Calm down guys

[Cameron_K]

I may be one of the few Freo supporters who isn't a huge fan of Peake. Yes his pace is needed in the side but I just don't find him effective in the work he does off the ball and can fade out of the game way too easy. I have said it numerous times this pre-season but Ibbo will be a better player for the club than Peake.

Bring back Matty Carr, hopefully Black is back and give Dunn a run (from what I have seen the guy can get the ball out the midfield better than any of our players)

Also Crowley was BRILLIANT in the first half, dominated Burgoyne all over the field. I don't have a clue why he was moved off him in the second half.

 

[dugrene]

Haselby looked about 4 or 5 yards too slow for AFL today.

He does a few good things but he can't run, he is nearly a liability. He does it right often when he gets the ball but he is slow, cant chase, cant tackle. CC should play him as an old fashioned center. IE. Some one is given the ball because he knows what to do. (no offence to all the great centermen WA has produced.)

Port did their homework on Crowley and stopped his influence well and he crumbled under the pressure of this. Some of his decision making was terrible. Did you think they played well?

Peake was well covered also when he came on. This will be the year when Peake gets more attention. Time his old man gave him a few tips.

 

[Big Cox]

I was at the game today guys so ill try and give a non bias view. You dont shepherd at all I noticed. Need to improve in that area. Quite simply guys you looked too slow. You need to inject some pace into the side.

 

[dugrene]

I may be one of the few Freo supporters who isn't a huge fan of Peake. Yes his pace is needed in the side but I just don't find him effective in the work he does off the ball and can fade out of the game way too easy. I have said it numerous times this pre-season but Ibbo will be a better player for the club than Peake.

Bring back Matty Carr, hopefully Black is back and give Dunn a run (from what I have seen the guy can get the ball out the midfield better than any of our players)

Also Crowley was BRILLIANT in the first half, dominated Burgoyne all over the field. I don't have a clue why he was moved off him in the second half.

see my previous post ^^^^^^ .

I he will adjust his game. He was pretty much tagged today.
I agree he has to improve his defensive game. But for all we know he might be instructed to keep loose. CC has to decide if he is tagged and what to do with the tagger.

 

[chook2734]

Agree 100%. Very disappointing attitude from the players, after 6 months off they should be fired up for round one.

Connolly's reaction will be interesting. Will he give everyone another chance or make a few changes? Murphy will need to play well next week if he retains his spot, don't think he took a mark inside 50. Cook should play next week, atleast we can be confident that he will give 100%.

I agree on Cookie coming in to add a bit more grunt - we could certainly have done with that in the 3rd and 4th quarters, but I'm a bit concerned about adding in one more player with less than good disposal. We appear to have found another one in Duffield - he has no problems getting the ball, but his disposal is not even close to AFL standard. Browne has always had a few problems in this area too and McManus can add a blunder or two in most games. This is what needs to be stopped if we are going to improve. Connolly needs to let the players know that it's not acceptable to be unable to hit a target.


Is Cook actually fit yet anyway? Does anyone know if he'll be playing for Perth tomorrow?

 

[Rob]

Sh*t happens in round 1. Look at last year, Essendon beat Sydney, even f**king Carlton beat Melbourne. So there's no need to panic.

In saying that, it was the same old problem of getting smashed in the clearances. The 3rd quarter was embarrassing, even when the ball did find its way into a purple jumper in the middle, we just handballed it away instead of booting it forward.
Until we get the problem fixed to the extent that we can at least break even in the middle, we will not be winning premierships. If we managed to break even in the middle today we would have won by 8 goals.

 

[raffrox]

Connolly could go from coaching the premiership favourites to being in the gun in the space of a fortnight.

Major, major, major over reaction in that statement.

I very pissed at todays result but take a deep breath people.

 

[dominguez]

I was at the game today guys so ill try and give a non bias view. You dont shepherd at all I noticed. Need to improve in that area. Quite simply guys you looked too slow. You need to inject some pace into the side.

You always look slow when you are chasing, which is what we did after quarter time because we got smashed out of the centre. Web don't look slow when we play the best midfield in the competition.

 

[dominguez]

Major, major, major over reaction in that statement.

I very pissed at todays result but take a deep breath people.

I didn't say that he should be, but it's certainly possible. We have never beaten essendon at the dome and on todays performances we will start as under dogs in the derby. If we are 0-3 after talking ourselves up all summer and trading to win a flag the WA media will resume their sack Connolly campaign.

 

[dockers_bengals]

I didn't say that he should be, but it's certainly possible. We have never beaten essendon at the dome and on todays performances we will start as under dogs in the derby. If we are 0-3 after talking ourselves up all summer and trading to win a flag the WA media will resume their sack Connolly campaign.

Yep agree and I also think people here have got caught up in the media hype as well with the players out,bell getting injured,Parker,tarrant limited game time till today,duffield first midfield run it was always going to be a battle.

 

[Dagless]

Not being biased, just seemed as if many of the Freo players expected the win to fall in their lap when they had a decent lead. They tried picking back up again towards the end but port started chipping... Sad really. I wouldn't worry, bouncing back should be no trouble at all... 'Specially against the bombers

 

[estibador]

But **** me.. we didn't play like that bad today, Port were just deadly accurate in the 3rd, I mean some of those goals were ****ing lucky you must admit.

Yep they kicked some brilliant goals from every part of the ground in the third quarter. Even worse you just had that resigned feeling when they were lining up that they were going to go through.

Likewise I just knew Solly was going to miss that shot on the 3Q time siren after kicking the harder ones earlier. It was just one of those days I guess, momentum can be a cruel mistress.

They were half done, you could tell easily by the way they trailed off during and after the 2nd quarter (those 2 you mentioned). I got the feeling that our players were treating this game like a walk over.. doing party tricks and thinking they are great... but this was like a final to Port and caught us unawares.

We still need to win games like this, but overall, the reasons we lost this one are relatively easily fixed.

I really hope this is the case too. Maybe this was the kick in the teeth the players needed to be reminded not to get ahead of themselves.

I'm just starting to wonder how many kicks they need for the message to sink in. After leaving our run so late last year you'd think they would've learned to treat every game like a final.

 

[Purple Passion]

Des Headland??? DJ worked his ass of today and it seems again he doesnt get mentioned unless he has a shocker.
His smother in the third term was wonderful.

The only positives from today for me where Pavlich, Des, Sandi and Solly.

No No No No mate i think you might be mistaken was one of our worst today missed almost every target (one stands out in the third when Tarrant was a mile ahead of his opponent and 211 dropped it a couple short )
Meh needs to stick to rucking consistantly coz his so called Ruck dominance went out the window for the better part of an hour tried to many precision kicks but then again he was not the only culprit i jus hope we can hold it together over the next few weeks otherwise the floodgates will open and we might not have a coach by mid season (that sounds strangely familiar ) the Worst will be lurking in the shadows and its so much more difficult when you get home from that! performance to see the Eagles stick it out to that last point watching Kerr play like that and comparing it to our midfield is probably the only thing that could come close to the way i felt ...today

 

[TP3_Freo]

Did you think they played well?

Obviously the first half yes, but second half intensity was
I agree with everything you said, that's what I think as well, I think it's still early days, but these problems need to be rectified early, or someone needs to step it up. Dunno who, but someone does.

 

[wehavethepassion]

Bring on rick's farm now

Instead of waiting to be 0-2 lets have the "bonding session" at Rick's farm sooner than later . Need to commit to the direct get it moving forward quickly brand of footy seein the second half of the year in 2006. currently there is too much handball. We have All Australians in the forward fifty
so get it to them quick which means kick the ball long and to advantage.

Tatter should have been outside fifty with Pav, Tarantino and Solly/DJ/Brownie

Huge game this week at the shed where we can't buy a win of late.
They were towelled up there by a young quick Kamgas outfit a month ago and towelled up by a young quick midfield against port yesterday.
Sheedy will load up teh side with all his quick players.

Bomber peak is the quickest we have got but is hesitant to run straigth at the goals, ran around in circles yesterday.


We played too wide but that was because we couldn't win any clean ball from the stoppages and go directly to goal as Port did in the last half.
We have aman mountain in Big Bird but still can't dominate the stoppages this is with 2 midfield coaches. If Tallmuir wasn't fit why play him. he looked like a spectator for most of the game.

If we go 0-2 the rumblings will start about the coaching. the last thing the FFC needs is a revist of 2004 & 2005. Sides that make the top 4 have lengthy winning runs.

 

[Boy from the West]

I agree on Cookie coming in to add a bit more grunt - we could certainly have done with that in the 3rd and 4th quarters, but I'm a bit concerned about adding in one more player with less than good disposal. We appear to have found another one in Duffield - he has no problems getting the ball, but his disposal is not even close to AFL standard. Browne has always had a few problems in this area too and McManus can add a blunder or two in most games. This is what needs to be stopped if we are going to improve. Connolly needs to let the players know that it's not acceptable to be unable to hit a target.


Is Cook actually fit yet anyway? Does anyone know if he'll be playing for Perth tomorrow?

Perth played last night and Cook did not as is still recovering from an ankle injury. Has been out 3 weeks.

 

[theGav56]

I think the last thing we should do is bring in players such as Black or Cook if they have any fitness issues due to recovering from injury. We had too many players who did not look 100% today, and paid for it.