Review Dogs Lose to Demons by 28 - Rd 11, 2021

[stefoid]

That Naughton miss 20 out in front still annoys me, would have made it 2 goals. He misses, goes the other end, they goal and all of a sudden it’s 4 goals.
How does he get those easy misses out of his game?

practice? If he came to the draft as an accurate key forward he wouldnt be playing for us, hed be lining up for Freo

 

[Doggies_13]

Every team has those issues

It’s his job to be positive not worry about things he has no control over.

We sucked in Covid last year and worrying about those things will kill us this year.

I agree it’s his job not to show it if he’s feeling deflated by outside events. Was more commenting that I didn’t take how he came across as being football related but more state of society related

 

[bobs head soup]

That Naughton miss 20 out in front still annoys me, would have made it 2 goals. He misses, goes the other end, they goal and all of a sudden it’s 4 goals.
How does he get those easy misses out of his game?

Reckon it's a mental thing. When he has a fairly comfortable shot at a crucial time you can see that he tightens up, his weight doesn't come through and the ball pushes left.

He's just got to focus on kicking through the ball 100%. Should be amendable which is frustrating.

 

[Walsh Bay]

Simply came up against a better side.

They had superior pressure, and were on a mission. It's hard to pinpoint what we did 'wrong'. We were against a better side that did it better, and was hunting us from the first second.

Let's cheerfully watch a few weeks of double-page spreads on 'how to beat the Demons', the anointing of Petracca as the new 'best player in the league', and Gawn as 'the best captain in the game'.

 

[Morris Major]

Dunks and Treloar out is a piss weak excuse.

We have more than enough players on the park to put on a good performance and didn't.

 

[Dog 36]

Dunks and Treloar out is a piss weak excuse.

We have more than enough players on the park to put on a good performance and didn't.

Martin, Dunks, Treloar, Wood and maybe Gardner out still piss weak?
Add losing a midfielder early in the game.

We didn’t play well but hard to ignore our outs.

 

[Dogs Rule]

Dunks and Treloar out is a piss weak excuse.

We have more than enough players on the park to put on a good performance and didn't.

Who knows, but you know why we lost last night? Turnovers. Absolutely killed us and totally out of character. Fix that and suddenly the game gets interesting.

 

[Fossie 32]

 

[Dazb86]

Martin, Dunks, Treloar, Wood and maybe Gardner out still piss weak?
Add losing a midfielder early in the game.

We didn’t play well but hard to ignore our outs.

Our problem wasn't in the midfield. The outs hurt a little but they wouldn't have stopped our defendsrs turning the ball over

 

[Chalky White]

All I know is Lipinski legitimately needs 2 preseasons in the gym. Very skillful player but he is still very much a boy against men out there. Wet lettuce leaf in contact situations.

The gym doesn't build up courage I'm afraid. I'm reminded of the Wizard Of Oz and the feline main character. Except unlike the movie he ain't getting the nads at the end.

 

[Chalky White]

English, Bruce and Naughton all contributed pretty well given the service.

Roarke was ok again.

Bont, Hunter and Libba were all down. Smith has been poor for a while. Williams was disastrous at times.

Honestly it was a bit of a writeoff. Not sure there’s a whole lot to read into.

I thought Hunter was out best by miles. Ain't opinions great?

 

[VogonProsthetnic]

Be interesting to see what Bevo does with defence.

We have 7 defenders plus Gardiner plus Wood.

Personally I would like to see Williams played further up the ground, but I guess Crozier or Wood up forward will be used.

 

[Triple Baileys]

On bruce, at one point they put up a stat and he'd done the 5th most km on the ground.... More than most of our mids. Clearly working hard.

I saw that too - but he only had a handful of touches, all inside the 50.

 

[Triple Baileys]

Our problem wasn't in the midfield. The outs hurt a little but they wouldn't have stopped our defendsrs turning the ball over

We didn't adjust quickly enough to the pressure in the first quarter. Our defence kept playing as if they had endless time and endless options. Quick, long kicks down the line and rushed behinds should have been the order of the day. We made that adjustment after quarter time and matched them on the scoreboard for the rest of the game.

 

[the dog's kennel]

Another interesting thing about that game was how efficient Melbourne were (or how clumsy we were with turnovers, especially in the first quarter). No doubt Oliver G will give us a better insight with some of the more arcane stats but consider where we won on the stats sheet:

Kicks 235-211
HB 158-128
Disposals 393-339
Marks 105-96
Clearances 36-27
Clangers 46-57 (yep that's right, Melbourne had more than us!)
Tackles 57-46
Tackles i50 12-6
Inside 50s 52-46

A side with those stats usually wins. However full credit to Melbourne: they won the contested ball (CP 118-136, CM 7-16, Mi50 11-16) and they made more of their opportunities on goal (48% from 22 shots compared to our abysmal 37% from 19 shots). Shooting accuracy was 59%, ours was 42%. That's how you win matches.

Those stats might flatter us a bit but it shows we were still competitive on a night when we played poorly. Bulldog teams of recent years might have completely folded but we kept at it and won 2 of the four quarters.

That gives me plenty of hope, with so many good players still to return.

This is a top post. I never would have guessed we were better in clearances, changers or marks. And truthfully it looked like we lost the contested ball by more. We are a lot closer than it felt.

My take is a) that our Plan A relies on precision in a way other teams’ don’t. Knock our efficiency off a bit and we look a LOT worse. B) the difference between the teams is Melbourne made us pay for our turnovers in a way we didn’t make them pay for theirs. We are usually very good at that. I suspect bevo and crew already know why that happened.

I’m not panicking.

 

[Doggy]

All Melbourne flogs want to do is laugh at posts.... they won't like it next week when they get the same

 

[W W Biscuit]

Are Melbourne are good side? Yep. But we are just as good. Possibly better.

No, my eyes weren't deceiving me last night. We were comprehensively outplayed, and Melbourne were brilliant. Perspective though. It was less than twelve months ago that the tables were turned. Melbourne were putrid then, let's face it, with almost the same list. We won our 2020 encounter by 28 points - exactly the same margin as we lost by yesterday - and our victory was emphatic. In fact, I remember G Lyon heaping some very harsh criticism on the Dees during and after the game. They did have a couple of pretty important players missing that day though, including Max Gawn. His absence was a pretty significant factor in our dominance, I thought, as his replacement Preuss really struggled.

Point is, injuries to key personnel is actually relevant. I don't think that you can underestimate the absence of Dunks and Adz. Our deep midfield is our main point of difference, and undoubtedly our primary strength. As instrumental to us as Gawn is to Melbourne. I have no doubt - whatsoever - that it will be a very different story the next time we play, with hopefully our stacked midfield. Without a full engine room, we are still more than a good enough team to take care of most other opposition. But against the best sides, I do think that we need that edge. Our trump card.

Good on Melbourne for spanking us last night. Well deserved. But last night doesn't settle anything. No way would I accept that, yep, this just shows us that Melbourne is a better team than us, and we just cannot handle playing better teams. That's codswallop in my opinion - a totally un-nuanced and easy to jump to conclusion. We didn't have much of a clue yesterday, but we will have learned a lot. Don't expect that type of walloping against the Dees again. It ain't gonna happen. We had a shocker, but we ARE a very good team.

 

[Cousin Ben]

Absolutely, this was a failure of system. We are going to have to get better at going thru/over if we cant go around. Its a high risk, high reward style of play, but Bev is going to have to make sure the team has it as an option when required.

It is incredibly frustrating that he is such an unreliably (poor) kick at goal. Not only does it cost momentum and potentially games, but ultimately it keeps alive the argument that he would be more valuable to us as a key defender.

 

[dogwatch]

It is incredibly frustrating that he is such an unreliably (poor) kick at goal. Not only does it cost momentum and potentially games, but ultimately it keeps alive the argument that he would be more valuable to us as a key defender.

OG posted some accuracy stats showing Naughton has had 56 shots for 28 goals while Bruce has had 50 shots for 33 goals.

No doubt in my mind that Naughton is the more talented player ... yet Bruce is the more effective ATM. (Both of them also do good work up field or on the ball of course.)

 

[Pugz89]

Our problem wasn't in the midfield. The outs hurt a little but they wouldn't have stopped our defendsrs turning the ball over

If we had our first choice mids, it may not have been in our defence as often.

 

[Cousin Ben]

Martin, Dunks, Treloar, Wood and maybe Gardner out still piss weak?
Add losing a midfielder early in the game.

We didn’t play well but hard to ignore our outs.

Agree. Although every club has injuries (even Melbourne - to an extent!), ours seem to mount every week and it has impacted what everyone acknowledged from the start was our key asset: our star-studded/deep midfield.
You only have to recall the off-season media about Dunkley and Treloar to appreciate how highly regarded they are. Ask Collingwood & Essendon supporters if they'd be better with one of those guys in their side.

 

[Al dente]

The gym doesn't build up courage I'm afraid. I'm reminded of the Wizard Of Oz and the feline main character. Except unlike the movie he ain't getting the nads at the end.

and if you go back and check out some preseason photos of Lipinski, he's ripped, not gunna get much stronger, lacks the intent to stick those tackles

 

[Dogs Rule]

All Melbourne flogs want to do is laugh at posts.... they won't like it next week when they get the same

Yep, Brisbane will do them.

 

[Struggle]

Be interesting to see what Bevo does with defence.

We have 7 defenders plus Gardiner plus Wood.

Personally I would like to see Williams played further up the ground, but I guess Crozier or Wood up forward will be used.

Problem with that imo, is that other than Keath, Williams is the best of them at actually defending.

Croz has been unusually poor in the air this season, Daniel with size, Cordy with his pace issues

 

[Deadly Darcy]

Could be that. Tommy Boyd reckons they’re the most arrogant lot his bulldogs team played so that might’ve informed that view

Interesting. True story - I have a mate who works for North Melbourne who said our 2015 team was the most arrogant team in the league. None of norths players as the time could work out what we had to be arrogant about! And then I guess 2016 game around Anyway it’s not really a comparison it just reminded me of that conversation....