Calm down guys

[YelloMit]

Look, we lost in round 1 last year and looked what happened. We came 4th overall!

Plus there's always upsets at the start of the season. Freo just happened to be part of one of them. No big deal.

Plus Port played like animals out there. Never stopped running and got the rewards.

I know alot of us will be pissed off that we lost. Fair enough, but let's just move on and think the future.

 

[Sigwald]

Full credit to Port on they way they fought throughout the entire game. Personally I'm not too worried about this loss. We showed some good signs in the first half. Seemed flat in the second however, and there's no excuse for giving up such a lead.

If we have a similar fitness/form buildup over the season as last year, then I won't mind losing a few early in the season. I'd rather be 'on fire' in the second half. I hope we learn from it though.

 

[Kapow!!!]

Full credit to Port. Hit us in the area that we were at our worst: Discipline. They were disciplined enough to run, sheppard, create numbers and not give away too many Free Kicks.

Port deserved that win. I still say we're more talented but talent can only get you so far without cohesion and discipline. An area that the Port youngsters really excelled in.

 

[legitimatic]

Didn;t Essendon thump Sydney round 1 last year? Not too concerned, good win for Port they deserved it and very poor second half effort from Freo.

 

[yellowandblack2007]

Seriously wtf happened? I thought you guys were a certain win. Im being serious, you guys have helped rape my tips this week!

 

[Asgardian]

From what I saw Port's pace will worry every club

Great win by my team

 

[TP3_Freo]

As I said in another thread, we were just soft in many aspects of the game, as you said Kapow, they would sheppard, back each other up, lead hard and I think most importantly, when we had the ball they applied a hell of a lot of pressure which resulted in many turnovers and tackles.

On the other hand, we couldn't get a tackle to stick and apart from Solomon, no one really went in hard and applied any physical effort. Most disappointing to me was the lateral running exhibited by Peake and Roger Hayden, two guys who have the speed and skills to pass players, but for some reason today just couldn't get around anyone, and many of there possessions ended up in turnovers.

 

[Scham]

On the other hand, we couldn't get a tackle to stick and apart from Solomon, no one really went in hard and applied any physical effort. Most disappointing to me was the lateral running exhibited by Peake and Roger Hayden, two guys who have the speed and skills to pass players, but for some reason today just couldn't get around anyone, and many of there possessions ended up in turnovers.

Carr???

 

[dominguez]

Anyone who isn't furious about todays performance is a part time supporter.

 

[TP3_Freo]

Carr???

Yeah Josh went hard as well, but still compared to the Power, everyone was piss poor.

 

[Wizard]

Carr???

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.

 

[dominguez]

Didn't notice Solomon after half time.

 

[Wizard]

Didn't notice Solomon after half time.

Chris likes to bench players when they are playing well. See Des Headland.

FFS when a player is hot let them play.

 

[dominguez]

Chris likes to bench players when they are playing well. See Des Headland.

FFS when a player is hot let them play.

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

 

[TP3_Freo]

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.

Des was superb in the first half, but he went quiet in the second half, and the team seemed to drop off at the same time. He really had little impact in the second term, wasn't much run, and that's what he thrives on.

Solomon wasn't getting much of the ball in the second half, but he was one of the only players who would apply as much pressure as he could when the ball went into the forward line or around the half forward flanks.

 

[Scham]

Des was superb in the first half, but he went quiet in the second half, and the team seemed to drop off at the same time. He really had little impact in the second term, wasn't much run, and that's what he thrives on.

We weren't getting it at the stopages, so he wasn't being fed like he was in the first half. We really need to address our weakness inside so Des and Co can do their stuff outside. Losing Bell didn't help, but Haselby, and Crowley were inneffective which left Carr as our only real inside midfielder. Macca and Des tried hard but lacked support.

 

[rgauci]

Form Loss coincided exactly when Bell went off injured. Its no surprise: Think about this for 3/4 of todays game we had no: Bell, M.Carr, Farmer, Johnson, Black, Schammer or Cook. Hasleby, Longmuir and Tarrant all seemed half done.

All today proves is that you need 22 contributors. I think the selection committee made mistakes today.

 

[Scham]

Form Loss coincided exactly when Bell went off injured. Its no surprise: Think about this for 3/4 of todays game we had no: Bell, M.Carr, Farmer, Johnson, Black, Schammer or Cook. Hasleby, Longmuir and Tarrant all seemed half done.

All today proves is that you need 22 contributors. I think the selection committee made mistakes today.

I don't accept that. We had better personel on the ground than our opposition today even with the injuries/suspensions etc. They merely wanted it more than us. It was so obvious that they were pumped up to cause an upset and desperately wanted to win, whereas we got 5 goals up thought it would all just happen from there on and we dropped our guard, and surrendered the momentum.
I don't believe we would've selected Hase, or Jlo if they were half done. They were ready- just got badly beaten that's all!

 

[Memories]

In case you guys didn't notice, quite a few of our players looked underdone, the fitness was shocking for some of them. Hopefully they will get fitter for this run.

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. We need to sort out our middle like always, and again we went soft when pressured, very ****ing annoying watching that ****.

When players like Hasleby, Bell, Longmuire get some fitness into them our middle won't look quite as bad as it did today. Some promising signs... the way Port looked after winning (like they won the grandfinal) shows they really wanted to win this one, much more than us.

 

[dugrene]

The good thing is it is only round 1.
If for a minute our guys thought winning games of footy is going to be easy this year well today is a wake up call.

When we got the 34 point break in the third quarter I think the team as well asthe crowd figured it was in the bag. Well we all got a reality check.

Bring on round 2.

 

[Memories]

I don't accept that. We had better personel on the ground than our opposition today even with the injuries/suspensions etc. They merely wanted it more than us. It was so obvious that they were pumped up to cause an upset and desperately wanted to win, whereas we got 5 goals up thought it would all just happen from there on and we dropped our guard, and surrendered the momentum.
I don't believe we would've selected Hase, or Jlo if they were half done. They were ready- just got badly beaten that's all!

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.

 

[estibador]

Anyone who isn't furious about todays performance is a part time supporter.

Depressed is probably a better description of my feelings. It's not helping looking at the eagles score at half time either. Beer is helping soothe the pain somewhat.

If we're serious about a premiership tilt we can't be giving up 34 point leads at home, but it's early days and it's not all doom and gloom yet. Full credit to Port though, they could surprise a lot of people this year.

It's just so frustrating that everytime we look poised to deliver we come out with the same old stuff. Still, we showed what we are capable of in the first quarter and this game should hammer home to the players that we can't afford to ever take our foot off the peddle.

I'm not part of the sack the coach everytime we lose brigade but I agree that a few more performances like this and CC should start getting worried. Our list is too good to be continually losing winnable games.

 

[TP3_Freo]

We weren't getting it at the stopages, so he wasn't being fed like he was in the first half. We really need to address our weakness inside so Des and Co can do their stuff outside. Losing Bell didn't help, but Haselby, and Crowley were inneffective which left Carr as our only real inside midfielder. Macca and Des tried hard but lacked support.

What do you think is the weakness Scham?
Tackling pressure?
How were Haselby and Crowley ineffective?
Just curious as to what you think.

 

[dominguez]

They merely wanted it more than us. It was so obvious that they were pumped up to cause an upset and desperately wanted to win, whereas we got 5 goals up thought it would all just happen from there on and we dropped our guard, and surrendered the momentum.
I don't believe we would've selected Hase, or Jlo if they were half done. They were ready- just got badly beaten that's all!

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%.

 

[Scham]

What do you think is the weakness Scham?
Tackling pressure?
How were Haselby and Crowley ineffective?
Just curious as to what you think.

Port won 6 or 7 centre clearances in a row in the third quarter, and the last two of those were as easy and clear cut as the other 5! At the end of the day it comes down to pressure. You've simply got to be at the drop of the ball and be first to it, and if that doesn't happen be close enough to your opponent to pressure him if he gets it before you. Every player has one opponent and when the ball is bounced they're all shoulder to shoulder in the center but by the time the ball has risen and tapped the Port players were metres in the clear - not once twice or three times in a row but 7 FFS! And its happenning time and time again over the last few years.
Our weakness is that we clearly don't have enough players ;
i)willing to be first to the ball, or
ii)they're too slow to get to it first or
iii)don't have the instinctive football nouse to read where the pill will fall.
Tackling pressure isn't too much of a problem with us we're neither great at it or crap, but if your fired up to be first to the ball it isn't an issue.
Haselby looked about 4 or 5 yards too slow for AFL today. 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?