Review Dees v Aints in the Simpson Desert Cup: the Good, Bad & Fugly - Rd 19

Charlie_s123

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Jun 1, 2012
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We may as well try McDonald up forward. I missed the second half, but I thought McDonald spoiled well on the first. Assume he fell apart?
From what I saw he did one good spoil where he lead to the contest (for the first time in his career I think), the next time I saw him he went up and attempted to spoil back into play which nullified Lever's spoil for the boundary and ended up in a Saints goal, then whenever else I saw him he was about 5m behind his opponent. He's utter trash.
 
Apr 18, 2005
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I hate to alarm you but Goodwin is contracted until end of 2022. He'll get two more years irrespective of what happens next season. Yes we probably did sign him for too long too early but we don't have the money to pay him out two years in advance.
There’s literally no way he stays if we have a howler next year and start off the way we ended. Whilst he has been signed on a long term contract, he’d have clauses in his contract no doubt that would be performance based.

Mate. We can’t afford to keep him.
 
Apr 18, 2005
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Goody will get another year, but he needs to do a Buckley and have a look at himself and be a bit more flexible with his game plan and principles or he won't last much longer.
There’s a lot he has to do. He is in a very precarious position. Continuing to lose like this and be devoid of a win is genuinely crushing this group I feel.
 
Apr 1, 2018
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Why isn't anyone else on here questioning what our captain's are doing? They both have gone missing in so many games this year yet they continually get given a free pass from criticism because they are captains. They don't lead from the front, their media performance sucks, and they are both borderline best 22. Good blokes no doubt, and great servants to the club but we need to look forward not past now, if we want to get better we need a captain with a strong voice who demands respect through consistently good performance and nous. (I advocate Lever fwiw).
 

Charlie_s123

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Why isn't anyone else on here questioning what our captain's are doing? They both have gone missing in so many games this year yet they continually get given a free pass from criticism because they are captains. They don't lead from the front, their media performance sucks, and they are both borderline best 22. Good blokes no doubt, and great servants to the club but we need to look forward not past now, if we want to get better we need a captain with a strong voice who demands respect through consistently good performance and nous. (I advocate Lever fwiw).
I think having Viney as an automatic inclusion hurts our team, our midfield just seems to function better without him.
 
Apr 18, 2005
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There are guys like Baker and Hunt who havebthe attributes that we need but just can't get themselves in the right place to use it. Is it them, or is it coaching? I'm hoping the latter.

Lever, with time next to May and co, will be great.

Hibberd might be done, Hore is looking over his shoulder. We need another running half back though.
Hore we will persist with. He is a good player and it’s only year one. Absolutely have to find the best place for our players and keep them there. Salem needs to permanently play midfield. Hunt and Fritsch need to stay forward. Jones can’t play midfield anymore, so either it’s curtains or he is a defender or forward from now on. Baker at HB I am happy with.

It’s honestly not worth speculating too much. I mean we are shuffling deck chairs on the titanic. At the end of the day we need two A grade footballers.
 

Demon bhoy

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Oct 7, 2017
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Corey Wagner played ok I thought, just like last week. Josh Wagner is not playing at AFL standard and should be dropped.

I don't think Lewis should be playing mid-field OR back line but down forward he is doing ok. His years of experience are helping him out there. I doubt he will be with the club next year and if Melksham was available he would not be in the team.

I have been hoping ANB would have a break out game but he has not. He has been back in the team since round 14. He is not getting a high number of tackles (unless an average of 4 is considered high) and he is not troubling the score board either.

Frost, I think he just needs May/Lever there to guide him and he will be an excellent player.
Frost is a liability, if he is still at the point where he needs his hand held by Lever who is younger and less experienced just to be mediocre it’s time to give up on this at times comical experiment
 
Apr 12, 2014
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Players are not playing on instinct and appear to be second guessing and reactive in most situations on the ground.

My guess is that players are being over-coached.

In my opinion, when things aren't functioning and working well you need to simplify things and I see no evidence of that this year at all.

Have we gone from a zone defence to man on man? No.

Have we looked to go to a more traditional forward structure instead of continuing to try to score running back to goal? No.

What have the coaches done to improve our ability to execute a game plan on match days? On evidence, not much.

I think we've been in enough games to actually have a reasonable year, but poor coaching and execution has let us down 9 times out of 10.

Just wanted to say I always enjoy reading your thoughts mate, always provide some good analysis. Completely agree about the over coaching, look at how many times guys are second guessing themselves on the field.
 

Demon13304

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Feb 12, 2014
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Why isn't anyone else on here questioning what our captain's are doing? They both have gone missing in so many games this year yet they continually get given a free pass from criticism because they are captains. They don't lead from the front, their media performance sucks, and they are both borderline best 22. Good blokes no doubt, and great servants to the club but we need to look forward not past now, if we want to get better we need a captain with a strong voice who demands respect through consistently good performance and nous. (I advocate Lever fwiw).

Think Gawn should be captain next year
 
Oct 9, 2014
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Frost is a liability, if he is still at the point where he needs his hand held by Lever who is younger and less experienced just to be mediocre it’s time to give up on this at times comical experiment

I think Lever is just smarter. Frost gets carried away that is his biggest problem. Last year and this year he bust open games for the team. This is when the coaching comes in teaching him when to go and when to stay. This is the same for O.McDonald the coaching group need to find a role for him.

Buckley found a role for C.Mayne it is time for the Melbourne coaching group to step up (but they have not done a great job of it this year).
 

Demon bhoy

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I think Lever is just smarter. Frost gets carried away that is his biggest problem. Last year and this year he bust open games for the team. This is when the coaching comes in teaching him when to go and when to stay. This is the same for O.McDonald the coaching group need to find a role for him.

Buckley found a role for C.Mayne it is time for the Melbourne coaching group to step up (but they have not done a great job of it this year).
Frost has been better at times this year but it was a very low bar, Lever is a vastly better player as well as being a smarter footballer, you could count on one hand the good games frost has played in his 60 or 70 odd and on that same hand the 4 or 5 dumb s**t things he does each week.
 
May 15, 2005
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Commiserations on the loss.

Here are the midfield frequency stats from the game. If you haven't seen a previous post, this is an overall summary of how often your players were lining up as one of the 5 mids at bounces.

Overall Summary - 28 Bounces

Viney 23
Oliver 21
Brayshaw 19
C.Wagner 19 wing
Harmes 16
J.Wagner 14 wing
Hunt 12 wing
Baker 9 wing
Salem 3
Petracca 2
Lewis 2 wing

Rucks:
Gawn 23
T.Smith 5

Centre Clearances (as per Champion Data/AFL.com.au
Oliver 3
Gawn 3
Brayshaw 2
Viney 1
Harmes 1
Baker 1

1st Half - 11

Viney 9
Brayshaw 9
J.Wagner 9 wing
C.Wagner 8 wing
Oliver 7
Harmes 7
Baker 5 wing
Petracca 1

Gawn 10
T.Smith 1

Final Term - 9

Viney 8
Oliver 8
C.Wagner 7 wing
Hunt 7 wing
Harmes 5
Baker 4 wing
Brayshaw 3
Salem 3

Gawn 7
T.Smith 2

I'm not sure whether I ended up posting the stats from last week's game or not so here they are as well:

Overall Summary - 28 Bounces

Brayshaw 22
J.Wagner 22 wing
Oliver 21
Harmes 21
C.Wagner 16 wing
Lockhart 15 wing
Viney (inj) 10
Petracca 6
Fritsch 5 (4i, 1w)
Hunt 2 wing

Gawn 24
Preuss 4

Notes:
- Last week was the most ever starts for Josh Wagner in analysed games, and his first wing start at all since Rd 22, 2017.
- This week was Corey Wagner's most ever starts in analysed games (either club)
- Most inside starts for Salem since the short-lived inside mid experiment at the start of last season
- Interesting that the pinch-hitter received more starts as a ruck this week, than the legit 2nd ruck did last week
 
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