Definitely had to ban myself from posting for about 36 hours because i blew up last year after our loss to Port in Ballarat.
I'll start with the positives because it's important to TRY and enjoy watching footy, although this one was a tough one.
Baz Smith is looking more like an AFL player with some nice attributes. I love watching him run, kick the ball sweet and attack the contest. He looks like a really nice little player on the sizzle.
Billy Gowers is such a beautiful mark of the ball. Really like him although his goal kicking in this game was frustrating. He's a specimen.
JJ and Daniel look nice and clean off half back. Love watching JJ play football. Incredible mover. The dagger turnover from Daniel hurt but apart from that i love him and know what he's there for. He's a great user who is supposed to shoulder an element of risk.
That's about it with the positives. It was a tough day as a fan. It is important now to look into the frustrations i have:
What were we trying to do? We didn't replace the ruck help. They have one of the best gravitational midfielders in the game. Cripps is totally untackleable and we gave him a significant ruck advantage. We were playing from behind from the contest the whole game. But that's okay right, because we have a great back 6! Oh wait, we've just taken out two experienced defenders, and the opposition have FOUR tall forwards. We went with the NBA equivalent of small ball without gaining an advantage in shooting. More smalls but still lose the ground ball ffs.
We have a tremendously talented aerial target up forward, but we are the worst team in the AFL at exposing ourselves on the turnover. Other teams that back their foot skills are Hawthorn and West Coast. If you watch how they set up the ground they are protected on the turnover. We are never protected. Our guys run forward of the ball in an attempt to overpossess the footy without giving ourselves a higher % look at the goals.
I would describe Beveridge's style right now as high risk, low reward.
We have a tremendously talented list, Bont, Macrae, Libba, Wallis, JJ, Hunter, Daniel, Mclean with a stack of really interesting young guys like Naughton, Richards, Smith and English. We are flat out underperforming and losing to teams with less talent because they are executing the basics. Gold Coast and Carlton this year have beaten us by winning aerial contests, evening or winning the physical ground ball contest, not turning the ball over, and running hard defensively. How about we put together a team that isn't afraid to kick the ball to a contest, by giving kids like Cordy and Naughton just a bit of support. We have been too cute for 24 months now.
One other thing, as soon as i saw the outs and the ins i knew we'd be in the shit. Beveridge seems to be perennially building towards 2022 by constantly playing the youngest team possible. Young cost us at crucial times today and it's hard to be patient when three weeks later he'll be replaced by another kid we need to be patient with.
Pick some low hanging fruit Bevo. You've had years to address our weaknesses and you're not doing it. You're not putting our young talls in a position to succeed and i am sick of it.