Autopsy Dogs lose to Tigers - Rd 7, 2021

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Lynch should have kicked a hell of a lot more though.

If my Aunty had balls, she’d be my Uncle.

Sure Lynch could have kicked more and so could have Naughton and the rest of our forward line.

One of the reasons that Lynch and the other Richmond forwards missed so many early shots was that they were taking them from less than ideal positions. The positioning of our defence was largely responsible for that.

You can’t just look at the negatives, you have to see the whole picture, to make an accurate overall assessment.
 
Jun 19, 2016
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If my Aunty had balls, she’d be my Uncle.

Sure Lynch could have kicked more and so could have Naughton and the rest of our forward line.

One of the reasons that Lynch and the other Richmond forwards missed so many early shots was that they were taking them from less than ideal positions. The positioning of our defence was largely responsible for that.

You can’t just look at the negatives, you have to see the whole picture, to make an accurate overall assessment.
Are you genuinely suggesting Lynch missing all those goals was down to good defence and not just very poor goal kicking on Lynch’s part? Lynch let us off the hook big time.
 

Proffessor

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I get your point, its a great start to the year, yet after again watching the reply you can't compare Lynch vs Naughton or our backline vs theirs.
Naughton goals were from marks on the lead. Lynch took many 1 on 1 marks, should have kicked more and highlighted our weakness which is 1 on 1 defenders. Cordy was poor and clearly done of confidence with his disposal. Bevo got touchy on it in the review because he knows the questions are correct. Why did we tire? We put to much pressure on our mids to get back and help the defence, its not sustainable, especially at the MCG.
You really need to review loses and look for the deeper issues. Oh course on the smaller, Marvel we can zones defence and hide our biggest issue 1 on 1 contests and win enough games to make the finals.
Lots of reasons contributed to the loss, Dunkley, English out, Martin well beaten, tiring onballers, 1 key defender short and still no crumbing forward.

The last two we need to try and fix fast, another key defender and try our best to unearth a small forward.

I think one of the key mistakes that a lot of people make when assessing our back line is doing it through a man on man mind set.

We play a press structure to try to keep the ball in our forward half as much as possible. That often puts our defenders at a disadvantage when the ball gets passed our midfield press line andthe reason we have given up so many easy open goals during the Beveridge era. It is a calculated risk the team takes.

We consciously sacrifice Peter to pay Paul. Unfortunately ‘Paul’ did a pretty poor job on Friday night, but ‘Peter’ still seems to be shouldering most of the blame.
 
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We needed to win that because we were the better side regardless of ladder position.
Great teams don't set themselves for contests against weakened opponents and dissappear for a half of football. We talked a good game and failed to back it up.

How exactly did we talk a good game? By winning six in a row? I would say that's kind of the opposite of talking a good game. We just beat who was in front of us and if the media wanted to run with us being the best side then that's their decision.

I don't agree that we were a better side than Richmond. Their talls are miles better than ours and this was exaggerated by English being out. The only place we really might have had an edge with personnel was the midfield but this was negated by them having the dominant ruck.

I don't agree that the game was ever ours to lose despite what the narrative might have been in the media. I always felt like we were the challenger and we fell short on this occasion. I really hate it when we drop games to lesser opposition but that wasn't the case on Friday imo.
 

whyBulldogs

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Arguably Richmond needed the win more than we did and that was evident from the onset with their attitude & aggression towards the ball and shutting down our corridor.

Should the coaches and players expect and better prepare for the Tiger aggression and immense pressure let alone when they're trailing after the 1st half?


We needed to win that because we were the better side regardless of ladder position.
Great teams don't set themselves for contests against weakened opponents and dissappear for a half of football. We talked a good game and failed to back it up.

I'm with you mate to be such critical on huge performance drop in the 2nd half?
Expect the boys will learn and bounce back.
 

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Are you genuinely suggesting Lynch missing all those goals was down to good defence and not just very poor goal kicking on Lynch’s part? Lynch let us off the hook big time.
Not all but certainly some, and not just Lynch but Riewoldt and the other forwards as well.

I think the inaccuracy for goal largely evened itself out with both teams missing what should have been pretty easy shots. You could even argue that we were worse.

The point that I was making is that we didn’t lose because Lynch got the better of Cordy a few times. To think that way overlooks other factors that I think had a greater impact on the result.

If someone had’ve told you before the game that we would hold the Tigers to 77 points, you would probably have guessed that it would have corresponded with a victory.

Similarly if you heard that we’d only scored 55 you would have likely guessed that we’d lost.

We didn’t lose because of our defence was below par, the rest of our game was.
 
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Not all but certainly some, and not just Lynch but Riewoldt and the other forwards as well.

I think the inaccuracy for goal largely evened itself out with both teams missing what should have been pretty easy shots. You could even argue that we were worse.

The point that I was making is that we didn’t lose because Lynch got the better of Cordy a few times. To think that way overlooks other factors that I think had a greater impact on the result.

If someone had’ve told you before the game that we would hold the Tigers to 77 points, you would probably have guessed that it would have corresponded with a victory.

Similarly if you heard that we’d only scored 55 you would have likely guessed that we’d lost.

We didn’t lose because of our defence was below par, the rest of our game was.
I agree the whole team didn’t function well and left the defence way too exposed. But Cordy was still very poor in the basics of being a key defender and shouldn’t be absolved either.
I’m hoping it was the loss we needed to help us not get too ahead of ourselves.
 
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What an outstanding press conference from Bev. Simultaneously showed his support and care for the players, made the media look like the utter fools they are, and provided insightful and nuanced commentary of the game. Thought it was one of his best and made me feel good about the game.

A strange comment given I'm only watching from afar, but something feels different with him this year. He has that swagger back that went missing at times over the past couple of years. He seems at ease with how confident he is about this group; he seems more open and less prone to sweating the small things. I'm enjoying his pressers more than usual this year.
 

Proffessor

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The real worry is we set ourselves for this game and they had their best player out and a B grade midfield. Our best player was out there hitting their defenders on the left tit and our midfield was one player off full strength.
I'm not saying panic but we needed to win that.

Just because the media and the fans might have set themselves for that game doesn’t mean the team did.

They might have set themselves for a 6-0 start, and not done anything special at all for the Richmond match.
 
With Bont, my theory is that he takes things too personally, and tries too hard.

if he’d relax a bit, I don’t think he would miss from 15 m out. He shouldn’t be expected to pull us out of the fire all the time. How about someone else putting their hand up for once.

In 2016, we had Morris, Boyd and picken doing inspirational things- club really needs more leaders in games like Friday night.
This is where experience comes in (yes I know he has played 150 games but he's still only 25). When you feel pressure and the weight of responsibility in sport you tend to overthink or become too conscious about executing skills you would normally manage without thinking. This leads to things like kicking over a forward's head, dropping a mark or missing easy shots at goal.

In a game where you are feeling relaxed and enjoying yourself (say vs North or GWS) these things can be done almost intuitively and it looks sublime. As you get more experience (especially age) you learn to put those anxieties out of your immediate thoughts even if they're still lurking, so your big game performances become more reliable.

In 2016 Morris and Boyd were already over 30 and Picken was close to it. We have a new cohort approaching that age and will continue to improve in these situations. Friday was just another incremental learning experience.
 

Proffessor

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I agree the whole team didn’t function well and left the defence way too exposed. But Cordy was still very poor in the basics of being a key defender and shouldn’t be absolved either.
I’m hoping it was the loss we needed to help us not get too ahead of ourselves.

I’m sure that Zaine wouldn’t have been happy with his performance on Friday which was below his normal high standard, but I would stop short of calling it poor. I hope he learns from it and gets better from the experience.

Like you I hope we might benefit more from the learning experience of this loss than the 4 points we might have gained from a win.
 
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Just because the media and the fans might have set themselves for that game doesn’t mean the team did.

They might have set themselves for a 6-0 start, and not done anything special at all for the Richmond match.
The team did through the media all week. I can't have been the only one who saw this.

A couple of examples.

 
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We dominated the game for the first half without gapping them and they dominated the second.
They pro tigers crowd were sitting on their hands for the first 2 quarters in stunned silence as we toyed with them without putting it on the scoreboard. to their credit they pulled their finger out and killed us in the second.
I just want to know one thing...
why the hell was Lewis Young dropped after the game in Ballarat?!??
He was fantastic. He’s shown more as a key back in his handful of games than anyone bar Keath.
If you want to know why Young was dropped, go back and watch the replay of the gold coast game and the VFL game after it the following week.
He was better this week in the VFL but still had some ordinary moments against a side he should be a level above.
 

Proffessor

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The team did through the media all week. I can't have been the only one who saw this.

A couple of examples.


Fair enough, Mike, it appears the PR side of the club at least have fed the media build up.

However you can’t really manufacture motivation. The boys have been up for 6 weeks, and were probably hoping for an easier game than they got against GWS to recharge a bit. Despite everyone’s best intentions, we still looked a bit flat on Friday night.

I really think reading too much into this loss and reacting to strongly would be a mistake. Learn from it, put it in the memory bank and move on quickly. Bring out the footage if we look like getting ahead of ourselves or a good teaching moment presents.
 
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I think one of the key mistakes that a lot of people make when assessing our back line is doing it through a man on man mind set.

We play a press structure to try to keep the ball in our forward half as much as possible. That often puts our defenders at a disadvantage when the ball gets passed our midfield press line andthe reason we have given up so many easy open goals during the Beveridge era. It is a calculated risk the team takes.

We consciously sacrifice Peter to pay Paul. Unfortunately ‘Paul’ did a pretty poor job on Friday night, but ‘Peter’ still seems to be shouldering most of the blame.

Totally understand we play a zone difference, like 80% of the other AFL teams. Yet we still lack a Key Position 1 on 1 strength (as the time comes during games) and it will hurt us in Sept as you can't always expect players to get back to help out, especially when they tire. I don't really have an answer as our list in poor in that area. By the way I don't think Cordy is a true Key Position players and others have past him in the other backline roles. A Dale Morris would be a godsend to this team at the moment.
 
Should the coaches and players expect and better prepare for the Tiger aggression and immense pressure let alone when they're trailing after the 1st half?

They were at our game plan from the start and it wasnt too difficult to see they were going to persist. The tactical decisions from Bev in the 2nd half were strange however as I stated previously its not the end of the world on that loss alone.
 
We played ordinary and lost to the reigning premiers by under 4 goals.
The season is over... it's done.
Half the team should be taken out the back and summarily executed, and the other half should be traded to appease all the BF coaches.
I'm glad somebody finally gets it.
 

Proffessor

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Totally understand we play a zone difference, like 80% of the other AFL teams. Yet we still lack a Key Position 1 on 1 strength (as the time comes during games) and it will hurt us in Sept as you can't always expect players to get back to help out, especially when they tire. I don't really have an answer as our list in poor in that area. By the way I don't think Cordy is a true Key Position players and others have past him in the other backline roles. A Dale Morris would be a godsend to this team at the moment.

I think we just have to recognise that every structure and every player has strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes you have to take the package as a whole and not worry too much during the odd occasion when the weaknesses are inevitably exposed.

I rate Cordy very highly. Does he give away a bit of size and get beaten occasionally as a result? Sure, but he also wins a fair share of contests, provides rebound, is very versatile and can play on talls and smalls if need be. When Cordy got hurt in last year’s elimination final, that was when things started to go awry for us as a team.

Dale Morris was a great player but he still had his weaknesses. He was never going to kick a bag of goals or have a mountain of possessions but that was ok because we took the good with the bad and were happy with the package.
 
I rate Cordy very highly. Does he give away a bit of size and get beaten occasionally as a result?

I am of the opinion that Cordy is better suited as a defensive forward thus the comparison with Morris is a bit off. For what Morris gave away in height he made up for it with relentless pressure, something you don’t see very often from Cords. However I’m not bagging Cordy because of that.

There’s too many swaps and changes with players out of position, JJ a prime example who looks to have lost his way, and throwing a player into a position on the hope he finds his feet isn’t something I’d be wanting to do with this list. It needs time for players to gel in their positions and structures, IMO.
 

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Congratulations on the win for some reason we couldn’t go with you in the second half
Yeah, at least it was a gracious post from an opposition who pantsed us.

The Tiges are just more experienced - not as in games played, because that was equal - in big games, hence rising to the challenge. I wonder what the result may have been if it had been the Doggies playing the Tiges last week, and Melbourne playing them this week. They were always going to react to a loss like that, in the manner they did.

I give a lot of credit to Hardwick. I'd underestimated his coaching I think (despite winning three recent GFs).
 

Bulldogs85

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Yeah, at least it was a gracious post from an opposition who pantsed us.

The Tiges are just more experienced - not as in games played, because that was equal - in big games, hence rising to the challenge. I wonder what the result may have been if it had been the Doggies playing the Tiges last week, and Melbourne playing them this week. They were always going to react to a loss like that, in the manner they did.

I give a lot of credit to Hardwick. I'd underestimated his coaching I think (despite winning three recent GFs).
The boys would of learnt from the game hopefully we will get another crack at the tigers in the finals
 

The Inbetweener

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I think we just have to recognise that every structure and every player has strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes you have to take the package as a whole and not worry too much during the odd occasion when the weaknesses are inevitably exposed.

I rate Cordy very highly. Does he give away a bit of size and get beaten occasionally as a result? Sure, but he also wins a fair share of contests, provides rebound, is very versatile and can play on talls and smalls if need be. When Cordy got hurt in last year’s elimination final, that was when things started to go awry for us as a team.

Dale Morris was a great player but he still had his weaknesses. He was never going to kick a bag of goals or have a mountain of possessions but that was ok because we took the good with the bad and were happy with the package.
You can’t be serious with Cordy. He doesn’t win his fair share of contests (Lynch had 8 scoring shots) and he provides no rebound as he is a liability by foot.
 

SupercededMan

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I’m sure that Zaine wouldn’t have been happy with his performance on Friday which was below his normal high standard, but I would stop short of calling it poor. I hope he learns from it and gets better from the experience.

Like you I hope we might benefit more from the learning experience of this loss than the 4 points we might have gained from a win.
Yup, he had lots of company, if people thought he underperformed.

He, like Gardner and a few others, are just regular kicking boys for the BigFooty Match Committee. Gawd.
 
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