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2018- What Went Wrong

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Oct 7, 2005
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Adelaide
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
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Port’s season ended for me when McGovern took an uncontested Mark inside 50 with seconds to go. I didn’t watch Collingwood- had a lunch that I would’ve moved if... The final flurry of false hope may still occur but this season is now out of our hands and dead.

So what went wrong? Everything seemed to be going to a plan right up to Fremantle. Sure, some losses we would rather not have but still on track - then Fremantle.

Post what you like but there is already a thread for Hinkley Haters - I’m more concerned about the processes than the personalities. I need to process how the hope of the Summer of Costanza has turned into this shitty nightmare end of a season where we might not even make the 8.
 
Going to pin it down at Ken's refusal to rest Ryder and give Frampton some development. His niggle was announced early and there was zero action plan for it. What has happened? Ryder is cooked. When Ryder is done our entire midfield collapses.

I mean our forward entries are ridiculous but we can at least win games and beat good sides in spite of that.

But not planning for Ryder is just sheer arrogance. Arguably the most important player in the AFL right now. Dixon beating Sydney in the rucks in round 2 blinded the coaches.
 

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Rucks like Dixon only work for so long - we seen it with Trengove. Their unorthodox style and feelting ruck appearances make them difficult to counter... for a while. In the long term, no match for a proper 2nd ruck.
 
What's the point in having the best defence in the AFL if you can't score? We MUST become more attacking in 2019, or the fans simply won't show up.
 
Short kicks because they're harder to defend.

What they didnt say was that the short kicks would coincide with no run and carry.
 
Our recruiting in the last few years has varied between wants (Motlop, Rockliff, Watts) and needs (Dixon, Ryder). Dixon was not used correctly a lot of times. He was assumed to be another Schulz. There was too much of a chance Ryder would not always be available, either by WADA or his general fitness. Motlop has been good for us but has also gone missing. Rockliff has played a few good games but nowhere near enough for what he cost. Watts was another Melbourne "we will make better use of him than you" castoff but have we made better use of him? Getting games into Young, Ah Chee and Frampton would have meant we may not have had the talent but would have built a team, and a champion team will always beat a team of champions. An old cliche but still true.
 
Is it possible to find out where St Kilda 2009 - 10, and Freo 2013 would sit on this graph, for reference to our own predicament?

You’d need the Squiggle formula to be accurate but since the 2009 Saints won 20 games @ 155% I think it’s fair to suggest that they would’ve been balls deep in the graph’s glory hole.
 

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You’d need the Squiggle formula to be accurate but since the 2009 Saints won 20 games @ 155% I think it’s fair to suggest that they would’ve been balls deep in the graph’s glory hole.

So, to compare ourselves to those Lyon era juggernauts is a real false equivalency then? You could say we aren't even good at what we are trying to do, let alone that what we are trying to do doesn't get the job done anyway?
 
Round 1 and we saw a three-man tall forward line. Despite being close to our biggest win, the same wasn't selected again all season. Injuries didn't help, but that just highlights how poor our development of the next generation has been.

This has been an unfortunate issue.

Our best team imo has Ryder, Westhoff, Dixon, Watts and Marshall. I think they managed to play 2 quarters of football together for the year.

Not an excuse, but a shame we couldnt get them allmout there at once.

Our gameplan stinks, thats what i think went wrong. We try to play Mourinho-ball, instead we look like Moyes Everton
 
It's not one single thing that is broken it's a lot of things that don't work on nearly every level right throughout the Club.

The whole philosophy to being an elite level sporting club is not right at present. It's been allowed to fester over time and the only attention to it has been in addressing the perception rather than the true cause.

Wall papering over cracks, shuffling of deck chairs, whatever you want to call it but we have been negligent in duty as we are so scared to be honest.

It's completely fixable but will take time, however until some truth in assessment is undertaken by those with the power to do so then everything else will be more of the same, that being spin and tokenistic changes to quieten discontent.

That has been our way for a while now.

You don't fail as often in games, or seasons, as we do because of 1 single issue. It's much deeper than that and has been for a whole lot longer than the past 5 or so weeks.
 

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Need to work harder and place a greater emphasis on defending.
 
Need to work harder and place a greater emphasis on defending.

Finally, somebody gets it!

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Can’t be bothered to read it all:
- refusing to play what ruck stock we had available. Robbed Peter to pay Paul many times, as we did yesterday. Roaming Westhoff would have been handy yesterday, instead he was rucking around the ground.
- very poor skills
- poor i50 ball movement
- no run/work rate
 
I'm going with our gameplan was wrong and to defensive from the start. It handicapped us, and restricted our match winners which we have plenty, and there were fleeting moments where we released the shackles on this group, the second half of the first Showdown being a example but besides that it was to and far between. Hinkley lost confidence in the group, and week by week after being 11-4 it showed. Culminating in another wasted season.

Having watched a bit of the All or Nothing: Manchester City documentary, I can't help but feel we as a club should be watching that to learn how the very best in Pep Guardiola does it. He attacks and plays football that and his way, a different sport yes, but it's something we should be doing with our list. As Pep says to his players in it "We have to have courage to play football." We can heed the lessons of that as we currently do not.

Rather then this park the bus, defensive crap we currently play, we as a club have to have the faith in our list and let them play to their strengths. Not what we do now which is restrict them all to play defensive, and hope to grind it out or hold on.

If we line up with the same gameplan we have now, next year we are going to end up in the same place, if not in a worse place. Time this club from admin, to coaches, to the players stood up and backed themselves in.

Release the shackles, and learn from outside the box, rather then the back slapping groupies we currently have on the board through to the coaches. It has to end today, not be allowed to continue.
 

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2018- What Went Wrong

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