electricfeel
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- Sep 21, 2008
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Very impressed so far. I wish he was younger and started playing earlier on. Has adapted quite well to afl
Autopsy Freo defeated by Sydney by less than 100!
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We can still get five more good years from Yaz.
How much different could this year have been with Bennell, Yarran and Walters all in the forward line ?
electricfeel
Cancelled
- Sep 21, 2008
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Might’ve been slightly different. I still think our game plan sucks and perhaps even with a fit Bennell we wouldn't get far since he'd never have anyone to lace it out to as they're all stuck in defence.
Looking forward to next season, hoping those boys will all be fit and playing together
Ressies runner
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- Jun 13, 2016
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Yeah i was a bit shocked when i read it, but looking at the amount of bench time blakely has every game they obviously think hes not doing well, or maybe hes just not fit enough.
And still racking up 20+ possessions.
Sydney bloody killed us in the centre yesterday; hell I even saw a centre bounce down when We had one man less. Hannebery totally loose.
- Apr 26, 2011
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It was happening last year anyway but nat is going to be attacked by the opposition next year if these spuds are lining up with him. We don't have a game plan. Lol. We just have fyfe
ydraw
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It would also amount to Ross admitting a journalist has a point. Something he's not ever going to do.
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what were our early season tactics, play all the old blokes in pre season while every other team is giving young kids a run?
the only thing that was changed over the offseason was centre square stoppages and they totally cocked that up.
couldhavebeen
Premiership Player
To be perfectly honest since Scott left we have been getting smashed in centre clearances and we have not had a replacement coach that even gets close to his standards.
Pre-season doesn't count, and I didn't see much in the way of a game plan at all in the early stages of the season. It wasn't last years though. I certainly don't expect any team to transition to a completely new game plan from game one, and neither does anyone else. Doubly so for Fremantle because they'd been drilled in the defensive flooding for years, so it's going to take a bit longer to adjust while other teams have the luxury of merely tweaking to keep the opposition on their toes. If even the journos mention its going to take a while due to rule changes and rotations being altered by the AFL, then there's probably something to it. I expect more next year though.
The bit about not giving the young blokes a run is getting tired as well, and I can't see any reason you'd even mention it. C Pearce, GU, De Boer and a couple of others are clearly on the way out, and have been since the beginning before we got messed up LTI wise. That argument has become a non-starter.
ydraw
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We started giving young guys ago when it was clear our season was already gone. We played the oldest team in the comp in the NAB comp. I remember quite clearly that a lot of people were bemoaning our extremely conservative team selection for round 1, which was basically last year's prelim team minus the injured players.
Gu and Clancee both played round 1, for example. Gu was dropped round 2 but came back in round 3 (along with De Boer) when Clancee did his hammy. Up to that point, only Weller and Langdon had gotten a game this season, and Taberner had already been dropped.
So those saying that we've been playing the kids this season are forgetting that we only started to do it when we started racking up losses and injuries and it was clear that the season was a write-off.
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- Jul 15, 2007
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Though I've called to have Blakely in for Weller in the changes thread, as soon as I heard that I thought it was a spot on answer.
Blakely may have given us a bit more ball, maybe, but we had the ball at clearances often enough to at least keep Syndey honest from what I could tell.* The problem is that we did SFA of any use with it. Blakely would not have helped us in that regard. And even if there's some doubting that, and I grant there is, I'm extremely confident he would have done virtually nothing in controlling the spread and leaking of goals that came from general midfield play which was an even bigger issue.
Ross often answers in ways that irritate me, and this was one of those moments, so yes, I agree with what you say there EShed, but his answer to the question was still technically right AFAIC.
* Just checked, we won the clearance count 44 to 39.
Not true. Go to AFL.com.au and have a look at the team selections by week.
Yes, there are some who have had more opportunity after the losses of Fyfe and Johnson in particular, but if you look closely the word "ommitted" accompanies a lot of names (like Gu, C Pearce and De Boer) which has nothing to do with injury.
See, the problem with your thinking is really quite simple. De Boer, C Pearce and Gu are not injured, and yet are not the replacements for those who are.
When Johnson and Fyfe went down in round five, was it Gu, De Boer or C Pearce who were called in to replace them? No, it was not.
Sandi can't be replaced by a young player. Full stop. His injury doesn't count toward this argument.
Bennell would have been a new player for Fremantle, but he's out. Injured before round one, and you might argue he'd have been the De Boer replacement right from the start.
Some of our injuries are to our young players, which explains why they aren't getting a run. Balic, Uebergang, Grey, Nyhuis, A Pearce.
Yes, some injuries have given the young players more opportunity, but saying they're only playing because of our injuries is an oversimplification best suited to a Hagdorn article. We don't even know if Dawson would have played every game this year if A Pearce hadn't gone down. Collins has been playing well, and if he'd taken the same opportunity and Pearce hadn't gone down it might have been Dawson who made way.
Really, the only two I can think of who are getting significantly more games due to our injury lists are Collins, and probably Tucker. Collins especially, I'm sure he would be playing as many games this year as A Pearce did last year - which is to say about one in two. As things are, he's played nearly every game. Tucker might be interchanging more with the likes of Sutcliffe and Sheridan.
Sometimes, you just have to look at things a tad more carefully and get rid of the preconceptions. I'm not"forgetting" anything. It would seem you're not looking at the team selections properly and just running off old assumptions.
How do you explain Carltons grasp of a totally new game plan by round 1?
I think the Blakely skill set is not based around kicking.
It's hard ball, burst speed to break away from the contest and creative handball.
We could've used all of that, because a lot of Mundy and Neale's possessions were dinky "have the ball even though your 1 meter from me" types.
Conor takes the ball and bursts away from the contest to clear congestion and get it to our runners, or kick long forward
Oh I agree. It was the best thing for them. Point is the same though: All teams carry injuries. Some teams just handle it better. If your list gets exposed and found wanting, then your list isn't good enough.
Their list is worse than ours and they've played better than us all year. No one even the staunchest Carlton supporters would've predicted any more than 4 wins for them this season. All of the wooden spoon talk was a toss up between Essn, Bris and Carlton.
They've lost their last 3 games against Sydney, Hawthorn and WCE by a total of 28 pts across the 3 games. We just lost to Sydney on our home ground in Pavs 350th by 90 pts! The difference is they're playing to a plan and structure.
You said a new game plan can't be adopted in one preseason but the fact remains that Carlton ARE playing to a totally new game plan and they were from round 1.
I don't get why some people have trouble admitting they're wrong.
- Aug 18, 2009
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I begrudgingly tend to agree with you. They've seemed a lot more competitive and improved then us this year. Next year will be the measuring stick for us but Calrton looked all but certain to be the third last team and they've become a rather competitive bottom 8 team. That loss against them was probably one of the biggest lowlights of our year, however also shifted us into rebuild mode earlier which could be beneficial.
DudleyDocker
Cancelled
Yes, this is so frustrating for those of us who are never wrong
- Jan 14, 2008
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WTF.
Scott left years ago. 2012 up until this season we have had one of the best midfields running around. You don't get to multiple top 4 finishes and a GF getting smashed in centre clearances. Losing our prime movers through injury and Kirk as the mid coach would be the reason. Scott leaving has nothing to do with it.
Is it Stone who works on their structures? Or just the drills? Haven't been down to training for a while. but plan on getting along pretty soon. At least a couple of times more before we move to the new facilities.
- Jul 15, 2007
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It's going to be tough to make it in this league and not have kicking as part of your skill set.
But that aside, don't entirely disagree with you. Like I said, I'd have him in. But would he really have helped? I don't think so. He may have even hindered. If he took Mundy out of the middle at times it may have been a net loss because, and contrary to your implication, Mundy was probably the only midfielder who won his own ball and delivered with precision and purpose - not always of course, but by far more than any other player on the day.
I know everybody likes that new car smell of a young player that's showing heaps. I love Blakely to bits and think he should play as much as possible while looking after his development etc., but I'm with Ross in terms of that particular question.
Of course, we're dealing with complete hypothetical, so there's no definitive right answer, I accept that. But from where I see it Blakely would have made little overall difference to the real and numerous problems on the day.
He's a senior assistant so I'd say so
