Autopsy Hawks Far Too Good For Dogs In 40 Point Drubbing 104 - 64

[threenewpadlocks]

I've noticed a pattern of Sanders getting judged to a much higher standard than others on here. I don't get it. He was decent tonight, in my opinion, far better than many others.

I'm the biggest Sanders hater on here and his game was very good. Neat clean hands in traffic, no real clear errors in decision making. I think is value is always going to be limited if his instinct is to always look backward and not believe he can find gaps running forward, but he won 13 contested possessions for us - 4 more than any other Dog - and he was one of the few blokes who actually looked like he knew how to respond to Meek and Reeves winning everything.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Some horrid numbers tonight...

64 points from an xScore of 98.7,

If you take goalkicking, to an extent, to be a random, uncontrollable process, we can simply be glad that it hasn't turned a win into a loss.

It's a good sign that we were competitive against Hawthorn despite all the weaknesses that are being talked about here if the solution is simply a kicking boots. Sure we would have lost by 10 points instead of 40, but it didn't cost us the win.

Our own kicking helped us when we made our comeback vs Brisbane, where every snap around our body sailed through. And we also managed to scrap 3 goals from general play in the last quarter too vs Adelaide.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Issue with our injuries that it's sort of all to players in the same group - smalls that play in the front 9 non-key position group.

Carmichael, Coffield and Cleary are all fit, playing reserves, as are Gardner and Buss. Smith too. Darcy and Lewis are fit playing up front.

English out is big simply as tonight proved that we don't have the depth in ruck. It's probably the smart list management move - why pay salary more than the minimum for a backup ruck that in a premiership season is likely never playing a game - but it leaves you exposed tonight.

But Libba, Garcia, Treloar, Jones, Vandermeer, Weightman to some respects all play the same position, and it's not so much that any individual player being out is a huge deal (as many podetsof our views on Vandermeer would suggest), it's how impactful layering on injuries becames. It's not just Libba injured, it's the guy that would have covered for Libba (Garcia) etc.

 

[revo333]

Our depth is lacking a bit. Missed too many gettable chances only 8 goals 16 behinds and we were something like 2.8 from set shots.

It showed last week but those who brought it up were told not to panic.

Overall the same shit as last season and same shit against Hawthorn the last 2-3 seasons.

No prizes for guessing what we will bring against Geelong, another honourable loss and we will be told to relax again.

At best we will be playing wildcard weekend.

 

[revo333]

Worst comes to worst and we’re 4-4 with our best players coming back into the side.

Won't bother me as long as there is effort and application.

 

[AJARWA]

Smith might be shit, but so was emmett tonight. If we are gonna play a shit ruck we may as well play the bloke that has been in the system a few years and is actually a ruck. Am i going crazy?

Sounds like Smith is not in the same form as last year, the new rule works against him, and Emmett deserved his chance.

Just didn't make any sense to me that we played both Emmett and Croft and expected them to be competitive against Meek and Reeves.

Buss in and Lobb to ruck with Emmett OR Croft supporting was the obvious change IMO.

Sure it meant an inexperienced defence. But I'd rather be competitive around the ball with less exposure on defence. Than the other way round.

Plus lobb in ruck can push back and play defensively with Croft or Darcy taking forward 50 stoppages.

Feel like this was another moment where Beveridge underestimated the importance of the ruck role. And it cost us.

 

[AJARWA]

English out is big simply as tonight proved that we don't have the depth in ruck. It's probably the smart list management move - why pay salary more than the minimum for a backup ruck that in a premiership season is likely never playing a game - but it leaves you exposed tonight.

Darcy Fort. 2024 Grand final.

 

[Golden_6]

I think the youth movement caught up to us a little bit last night. We’ve been treading a fine line with so many youngsters that need the right blend of experience to balance it out.

Our depth is being tested right now because a lot of the players outside of 23 are unavailable too.

English, Libba, Weightman, Treloar, Jones, VDM, Garcia are all likely within our top 30 selections. Even someone like Harmes would have been very valuable as a selection option right now.

 

[Libbaaaa]

I

Darcy Fort. 2024 Grand final.

Fort would be on peanuts.

 

[Sentinel]

What a cretinous take. Why even bother analysing a game if the final score is the only significant detail?

Recognising and addressing the if’s and but’s is the only way you learn and improve.

Indeed, but the comment was specifically about the scoreline.

 

[CarnTheScray]

Look, if Newcombe is going to have his once in a lifetime game every time he plays us, so be it. I can live with it. I had to watch Jon Patton kick 4 in a prelim final.

My problem is that every time we play Hawthorn we play with the most insipid pressure out of any game for the year. It’s bizarre. The Fox coverage pointed it out, our pressure after quarter time (where it was just “okay”) was as poor as it gets.

The same happened with Melbourne and is somewhat happening with Freo so it’s likely this team lets any team who beats them in finals get into their heads.

 

[maddog37]

Predictable result.

We let the hawks physically bully us in the tackle every time and don't retaliate. We are too nice.

 

[Deadly Darcy]

Won't bother me as long as there is effort and application.

That was the big difference Q1 in this game and the Hawks bring it every time. They hunted us unrelentingly and it set the tone early on.

 

[lachy]

To directly address your question:

• Without knowing who the author is or if the AFL website asks for club contributions to those player profiles it’s hard to say if it’s independent
• I’d be 99% confident in saying nearly every profile is written with a positive skew, but happy to be shown examples of the AFL website saying players look miles off it

I’m genuinely asking my questions in good faith:

• Did he really comfortably beat Crossley on the GF as asserted, or just put in a shift. The stats suggest otherwise. I didn’t watch so will defer to people who did.
• Did his form from this year warrant inclusion? The games I saw against Sydney and Casey (where I thought he was really poor) suggested to me it didn’t.

He was more damaging and impacted on the spread much more than Crossley. Given neither made their teams best players it can be argued that any difference was not a significant impact on the game.

However, it clearly demonstrated hw is already at 20 competetive with normal mature back up rucks. We were coming up against a ruck combination that has been significant im beating is without our main ruck.

Surely a combination of Lobb and a natural ruckman with 2 years senior football experience against 2 string AFL rucks would at least give us a chance to compete around stoppage than what we went in with

 

[Dazb86]

Still think Darcy should be playing ruck.

He's genuinely good at it not just a stop gap.

Our team relies heavily on clearances. More so tham the odd contested grab up forward.

 

[seaweed]

From the HSun.

Bloody hell Rory.

 

[dogwatch]

It’s more about how Bevo wants his side to work.

Isn’t the issue that Bevo rates a mobile athletic ruckman higher than a powerful tap ruckman? Especially with the new ruck rules.

So players like English, Croft, Lobb and Emmett are always likely to get first chance. It’s telling that as part of the solution he’ll pick an 18yo who has only been on our list a few months ahead of a physically imposing tap ruckman.

Smith has the aggression we need and wouldn’t be so easily bullied but he doesn’t have the athletic profile that Bevo wants.

Smith is still young but I can see him going the same way as Sweet.

 

[Angak]

Croft flies for everything, never marks it, and ends up rolling around on the ground hurt afterwards. Not ready.

 

[seaweed]

Croft flies for everything, never marks it, and ends up rolling around on the ground hurt afterwards. Not ready.

He does so much without actually doing anything at all. Extremely frustrating

 

[Hobdog]

one thing id like to do is genuinely give full credit to Rory Lobb i reckon he has turned into our best clubman and is becoming a heart and soul player, he may not be perfect but he always gives it his all, usually gets banged up every game but still tries his guts out no matter if its in the backline or if we need him in the ruck or forward has quickly become one of my favourite players at the club, hope he ends up playing 100+ games for us

its funny he came to the club with a bad rep but he seems like a top bloke honestly he should be in the leadership group over a few others atm

Agree. I didn’t see the game but Bev downplayed his effort in the ruck. Paraphrasing but he said ‘he did ok’. Perhaps realising he’ll cop scrutiny for not making the switch earlier by the sounds.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Didn't see the game. How did Freijah go? Haven't seen many mentions of him here. For someone who is supposed to be one of our most promising players I feel like he goes missing a bit too much.

Had a quiet night. Wasn't involved much. Was much better last week (sans a few fumbles - like the whole team!).

 

[The Inbetweener]

With the Hawks jumping us on the ladder we now have double up games against all top 3 teams, and none against the bottom 8. How good

 

[Hobdog]

Smith might be shit, but so was emmett tonight. If we are gonna play a shit ruck we may as well play the bloke that has been in the system a few years and is actually a ruck. Am i going crazy?

Smith isn’t a ‘shit’ ruck nor is Emmett. Think ‘inexperienced’ might be the word you’re looking for here.

 

[Golden_6]

With the Hawks jumping us on the ladder we now have double up games against all top 3 teams, and none against the bottom 8. How good

It’s an extraordinary tough fixture and not sure I’ve seen anything like it.

Oh we have 3 more top 4 contenders over the next 3 weeks? Fantastic.

 

[BEaston]

It’s either try Smith in place of Emmett, or use Lobb & bring in Busslinger. I don’t think there’s much more we could do apart from that. Could use Darcy & bring in Lewis, but **** risking Darcy getting injured for that.

Even if we had big Tommy Campbell tonight it would have been a different game lol

Do rucks get injured more than other players or is it a fallacy?