THE A5]

View attachment 2574850

Im at an age where this shit ain’t offensive but i find the ****ing use of Ai to be.

 

[Jeremy McLovin]

Im at an age where this shit ain’t offensive but i find the ****ing use of Ai to be.

Yeah, time was if you saw something like this you knew someone had enough of a bone to pick with us to painstakingly photoshop each individual cone in place. You didn't want to see it but somewhat respected the time it must have taken. Now anyone can do it in seconds, it's lost it's shine.

 

[Jeremy McLovin]

For reference of the waters we were swimming in on the weekend. Expansion era stuff.

For comparison, Brisbane/Geelong was 81 points in a non 6-6-6, send spares into defence to slow it down era. Our Geelong game referenced above was 93 points, R24 at GMHBA with the pre-finals cue in the rack for the Cats.

Throw the tape in the bin.

And that Geelong game was actually worse, they were winning by 100 at half time. Saturday's game was actually better in comparison, was just that Sydney kept pressing the foot down, the campaigners.

 

[Scotland]

Positives: 0

Negatives: there are many, but I have two.

I wish I had the skillz to isolate and post video footage but there was at least one occasion and it felt like a handful where Sydney went coast to coast from a kick in and at least ended up with a behind or mark inside 50 if not a goal. Credit to Sydney their ball use is excellent, their centre square combo is much stronger than ours and Coxy is channelling Cal Bruton with his "run and gun" tactics. If Warner is prepared to back his teammates to win the ball and run 20m ahead of the play good on him.

But when you have the ball in the goal square and 6 kicks and 45 seconds later you have a mark 40m from goal that's not daring ball movement. Nothing I hadn't seen under Simmo but how do we go uncontested mark pocket, uncontested mark flank, uncontested mark wing, uncontested mark centre square, uncontested mark flank, uncontested mark inside 50... and think that is a good strategy? Then they, already a million points up, miss the shot for goal and we can't get the ball past half back. No gimme 25m kick to the pocket let alone any gimme kicks after that. We aren't being outmarked or outrun, we're not even conceding an outnumber allowing a switch - we're just conceding possession 120m from goal, then 90, then 60, then... explain it to me like I'm 5.

On the topic of explain it to me like I'm 5, what does Liam Duggan

14

Liam Duggan

Age

29

Ht

186cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

15.4

4star

K

10.1

4star

HB

5.3

4star

M

4.4

4star

T

2.1

4star

MG

283.7

4star

D

16.0

4star

K

12.0

5star

HB

4.0

3star

M

5.7

5star

T

1.1

2star

MG

283.7

4star

D

13.2

4star

K

7.8

3star

HB

5.4

4star

M

4.0

4star

T

1.2

3star

actually offer the side? For all the talk of needing senior leaders and not wanting the team to be too young I watch Duggan vs McCarthy, Lindsay who have played a handful of games and Ginbey, Hough who are 21 and 23 and Duggo is the one that plays like a first gamer adjusting to the speed and pressure at AFL level. He seems like a good dude but he was a liability last year and that hasn't changed. Duggan and Flynn both being in the leadership group is wild. With Flynn it's either him or BBW who both have their weaknesses, or Archer Reid/CDT who are very young. With the back 6 we have more options.

Saturday was a lesson in most areas but we are still so reliant on one guy turning 33 it is ridiculous. His CV is pretty good without being spectacular (2 AA, 2 B&F) but I hope when he retires people recognise how good he really is. And like most teams down the bottom our list (which is improving, hence 2-2 not 0-4 <50%) is paper thin. A couple of outs and we go from making a game of it to witches hats.

 

[Eaglemaniac]

on one hand, you have fans complaining that we just get the powerful athletes. then another set of fans who say we don't get any. can't win.

when you are all playing better you also look a lot faster.

I’m saying we don’t have powerful players who can get away from opponents with power, speed and dexterity, but also can hit targets like Sydney did on the weekend and like we come up against almost every week.

We have a team full of plodders who can’t hit targets, which only exacerbates the problem. If you’re gonna have a team full of plodders, you’d wanna make damn sure they can hit targets or you’ll get shredded on the rebound. That’s what happens to us every game and has been happening for years.

The worst part of it is that the biggest offenders in this regard are our captains and in our leadership group.

 

[The Dodger]

Positives:
Duursma.
Kelly - another game having a crack.

Negatives:
Have largely been covered but I can't help but think Flynn is going out there and trying to be attacking and aggressive. I would be hoping that they are giving him a defensive negating role against the opposition ruck. But if they are giving him that then it is a failure of epic proportions.

Largely the senior player group. Turn overs and lack of involvement. I'm thinking Waterman, Cripps & Duggan.

Sydney is our kryptonite (if we needed any anyway) in that their game style just tears us to shreds. That game was not unlike the 2022 game at Optus where they put the first 8 goals of the game on the board and we kicked our first just before half time. They went on with it this game.
Their weakness is when you can provide a contest at the ball drop and have stronger mids out body their fleet footed runners. But missing Robertson & Yeo was going to make sure we weren't going to get that. And where Flynn not being able to negate the ruck from the opposition allowed first / clean hands to get the ball on the outside of the contest quickly and burned us.

Disappointing but the margin is reflective of Sydney's ability to flat track a team that is flat rather than panic stations for us. Our weaknesses were known before this game and I saw nothing but expert exploitation of them rather than something new.

 

[Scotland]

We're also on a bit of an island this week. Could get ugly for Richmond but they have a run of average teams coming up.

As funny as it is watching Carlton self-destruct they weren't far of joining us, North and Port at 2-2. Essendon were as bad as us for a quarter then decided to try so are getting some good will this week. Not pretty but they could've lost by 900 also. As it stands North are 3-1, Melbourne are 3-1, Port are 2-2, we are 2-2. If you rank teams by % we drop to 16th and are one of 3 teams under 70 and that's probably about right given who we've played.

We've got Sydney, Geelong, Freo in successive weeks and B2B wins or not 99% of punters would have that down as 0-3. We've then got St Kilda away, Richmond home, Melbourne away, GWS home so that will be the test. Can't afford to slip into old habits of being uncompetitive against those sides.

 

[Balls In]

Provided this loss doesn’t become a trend, I’m not losing any sleep over Saturday’s game. We fielded a very young side, were missing absolute key personnel through injury, and came off a brutal month of football. All of that was against a team that is strong exactly where we are weakest, and who also had an extra 10 days of recovery. Context matters.

What I’m far more interested in is what the game highlighted about our trajectory toward a competitive 2028 side.

Structurally, we can safely say we have problems at our two key defensive posts. Ginbey is a third tall, rebounding defender being played out of position. Trying to settle him as a key back would be a mistake — he is never going to be that player when matched against the competition’s genuine giants.

We also currently have the worst lead ruck in the competition. Hopefully the solution is already on our list, but realistically those performances won’t fully emerge for a few years yet. In the meantime, it does nothing to aid the development of our young midfielders. That reality is a pretty damning indictment of the Simpson-era list and coaching brain trust.

The midfield contrast is stark. You can see just how transformed we look with Robertson and Yeo pushing in there, and Kelly is playing close to career-best football. The challenge is obvious: by 2028 and beyond, we need to replicate if not excced the combined output of those three - every game. With Yeo and Kelly likely gone by then, the hope is that players like the two Allens, Duursma, Milan, Gross, and whoever we draft or trade in over the next couple of seasons start to properly hit their straps. On the plus side Duusma looked every inch the A grader we hoped for and Bo Allen looks like a ntural inside mid in the making.

 

[Bender_]

Provided this loss doesn’t become a trend, I’m not losing any sleep over Saturday’s game. We fielded a very young side, were missing absolute key personnel through injury, and came off a brutal month of football. All of that was against a team that is strong exactly where we are weakest, and who also had an extra 10 days of recovery. Context matters.

What I’m far more interested in is what the game highlighted about our trajectory toward a competitive 2028 side.

Structurally, we can safely say we have problems at our two key defensive posts. Ginbey is a third tall, rebounding defender being played out of position. Trying to settle him as a key back would be a mistake — he is never going to be that player when matched against the competition’s genuine giants. He could even make it further up the ground in the long term but not if he is pigeon holed.

We also currently have the worst lead ruck in the competition. Hopefully the solution is already on our list, but realistically those performances won’t fully emerge for a few years yet. In the meantime, it does nothing to aid the development of our young midfielders. That reality is a pretty damning indictment of the Simpson-era list and coaching brain trust.

The midfield contrast is stark. You can see just how transformed we look with Robertson and Yeo pushing in there, and Kelly is playing close to career-best football. The challenge is obvious: by 2028 and beyond, we need to replicate if not excced the combined output of those three - every game. With Yeo and Kelly likely gone by then, the hope is that players like the two Allens, Duursma, Milan, Gross, and whoever we draft or trade in over the next couple of seasons start to properly hit their straps.

Who are the 2 Allens?

 

[GoEaglesGoSGIO]

I’m saying we don’t have powerful players who can get away from opponents with power, speed and dexterity, but also can hit targets like Sydney did on the weekend and like we come up against almost every week.

We have a team full of plodders who can’t hit targets, which only exacerbates the problem. If you’re gonna have a team full of plodders, you’d wanna make damn sure they can hit targets or you’ll get shredded on the rebound. That’s what happens to us every game and has been happening for years.

The worst part of it is that the biggest offenders in this regard are our captains and in our leadership group.

Everyone looks powerful and speedy when they are fitter than the opposition.... which is the primary issue.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

And that Geelong game was actually worse, they were winning by 100 at half time. Saturday's game was actually better in comparison, was just that Sydney kept pressing the foot down, the campaigners.

Was this also the game Hutch played midfield, people lost their minds, and he got FOUR MORE YEARS?

If so yes, way worse

 

[Balls In]

Who are the 2 Allens?

Bo and Sam

 

[eaglespremiers]

Was this also the game Hutch played midfield, people lost their minds, and he got FOUR MORE YEARS?

If so yes, way worse

He only played half a game in the midfield IIRC.

 

[Scotland]

With Yeo missing (and Robertson I guess) I did find myself daydreaming about how much difference it would make for Warner to switch jumpers at half time. They are better across the ground but having Grundy and Warner in the middle just killed us.

 

[Astro7]

Im at an age where this shit ain’t offensive but i find the ****ing use of Ai to be.

Yeah, time was if you saw something like this you knew someone had enough of a bone to pick with us to painstakingly photoshop each individual cone in place. You didn't want to see it but somewhat respected the time it must have taken. Now anyone can do it in seconds, it's lost it's shine.

Don't care who does it or how they do it, I think it's funny and not far off the pace.