Autopsy Freo defeated by West Coast

[Mike I]

Gonna say that we miss intense forward pressure from Mayne, de Boer and Ballas. Sure two of them aren't great skills wise, what they did was nullify eagles' defense significantly. Tonight was hardly any pressure, and McCarthy/Kersten aren't quick.

De boer would always tag Hurn like a glove, whereas Mayne was put to McGovern. We sorely miss that pressure- the rebound was far too easy at times and pretty much non existent in terms of limiting the damage.

How much impact do you think players can have when 1 in every 3 entries from the first half was an intercept mark? Of course they are going to rebound it.

FWIW Grey and Balic, who both spent the majority of the game forward of center had 20 Pressure Acts (equal second highest for us) and a goal each, McCarthy had 17 and 3 Goals.

 

[meima]

People that defending the likes of spurr,ibbo and sherriden is pure excuses , yes mundy, fyfe ,Neale output down .people here should all expected that, is not easy to keep dragging your team out of trouble in three fightback as eventually mentally and physically they are drained.

 

[StingBitten]

This is still a massive rebuild, we still sorely need so many different types of key players...

 

[rgauci]

Sheridan has been crap for a few games in a row now. His first game back was above average but he's reverted to his typical output: He makes inexcusable errors in the backline. He essentially cost us a grand final spot with a backline error and he hasn't improved. 6 preseasons and he looks like a skinny 18-19 year old. Application off the field is clearly lacking. Plenty of people can pretend to work hard in the gym, or perhaps are so weak to begin with can't compete at a professional level. I think we drafted a dud or we can't develop players. Though that draft was compromised he hasn't lived up to a being a first rounder.

He'd be one of the first I'd drop.

 

[theGav56]

The crowd is way better drilled. The eagles subi crowd is the envy of all other teams.

Their use of BAAALLL whether or not there was prior opportunity is elite and a step above all others. Their use of stone cold silence when one of their players kicks it across half back over the boundary line with no eagles players near it, gaining ground and clearing the danger area is top notch.

those are things umpires can be made aware of and coached about how to handle. It really is not difficult and can/should be moderated. All if this kind of thing could be laid bare with a little bit of statistical analysis including teams, grounds, opponents, players and individual coaches. It really is not difficult and I would be surprised if this is not happening to some extent.

 

[Lach72]

I am fine with that being paid to McGovern. He was the man in front, first hands on the ball, then Fyfe ripped the ball out of his hands. 10/10 times that is and should paid to McGovern.

That's lovely Phyllis....and exactly the same was paid to Fyfe later in the game wasn't it?

Actually no, it wasn't. The umpire refused to pay the mark to Fyfe.


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[Lach72]

There's so many factors it's hard to say. I think we put umpires under pressure the same way we put players under pressure when they're kicking out from fullback.

However, we also have a positive free kick count away from home (2011-), and we're the only team that has that. That could be individual player driven: the article that showed our +340 or whatever differential is mostly (over +280) made up of only four players in that time- Cox, ASelwood, Shuey and Priddis

Could be game style driven. We're not a big tackling team and we have had good inside mids, ruckmen and key forwards, which is where free kicks tend to be concentrated.

Probably a combination of all those things. When you consider the number of errors players make dwarfs those of umpires, it's hard to conclude they make any real difference in matches though. I've been trying to focus less on them when watching games as a neutral.

Doesn't seem to fit in with the Dogs though. Different factors for them maybe?

Could it be...and stay with me here....the selection of particular umpires...


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[Scham]

That's lovely Phyllis....and exactly the same was paid to Fyfe later in the game wasn't it?

Actually no, it wasn't. The umpire refused to pay the mark to Fyfe.


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Yep, the old man in front isn't an actual rule, it was an interpretation that umpires of old that had actually played the game used if there was any doubt but modern day umpires have to decide who marked it. If they can't they bounce it, which I've seen them do plenty of times, also seen them pay the player behind, especially when it's a Freo player in the front position.

 

[imperial_oz]

Could it be...and stay with me here....the selection of particular umpires...


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Careful there, Lach. Just because you are right doesn't mean they call you paranoid

 

[Lach72]

Hey maybe I'm wrong and Dean "a 7 meter kick is really 15" Margetts is just incompetent....the Eagles way...


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[imperial_oz]

Hey maybe I'm wrong and Dean "a 7 meter kick is really 15" Margetts is just incompetent....the Eagles way...


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Learn to keep your mouth shut! 50 meters, eagles!

 

[Geoff]

For mine Logue needs to hone his craft at Peel for a while. Yes, he does some serviceable things but not consistently. He also looks as though he lacks pace when on the chase. Needs to rip it apart in the WAFL and then back into the seniors.

 

[poshman]

Sheridan has been crap for a few games in a row now. His first game back was above average but he's reverted to his typical output: He makes inexcusable errors in the backline. He essentially cost us a grand final spot with a backline error and he hasn't improved. 6 preseasons and he looks like a skinny 18-19 year old. Application off the field is clearly lacking. Plenty of people can pretend to work hard in the gym, or perhaps are so weak to begin with can't compete at a professional level. I think we drafted a dud or we can't develop players. Though that draft was compromised he hasn't lived up to a being a first rounder.

He'd be one of the first I'd drop.

He gets dropped, invariably comes back and his first game is good to very good then he immediately goes to shite again. his hands under pressure are very far below average. He has missed crucial hand passes under middling the high levels of pressure in each game. Absolute shite. Best we can hope is someone wants him and we get something for him. Crap pick - has had long enough now to become a consistent performer.

Umps... what can you say? WCE should be a little embarrassed... turns out many of the flogs I have spoken too think they should have had more paid. Which only decreases my opinion of them further.

Hopefully we bounce back against Essendon. Won't be an easy game though. Walters has been out of form most of last season and now all of this. He is leading into other forwards space and leaping for balls that kersten or cam are already going up for. Some basic aspects of footy he is absolutely stuffing up in. Hoping it turns around as over the last 15-17 games he has been mostly a non factor.

 

[Mr Fonebone]

I am not too fussed about this loss. It panned out much as I expected.

A fast Eagles start aided by really predictably shonky umpiring and our young team were up against it. This boys will bounce back.

What I find encouraging is the performances of the younglings - Blakely, Hughes, Weller, Langdon and McCarthy. They are developing very well. Logue needs more time but I hope thy persist with him in the ones. To see how good these players are just look at how peel have gone since they have not been available for selection.

So far this season we have had 3 big losses and 3 close wins. This would indicate that we are a 10-12 side in ladder terms which is not bad for a rebuilding side.

 

[Lach72]

It was good to see Logue moved back.
He looks more natural there and I thought he competed well with Kennedy.


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[PurpleEyes]

those are things umpires can be made aware of and coached about how to handle. It really is not difficult and can/should be moderated. All if this kind of thing could be laid bare with a little bit of statistical analysis including teams, grounds, opponents, players and individual coaches. It really is not difficult and I would be surprised if this is not happening to some extent.

I'm sure there are plenty of things the umpires and their association could do to reduce home town bias. The point is, they choose not to. There is absolutely no excuse nor explanation that can quantify why Fisher gets to umpire that derby ... if the AFL and their umpire appointments are all above board.
Label me with whatever conspiracy name you want, but you need to have some level of ignorance to not see, how much of this umpiring bias is by design.

 

[Admiral Byng]

First half was the same problem we had against Port and Geelong. We kicked poorly going inside 50m, they either took the intercept defensive mark or got control of the ball on the ground, and as soon as they did that it was woooosh, right up the other end of the ground for them to have a shot on goal. We played into their hands and let them play too much uncontested footy the way they like to play it. We have to get better at moving the ball forward and how to set up behind the play to prevent that fast transition when we turn over the ball at HF.

 

[Lach72]

Shows why we need to persist with Bennell. Desperately need him


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[yoong]

Like it or not, the umpiring does have a effect on the result of the game. We had our other problems, but the bias umpiring made sure the results is beyond any doubt by quarter time.

A free kick wrongly given/not given have little effect on the outcome of the game. A string of errors however, will the get players confused to the point they can't play instinctively anymore.

The umpiring was disgraceful. The bias is so bad that that similar "infringement" is paid to one team and not the other. I'm still ok if my team played badly and lost the game, but the unfair treatment dished out really spoilt the day for me.

I totally agree that things need to change and umpires need to be professional

....regardless whether they are doing this job full time or not.

 

[simpsonwillo]

This is still a massive rebuild, we still sorely need so many different types of key players...

If we had fit Harley Bennell, Alex Pearce,Hayden Ballantine, Stephen Hill,a fit Apeness, I think it would have looked significantly better. Although, I do agree with you about the rebuild, I think we are looking not too bad.

 

[PurpleEyes]

Learn to keep your mouth shut! 50 meters, eagles!

The 2nd qtr LeCras 50m was an absolute shocker.
On replay you can see LeCras mark the ball about 55m out (well at least a few metres outside the 50m). Spurr stands the mark on the 50m. you do not hear the umpire say where the mark is. LeCras takes about 3 side steps around off his line so Spurr also goes to his right, but stays on the 50m line to NOT encroach. LeCras then turns to the centre and kicks the ball. Spurr is penalised for 50m. When the 50m penalty was awarded, Spurr was still on the 50m line, about 3 or 4 metres inside the mark but about 5m to his right of the mark ... where he had to be, given LeCras had creeped around off his line so far.

Now anybody who watches the replay will clearly see this. You can hear the umpire telling Spurr to hold and completely ignoring LeCras coming around off his line. As soon as Spurr moves one or two small steps to his right after the umpire saying hold he pings Spurr. Spurr did not encroach over the mark. If he did anything, he only moved forward less than 1m and sidewards about 5m ... but remember Spurr stood the mark about 3 or 4 metres closer to the goals, inside the actual mark.

This is where I can be critical of Freo players and their coaching. Cripes the corrupt umpires have been illegally pinging Freo for 50m penalties that aren't there for years (eg. McPharlin vs Buddy 2013 GF) and we still haven't learnt. Every time we man the mark, we need to quickly point to the mark and get confirmation from the umpire, mark the spot and take away the umpires ability to gift 50m penalties. If Freo aren't going to protest about the bad decisions, then they need to be smart enough to implement some strategies to reduce the impact.

 

[imperial_oz]

The 2nd qtr LeCras 50m was an absolute shocker.
On replay you can see LeCras mark the ball about 55m out (well at least a few metres outside the 50m). Spurr stands the mark on the 50m. you do not hear the umpire say where the mark is. LeCras takes about 3 side steps around off his line so Spurr also goes to his right, but stays on the 50m line to NOT encroach. LeCras then turns to the centre and kicks the ball. Spurr is penalised for 50m. When the 50m penalty was awarded, Spurr was still on the 50m line, about 3 or 4 metres inside the mark but about 5m to his right of the mark ... where he had to be, given LeCras had creeped around off his line so far.

Now anybody who watches the replay will clearly see this. You can hear the umpire telling Spurr to hold and completely ignoring LeCras coming around off his line. As soon as Spurr moves one or two small steps to his right after the umpire saying hold he pings Spurr. Spurr did not encroach over the mark. If he did anything, he only moved forward less than 1m and sidewards about 5m ... but remember Spurr stood the mark about 3 or 4 metres closer to the goals, inside the actual mark.

This is where I can be critical of Freo players and their coaching. Cripes the corrupt umpires have been illegally pinging Freo for 50m penalties that aren't there for years (eg. McPharlin vs Buddy 2013 GF) and we still haven't learnt. Every time we man the mark, we need to quickly point to the mark and get confirmation from the umpire, mark the spot and take away the umpires ability to gift 50m penalties. If Freo aren't going to protest about the bad decisions, then they need to be smart enough to implement some strategies to reduce the impact.

Absolutely spot on.

Freo needs to stop bending over. Point out the obvious bias, cop the fines and embarrass the f*** out that pinhead Gillo until they back away. There is enough negative press about the obvious umpiring bias happening in Victoria right now. we should jump on that bandwagon

 

[rgauci]

The 2nd qtr LeCras 50m was an absolute shocker.
On replay you can see LeCras mark the ball about 55m out (well at least a few metres outside the 50m). Spurr stands the mark on the 50m. you do not hear the umpire say where the mark is. LeCras takes about 3 side steps around off his line so Spurr also goes to his right, but stays on the 50m line to NOT encroach. LeCras then turns to the centre and kicks the ball. Spurr is penalised for 50m. When the 50m penalty was awarded, Spurr was still on the 50m line, about 3 or 4 metres inside the mark but about 5m to his right of the mark ... where he had to be, given LeCras had creeped around off his line so far.

Now anybody who watches the replay will clearly see this. You can hear the umpire telling Spurr to hold and completely ignoring LeCras coming around off his line. As soon as Spurr moves one or two small steps to his right after the umpire saying hold he pings Spurr. Spurr did not encroach over the mark. If he did anything, he only moved forward less than 1m and sidewards about 5m ... but remember Spurr stood the mark about 3 or 4 metres closer to the goals, inside the actual mark.

This is where I can be critical of Freo players and their coaching. Cripes the corrupt umpires have been illegally pinging Freo for 50m penalties that aren't there for years (eg. McPharlin vs Buddy 2013 GF) and we still haven't learnt. Every time we man the mark, we need to quickly point to the mark and get confirmation from the umpire, mark the spot and take away the umpires ability to gift 50m penalties. If Freo aren't going to protest about the bad decisions, then they need to be smart enough to implement some strategies to reduce the impact.

You see that pointing a lot and I'd never thought it could disarm the umpires. Clever.

 

[wayToGo_]

I decided to re-watch the first quarter and a 6 goal difference on the scoreboard probably doesn't accurately reflect how well we played overall in that quarter (not really a surprising analysis given we had one more inside 50). We won the first two clearances pretty convincingly so that was good but from then on we didn't seem as committed at stoppages - it looked like our mids just went into a shell when they weren't getting the result on the scoreboard for the hard work.

That non-htb call on Yeo from McCarthy's tackle is absolutely mind boggling. I replayed it 10 times and there is no way he managed to get a handball out. Cam should have got a free and lined up and kicked the first goal of the game directly in front. It's frustrating when we know how important momentum can be, especially that early on and also because it happened last week as well. But on the flip side our other players should have locked that ball in and found a way to score from it anyway - thought they stopped and expected the free rather than playing to the whistle.

When West Coast were rebounding in the first there was just zero pressure through the midfield at times. We had players chasing the ball carrier but they just out numbered us making it too easy to transition and then had plenty of time to coordinate the inside 50 delivery. That on top of being given way too much room in their forward 50. Poor Hamling had no chance and to not double team Kennedy seems crazy to me. Meanwhile Spurr and Ibbo were both liabilities in that first quarter. The free kicks they gave away were just dumb, as often we had the numbers, and their ball use was appalling to match. I am pretty sure Brad Hill was manning up Josh Hill both times he kicked a goal - not sure that is the right match up but even so, Brad should have done better.

That free kick for Darling against Hughes was ridiculously soft - technically it was there but do we really want football to be about who can play for a free the best? And Mitchell's throw in the middle - how can the umpire not have seen that? That was the most blatant and visible throws I can recall in any game I have watched recently.

I hate complaining about umpiring but I think there were a bunch of decisions that wrecked any chance of us building momentum in the first and it helped set the scene for the game. Having said that I think West Coast were still the better team on the day. Their midfield did exceptionally well given their personnel. They simply just wanted it more than we did.

All that combined with terrible inside 50 delivery from Langdon, Weller and Balic in the first made it way too easy for West Coast to take control of the game. I'm trying to make sure I don't have purple tinted glasses on when I say we are a significantly better team than what we delivered in Q1. I still think all the positive signs are there for a rebuilding side so I wouldn't be overacting about it - we'll learn and continue building.

 

[yoong]

I think we got killed by 3 players here...

1. The umpires....enough said.

2. McGovern - don't want to take away any credit to him, but we need to change the way we deliver the ball into the forward 50. It was Hansen last week and McGovern his week. As the Eagles and Norf have shown, it really didn't matter if we our defensive structure locked it in their half consistently if all we are going to do is to kick it back to them. It's not pressure per se if there is no consequence to turning over the ball on the Eagles part. They can just keep trying until they get the ball out.
We have been doing it for years but we really need to change the bombing it to the top of the key 50 entry.


3. Kennedy - credit where it's due. This bloke did all the damage this week. Took almost everything kicked to him in the forward 50 and converted. Provide a target and took marks out of defense when they ran out of option. Hate to say it, but the score line will be way way closer if not for him.

I suppose it wouldn't be wrong for me to throw some support for my buddy Dawson here at this point ;-)
Ok, I'm not going to. We do need a capable stopper for players like Kennedy, Franklin and Hawkins, who are marking monsters in the 50 and can do huge damage if left unchecked. Hamling is pretty decent but he cannot be left to defend one on one against these guys the whole day. The rest of the defense need to help.

Interesting, I'm hoping for not changes next week. There are some really poor performance out there, but I hope that the coaches back these guys in and let them work out a way to handle the obvious issues we have.