Autopsy Cats lose to Hawks by 12

[Footy_Fan2007]

He's just trying to blame anyone but the coach. Our fitness is fine. We ran all over collingwood in the 4th to win that game.

Footy Classified showed one section of play where the hawks slipped through 7 straight geelong tackles. 7 straight. And they were tackles that didn't have a high degree of difficulty either. Very poor. And those slipped tackles continued all game.

Yep. Slipped tackles, standing off the contest waiting for someone else to get the hard ball.
Missed goals. Stupid free kicks.
I can’t believe we only lost by 12 points. Horror display. Reminded me a lot of a final actually.

 

[Pollywaffle]

We've been going around and around on this for years now. Reading some of this and other recent thread gives me a feeling of deja vu.

So I'll go over my own theory...again
I think there are two things at work. 1) the leadership is just not sparking the team enough, or at least some key players. Remember how Enright(coach) gave the pregame rev and the boys came out absolutely steaming. It starts at the top. New voice maybe. Or maybe there aren't enough campaigners in the playing group to push the other guys. Too many good blokes?
2) I firmly believe a part of the culture that Scott? or someone brought in was one of a more comfortable, less stressful work environment. More millennial than old-time footy you might say. While there is success in the H/A grind, there isn't the edge for finals. It's attractive to veteran recruits. That's all I can come up with, as to why consistently we don't have energy levels up to match oppos.
There are some players who give good effort, but overall we too often are a % point or two off and we get smacked. To my mind, that's motivation and mental preparation.

This is the danger of having a large cohort of older players. The psychology becomes important.
Preservation, creeping realisation of mortality and limitations, awareness of injury or of situations where injury can occur, career prolonging hesitancy at the contest, Encroachment of life outside football. The new McMansion in Torquay, kids, wives, mistresses , a bit of the ‘near enough is good enough’ philosophy.
Administration and coaches who can manufacture glib excuses and continue with ‘buddy picks’
All adds up to lack of edge, acceptance of falling short and that couple of percent off performance that takes a team to the biggest prize.

 

[Down at K Park]

Other than Selwood and Danger but Danger can be lazy at it, most other mature players have times they just don't want to get hurt

I'm trying to thing who our enforcer would be. Someone who would fly the flag if a brawl started. Can't think of anyone.

Atkins maybe? Where's our chappys, mooneys, milburns? Guys with a tough streak who would relish the aggressive stuff. We're soft. And no I don't mean hitting guys off the ball, or any of that faux tough guy s**t before someone chimes in with that.

I could mention selwood but he often does it to the teams detriment and gives away free kicks.

 

[Farmer2Goggin]

we are actually missing Rohan and his influence

people love to hang s**t on him, but he competed strongly in the air and was most often the one going up for a contest and ensuring it was not intercepted... that role has gone to nobody now as hawkins cannot jump, and cameron is very easily getting outmarked in contests.

They seem to have tried to give the role to Sav, but not sure how many contests he is getting to and influencing

This is one of the reasons I was so sorry to see Krueger go.
Competing at the edge of his own safety but he could really be something once he settles. Already a Pie favourite

 

[Farmer2Goggin]

This is the danger of having a large cohort of older players. The psychology becomes important.
Preservation, creeping realisation of mortality and limitations, awareness of injury or of situations where injury can occur, career prolonging hesitancy at the contest, Encroachment of life outside football. The new McMansion in Torquay, kids, wives, mistresses , a bit of the ‘near enough is good enough’ philosophy.
Administration and coaches who can manufacture glib excuses and continue with ‘buddy picks’
All adds up to lack of edge, acceptance of falling short and that couple of percent off performance that takes a team to the biggest prize.

Totally agree which is why we need to regenerate with youth selectively in the team - puts the old blokes on notice and the kids bring new energy and desire which rubs off onto the rest of the side.

 

[FredLeDeux]

This is the danger of having a large cohort of older players. The psychology becomes important.
Preservation, creeping realisation of mortality and limitations, awareness of injury or of situations where injury can occur, career prolonging hesitancy at the contest, Encroachment of life outside football. The new McMansion in Torquay, kids, wives, mistresses , a bit of the ‘near enough is good enough’ philosophy.
Administration and coaches who can manufacture glib excuses and continue with ‘buddy picks’
All adds up to lack of edge, acceptance of falling short and that couple of percent off performance that takes a team to the biggest prize.

 

[Partridge]

Made some mistakes but like last week at least he was one of the rare few willing to run and try create something in the last quarter. Old blokes were knackered and just about ready for their hot cocoa by then.

Fair call. I've taken to Miers with a baseball bat on here (and will do again no doubt), but he seemed one of the only ones running to create contests. The wisdom of having him so far from goal is another thing.

 

[Partridge]

With respect, it’s not possible at this point to unearth a KPD magically. We have to work with what we have. But if our “general” back there coughs up 4-5 goals as he did today we are going to lose.

Stewart is starting to perfectly summarise our problem. He's a good but not great player, in a good but not great team.

He is really good, excellent even, at two things - intercepting the opponent's attack and creating drive.

What we've learned this season, is that he is not that good at minding a direct opponent, and under pressure his disposal and decision making can collapse.

 

[STPer18]

Fair call. I've taken to Miers with a baseball bat on here (and will do again no doubt), but he seemed one of the only ones running to create contests. The wisdom of having him so far from goal is another thing.

It's unorthodox but his kicking on goal is generally pretty good too. It's strange to say but him having such a large fitness base might be forcing him to play a different position than what he's more naturally gifted at.

 

[PeasFC]

We've been going around and around on this for years now. Reading some of this and other recent thread gives me a feeling of deja vu.

So I'll go over my own theory...again
I think there are two things at work. 1) the leadership is just not sparking the team enough, or at least some key players. Remember how Enright(coach) gave the pregame rev and the boys came out absolutely steaming. It starts at the top. New voice maybe. Or maybe there aren't enough campaigners in the playing group to push the other guys. Too many good blokes?
2) I firmly believe a part of the culture that Scott? or someone brought in was one of a more comfortable, less stressful work environment. More millennial than old-time footy you might say. While there is success in the H/A grind, there isn't the edge for finals. It's attractive to veteran recruits. That's all I can come up with, as to why consistently we don't have energy levels up to match oppos.
There are some players who give good effort, but overall we too often are a % point or two off and we get smacked. To my mind, that's motivation and mental preparation.

I'm not sure how so many people on this forum want to look at "big sweeping" statements as to why we lose.
It's always the same stuff, "too old", "lack onfield leadership", "MC too stubborn", "Higgins/Sav/Kolo/Dal" or worse "Selwood is done, Blicavs no good".

All of these big arguments, you have cited a lack of leadership and an environment that is too comfortable.
We have the highest winning percentage of any team over the last 11 years. The highest.

For the most part, we are well coached, we have good leaders and a culture that cultivates more wins than losses. We haven't been good enough to win flags in that time, no doubt. Close, but ultimately not good enough. The reason we lost on Monday is because at the moment, we are a team that will likely finish between 4 and 10th. It's highly likely that our system, our leaders, our home ground advantage and our culture will ensure that's closer to 4th than 10th. However, we are now a side that will need to play at their best to win every week. We started poorly, kicked inaccurately and were wasteful going inside 50 - against a team that brought effort and pressure for four quarters and were better on the day. It wasn't cos enright didn't give a pregame speech, or because the coaches have created a millennial culture that lacks motivation.

 

[Partridge]

This is the danger of having a large cohort of older players. The psychology becomes important.
Preservation, creeping realisation of mortality and limitations, awareness of injury or of situations where injury can occur, career prolonging hesitancy at the contest, Encroachment of life outside football. The new McMansion in Torquay, kids, wives, mistresses , a bit of the ‘near enough is good enough’ philosophy.
Administration and coaches who can manufacture glib excuses and continue with ‘buddy picks’
All adds up to lack of edge, acceptance of falling short and that couple of percent off performance that takes a team to the biggest prize.

Can't fault that, and that is all secondary to the biggest worry - physically they simply can't keep up with younger, fitter, and hungrier opponents. And it's only Round 6.

 

[PeasFC]

Fair call. I've taken to Miers with a baseball bat on here (and will do again no doubt), but he seemed one of the only ones running to create contests. The wisdom of having him so far from goal is another thing.

Couldn't agree more, looked like the only one with run in his legs in the 4th.
Had some instances where his ball use looked elite, and as many where his decision making and risk taking created major turnovers.

All in all, I think he is learning to playing the wing really well and is a important cog moving forward. He will always be more outside than inside, and hence reliant on us developing a young contested mid group. He takes the game on though, is an elite runner and he will make less blunders as he develops.

 

[standupand]

Stewart is starting to perfectly summarise our problem. He's a good but not great player, in a good but not great team.

He is really good, excellent even, at two things - intercepting the opponent's attack and creating drive.

What we've learned this season, is that he is not that good at minding a direct opponent, and under pressure his disposal and decision making can collapse.

I agree with the bolded and that this is the key difference between him being a great player or just a very good one. I think we had this discussion a few weeks back? My view was that he had the attributes to do so - beat an opponent as well as offer a lot in terms of attack - but that we don't always see it. I think you said you thought he just wasn't a good defensive player. We probably saw some glimpses on Monday. I remember a key spoil 1 v 1 for e.g against a good opponent like Breust. But we also saw some lapses - and these seem to be increasingly creeping into his game.

 

[standupand]

Couldn't agree more, looked like the only one with run in his legs in the 4th.
Had some instances where his ball use looked elite, and as many where his decision making and risk taking created major turnovers.

All in all, I think he is learning to playing the wing really well and is a important cog moving forward. He will always be more outside than inside, and hence reliant on us developing a young contested mid group. He takes the game on though, is an elite runner and he will make less blunders as he develops.

I'm not sure his laser-like pass in the 4th wasn't actually a miss-kick (but maybe its my misperception of that action). He has a limited but curious combination of strengths - elite running capacity and a decent goal-sense. Try to make use of his aerobic strengths by playing him up the ground and you generally get hurt by his passing and the fact he isn't really a natural playmaker. Closer to goal, he doesn't quite have the burst of speed/acceleration or tackling strength to be a really effective pressure forward and goal sneak.

 

[My Tilly]

Stewart is starting to perfectly summarise our problem. He's a good but not great player, in a good but not great team.

He is really good, excellent even, at two things - intercepting the opponent's attack and creating drive.

What we've learned this season, is that he is not that good at minding a direct opponent, and under pressure his disposal and decision making can collapse.

Shows how good Enright was as comparisons to Stewart are fair but Enright did it for a decade.

 

[PeasFC]

I'm not sure his laser-like pass in the 4th wasn't actually a miss-kick (but maybe its my misperception of that action). He has a limited but curious combination of strengths - elite running capacity and a decent goal-sense. Try to make use of his aerobic strengths by playing him up the ground and you generally get hurt by his passing and the fact he isn't really a natural playmaker. Closer to goal, he doesn't quite have the burst of speed/acceleration or tackling strength to be a really effective pressure forward and goal sneak.

That's a really fair take.

I think calls to play him close to goal are answered by your last point there. He lacks a bit of explosiveness which you tend to need to play deep and be effective. I think he will make it as a winger, I really liked his running patterns the last two weeks and I've watched him closely. He holds his width nicely and runs two ways. He absolutely needs to tidy up his use, but I think that will come and in the pursuit of being a more aggressive team with ball in hand we have to be a little patient with a guy who naturally seems to want to do that.

I'm interested by your comment that he isn't a natural playmaker? I look at that run in the second quarter where he dinked a little cross the body (highly risky) 15m pass to guthrie and then went on to get it back. He was moving away from the rest of them and unfortunately didn't hit the kick to cameron - for me that showed his desire to want to make plays and get forward. Just execution that let him down. Also, I'm paying that laser pass

Overall I felt like he was far from our worst on the weekend and I worry that amidst so much "play the kids" talk, there isn't more patience with Miers.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

What game were you watching?
Running out of legs wasn’t why we lost. We lost due to slipped tackles, fumbles, inaccuracy and general lazy/lethargic football. It was like that from the opening bounce.
Not because we “ran out of legs”
Bizarre take.

I was watching a game where we had no run and carry in the last quarter, did big long high bombs to nobody in our forward half because they were tired, then got run over by the hawks into our defensive fifty over the back on several occasions.

Is very un geelong like to go 0 goals to 4 in a last quarter like that either and look so lethargic just bombing the ball forward.

They generally just bomb the ball forward like that when they are out of gas to move it forward with any fluency

 

[PeasFC]

Shows how good Enright was as comparisons to Stewart are fair but Enright did it for a decade.

Enright had Scarlett and Taylor alongside him - plus a young midfield that were really hard to play against and that had some elite defensively minded players in Kelly/Corey and even Bartel. Stewart would look even better if there was less quality ball coming in and better support alongside him. I think we are undervaluing how much not having a fit and firing Jack Henry leaves our back six looking a little vulnerable. Stewart is trying to do too much at the moment and to be honest, he kinda needs to do it all.

 

[My Tilly]

Enright had Scarlett and Taylor alongside him - plus a young midfield that were really hard to play against and that had some elite defensively minded players in Kelly/Corey and even Bartel. Stewart would look even better if there was less quality ball coming in and better support alongside him. I think we are undervaluing how much not having a fit and firing Jack Henry leaves our back six looking a little vulnerable. Stewart is trying to do too much at the moment and to be honest, he kinda needs to do it all.

I disagree.
Saw enough of Enright to realize he was in the discussion for greatest mid-sized defender of the modern era.
Never saw Doull but seen a lot of his career on film and he look a fair level above Enright.
Ayres has to be top 5 all time for his position.
Bluey McKenna rarely lowered his colours and another in the discussion.
Obviously so many other top defenders.
Stewart is a better mark than Enright. I don't think he's a better defender though. Boris had an innate ability to read the play before his opponent. It is why we entrusted him to play on some of the most explosives smalls and Enright was hardly a speedster in his own right.

Stewart has also played the majority of his career beside Henderson & Taylor. No doubt he would have been just as good if playing from 07 onward but so too would Enright in his prime in the current day and age.

 

[standupand]

That's a really fair take.

I think calls to play him close to goal are answered by your last point there. He lacks a bit of explosiveness which you tend to need to play deep and be effective. I think he will make it as a winger, I really liked his running patterns the last two weeks and I've watched him closely. He holds his width nicely and runs two ways. He absolutely needs to tidy up his use, but I think that will come and in the pursuit of being a more aggressive team with ball in hand we have to be a little patient with a guy who naturally seems to want to do that.

I'm interested by your comment that he isn't a natural playmaker? I look at that run in the second quarter where he dinked a little cross the body (highly risky) 15m pass to guthrie and then went on to get it back. He was moving away from the rest of them and unfortunately didn't hit the kick to cameron - for me that showed his desire to want to make plays and get forward. Just execution that let him down. Also, I'm paying that laser pass

Overall I felt like he was far from our worst on the weekend and I worry that amidst so much "play the kids" talk, there isn't more patience with Miers.

You're right, he does attempt some sneaky angles sometimes with his passes a la Stevie J and I like that he gives it a go. Super frustrating when they don't come off though I have to admit.. And I also totally agree with you on the point about patience more generally. It sometimes feels as if there's pleasant surprise and optimism whenever an 18-20 year old shows they can tie their own shoelaces, but as soon as any of those players turn 23 or 24 we either expect them to be superstars already or delisted.

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

18 marks inside 50…..
Anyone know how many goals we kicked from the 18 marks?

 

[Ratcat]

What's to lol about Foxdog, Sav's a big body about the packs,...fact is we got done!!!....or are you forgetting?
Just a thought mind you, they had some solid lads cracking in hard, I'II give them that.

 

[catempire]

18 marks inside 50…..
Anyone know how many goals we kicked from the 18 marks?

Around 7.

Edit: 8

 

[Romeoh1]

Hawkins will not get any free kicks for rest of the year, made things hard for himself after last 2 weeks

Who cares- he’s never been a favoured son of the umpires.
Just has to kick a few goals.

 

[Pollywaffle]

I'd say an area we're noticeable missing Rohan is our with our set-up for opposition kick-ins

Rohan was often the guy standing the 15m from the square, you could see he was just itching for the umpire to call play-on, and he'd quickly close the gap to the ball carrier & limit the extra distance they'd get on a kick in

Watching the other guys we've had in the role this year - such as Dangerfield & Dahlhaus, they don't have that manic pressure or burst of speed (Dangerfield used to, but not seeing it at the moment), and it's allowing the opposition kick in player more time & space. When there's no obvious option, it means they're running their full distance before kicking long down the line

If it's not Rohan in that position, we really need to find someone else with that burst of speed to pressure in that situation

Noticed that too.
Often just standing there while the FB strolls out and takes his kick with no pressure.
WTF? Some secret Scott plan, or just laziness?