Autopsy Freo lose to Collingwood at Subi

[Righteo]

Get Darcy in ASAP and have our midfield learn how to function without Sandi giving them an armchair ride. Today was a better reality check than last week.

Still, happy enough to wear these types of losses given the 12 or 13 or however many guys under 50 games experience we had out there. Again, an important reminder of how far away we really are and hopefully a lesson that yields further opportunities for Logue/Cox/Darcy/Duman/Delly etc in coming weeks. We're inconsistent as buggery and will find ourselves sitting through plenty of floggings in the latter half of the season (imo) but I'm pleased with what we're workings towards. Our age profile today definitely aligned with that of a team undertaking a complete list overhaul.

That's the personnel side of it though. The coaching directives and ethos in general leave a little bit more to be desired. No doubting that a team full of guys who have little experience in playing with one another will lack cohesion and communication, that's totally understandable, but the way we set up at stoppages, attempt to move the ball out of defence and structure our forwardline all are areas we either have failed to improve on or actually regressed in.

The one other obvious area of concern is Ross and his inconsistency as a motivator. We know it's historically been a strength of his but it beggars belief that we start nearly every bloody game half-asleep and inevitably have to play catch-up for the rest of the game. Part of it is being light-on when it comes to onfield leadership but the lyon's share of the blame lands with Ross. Get angry Rossy, slap some people around, read aloud stories of kitten abuse, blow up a pic of Kim Hagdorns head and glue it to every locker. Have the group work themselves into a Viking-like state of frenzy and bloodlust when they run out and play the game on OUR terms from the beginning.

 

[Nolo180]

[QUOTE="estibador, post: 50645116, member:
Really though, Fyfe isn't playing like an elite player in any sense of the word at the moment, Sandi or not. Lachie and Blakely are carrying our midfield at the moment. God that Blakely is going to be a seriously good player, isn't he?[/QUOTE]

Need more out of the superstars. The guys on the big bucks eg Mundy, fyfe, hills. Shill hasn't been the same player since coming back. Bhill has gone off the boil for some reason. He was tearing it up a few weeks ago along with Mundy. Sure not having Sandy around hurts big time but he's not gonna be around for ever.

I know there's a lot of talk about fyfe already but to me he seems to be trying too hard. I've barely seen him explode away from the contest this year without getting pinned with the ball. He doesn't seem to have the strength to get the separation after winning the ball. I reckon his injury history and training plan has prevented him from being able to take advantage of his biggest asset his power in his legs. But I guess it's better than not having him on the park at all due to injury.

 

[scon]

blow up Kim Hagdorn's head

That would motivate me,but at the level you can't point the finger at Lyon and say that diabolical skill errors is his issue as an inadequate motivator.

 

[big bootaaaaah]

This isn't a troll , but someone needs to teach Crozier how to handball he has got to be one of the worst in the league, been noticing this for a long time, maybe Blakely as he has a brilliant handball but his kicking can be a little suspect but was good tonight. Is Mundy as centre half fwd a ridiculous idea? Maybe as he gets older? He'd be brilliant.

 

[Righteo]

That would motivate me,but at the level you can't point the finger at Lyon and say that diabolical skill errors is his issue as an inadequate motivator.

I don't blame the skill errors on him, but when you start nearly every game conceding about 9 of the first 10 inside 50's that's a trend that still hasn't been addressed and I don't know who else to look at. I did say it was also partly a lack of onfield leadership and if you wanted to argue that's the bigger factor then that's cool too but either way, it's an area to improve in. Pav (and Mick) was a bigger loss in pure leadership ability than many realise i reckon.

 

[BeinPurplenGreen]

I don't read the eagles board, but surely they're slashing their wrists about that one by now given their awful midfield?

That's as big a drafting oversight as any they've ever tried to give us s**t about.

 

[scon]

when you start nearly every game conceding about 9 of the first 10 inside 50's

We were hammered out of the middle,save for a period in the second where Blakely single handedly wrested momentum from the Pies
They claimed first use,momentum and thanked us for gifting them the pill back on the occasions we had it..For someone who runs like a ruptured duck Grundy is a powerhouse competitor.
The tackle and contested stats will support your motivation argument because we were not competitive in the midfield.Pies were very good.Plenty of half metre chucks helped them get to space but our mids weren't at the races with ball movement and physicality at the contest as a group.
Our midfield was bossed around.

 

[Righteo]

We were hammered out of the middle,save for a period in the second where Blakely single handedly wrested momentum from the Pies
They claimed first use,momentum and thanked us for gifting them the pill back on the occasions we had it..For someone who runs like a ruptured duck Grundy is a powerhouse competitor.
The tackle and contested stats will support your motivation argument because we were not competitive in the midfield.Pies were very good.Plenty of half metre chucks helped them get to space but our mids weren't at the races with ball movement and physicality at the contest as a group.
Our midfield was bossed around.

all true. I will say that is speaks volumes of his character and competitiveness that Blakely is proving himself to be one of the few guys who consistently stands up when the mids are getting pantsed. That might just be confirmation bias on my part though but the kid is a beast already, gives off strong Rory Sloane vibes.

 

[mike91]

McCarthy is a favorite here, we all love him, but hes been very poor the last month. At least Tabs (also not playing well) provides a contest, you bag Tabs because you notice him stuffing it up, but you don't mention McCarthy? If you don't notice a player, especially a key forward, that's worse than noticing Tabs bad game, because at least you noticed him making contests. Not defending Tabs, just questioning how people can bag one forward more than the other when one at least makes a contest.

Our overrated midfield and lack of kicking skills/decision making from our back half is more of a problem than our forward line though.

 

[estibador]

McCarthy is a favorite here, we all love him, but hes been very poor the last month. At least Tabs (also not playing well) provides a contest, you bag Tabs because you notice him stuffing it up, but you don't mention McCarthy? If you don't notice a player, especially a key forward, that's worse than noticing Tabs bad game, because at least you noticed him making contests. Not defending Tabs, just questioning how people can bag one forward more than the other when one at least makes a contest.

For me it's because every now and then McCarthy will bob up and do something really classy - like roving that ball off the contest in the wet last week and snapping the goal.

That's the sort of stuff that a) gives you faith he has the talent to make him persevering with, and b) makes you more tolerant of a quiet game because you know he's capable of pulling out a moment of class that can impact the game when he does get involved.

Also McCarthy is two years younger than Tabs, has had two less preseasons, and is coming off a year out of the game. Because of the hype he came in with some are starting to rate him quite harshly, but really he's just a developing youngster who's still quite raw.

 

[ydraw]

F
That's the sort of stuff that a) gives you faith he has the talent to make him persevering with, and b) makes you more tolerant of a quiet game because you know he's capable of pulling out a moment of class that can impact the game when he does get involved.

You might be right in McCarthy's case. He does show glimpses of brilliance at times.

The same isn't true of Kersten though. He's played as many AFL games as Taberner and has done less. Taberner has him beat on almost every indicator. He was also invisible today. He's also a very limited player who can only play 1 role, that role being a third tall - not exactly a key position that nobody else can fill. He's on borrowed time more so than Taberner who is actually tall enough to worry opposition defenders and can also pinch hit in the ruck.

But he gets a free pass while Taberner gets endlessly bagged. I just don't get it.

 

[estibador]

You might be right in McCarthy's case. He does show glimpses of brilliance at times.

The same isn't true of Kersten though. He's played as many AFL games as Taberner and has done less. Taberner has him beat on almost every indicator. He was also invisible today. But he gets a free pass while Taberner gets endlessly bagged. I just don't get it.

With Kersten it's probably the simple fact that he's only 11 games into his first season with the club so people are willing to give him more time. We've seen a lot more of Tabs over a much longer period.

Even then Kersten already seems to be running out of credits. His season has followed a bit of a parabolic curve so far - shithouse start, followed by some really nice games in the middle, before dipping back down again lately.

 

[PapaJ]

Lots could say, but the thing that sticks out in my mind is how badly we faded in all 4 quarters and especially at the end of the game. We put in, and when we did and showed something resembling cohesion in the middle, we actually took control of the game, but we had no legs to sustain it. Pies looked like they were fresh as daisies compared to us in the last especially. Would a couple of tough weeks do that? Just seemed strange that we seemed so vastly un-fit in comparison.

Like it or not, 'tis the season to have these losses which we can really learn from. As long as we still get the occasional wins to keep the young'ns players heads up, then these aren't too bad in the scheme of things.

 

[Yato]

Would a couple of tough weeks do that?

I definitely think so. Playing in the slog against Carlton set us up beautifully for the Adelaide game. Then it was a slog again in Adelaide and again I think this affected our freshness for this game. We need the bye

 

[dockshark]

What??

If you want to go off stats, what about the 22 pressure acts (most in the side), 6 tackles (second most in the side), oh and the 2.2 (or over 16% of our goals for the day).
All from less than 90 minutes on the ground.

We had many poor players who were far far worse than Grey.

What I really like about Grey is how hard he works, and his desperation to get to contests and to make tackles. Far from our worst and sets an example a few others could do well to observe!

 

[rgauci]

Lots could say, but the thing that sticks out in my mind is how badly we faded in all 4 quarters and especially at the end of the game. We put in, and when we did and showed something resembling cohesion in the middle, we actually took control of the game, but we had no legs to sustain it. Pies looked like they were fresh as daisies compared to us in the last especially. Would a couple of tough weeks do that? Just seemed strange that we seemed so vastly un-fit in comparison.

Like it or not, 'tis the season to have these losses which we can really learn from. As long as we still get the occasional wins to keep the young'ns players heads up, then these aren't too bad in the scheme of things.

It's the inability to get hold of the ball for almost the entirely of the 1st quarter that cost us. Chasing tail for that long blew us up. When you don't have the ball, the opposition set the pace you run, the length you run. It would be nice if we could affect a turnover forward of centre. At the moment we are allowing teams deep inside 50s before even contesting the ball.

 

[go_the_dockers]

Tucker is going OK for the game time he receives - he had 14% less game time than Hughes who received the 2nd most bench time. To put Tucker into perspective only 3 of his 8 games has he received more than 59% game time - he consistently receives the least amount of playing time in the AFL for any player that hasn't had a game affected by injury and this includes debutants and first year players. Last week for the final term, Ross ditched the training wheels and played him like a normal midfielder and he was arguably the best player for that quarter.

Why is that?? Isn't his fitness good enough??

 

[go_the_dockers]

What??

If you want to go off stats, what about the 22 pressure acts (most in the side), 6 tackles (second most in the side), oh and the 2.2 (or over 16% of our goals for the day).
All from less than 90 minutes on the ground.

We had many poor players who were far far worse than Grey.

We did have worse players than Grey, but he was not in our top 10 players, and I had him in the bottom 7 or 8. I don't want role players during a rebuild, I would love a few silly half forwards.

I am hoping next year our depth improves and he needs to play out of his skin to make the side.

 

[Dirty_banchez]

The team is mentally weak and suffers from a lack of on-field leadership. Leaders set the standard from the first bounce, and Freo has been deplorable in 1st quarters this year.

 

[aussieviking]

Man brissie are going to be kicking there lips watching today's game specially since they r resting it up. Next week isn't looking good. Bring on the bye!!!!

If they are kicking their lips all week we might be a chance

 

[meima]

The team is mentally weak and suffers from a lack of on-field leadership. Leaders set the standard from the first bounce, and Freo has been deplorable in 1st quarters this year.

TBH , before the match both of us tip them to win 40+ and 50+ so I don't think is the leaders fault.

 

[Swan Districts Kid]

I thought Grundy was good - made Griffin look very slow - well & truly ready for retirement.
Same as previous week our A grade midfielders aren't bringing their games.
& the number of bump ball kicking passes / handballs to feet - completely stuffs any 'fast break' footy we aspire to.


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[Unique Name]

I don't agree with that at all. We lost the game because of no midfield pressure in the first quarter and (most importantly) catastrophic turnovers, mostly across half back. Collingwood didn't teach us a lesson in anything other than maybe to be a bit harder at it from the first siren. They had a heap of turnovers as well, that's how we scored.
IMO our defensive structures were fine, but there's no structure that holds up when you just hand the ball so consistently to the opposition.

I think that's pretty much what Ross said in his presser. Midfield didn't work hard enough and the backline coughed it up in the worst possible spots. I don't think he had an issue with our forward line, or at least he didn't mention them.

 

[DudleyDocker]

We did have worse players than Grey, but he was not in our top 10 players, and I had him in the bottom 7 or 8. I don't want role players during a rebuild, I would love a few silly half forwards.

I am hoping next year our depth improves and he needs to play out of his skin to make the side.

You will always have role players in every team. We criticized Chris Mayne because he was playing as a forward and not kicking goals, Brady kicked 2 yesterday - that is a role. In a forward line starved of opportunity he was our highest scorer - that is a role. He tackled and chased all day - that is a role.

There are not 22 midfielders in any team, and some guys will have less possessions than others. If you are going to judge people on their possessions that is fingernail deep analysis* - judge them on leadership, intent and absolute desperation and Brady will be top 3 every week.


* Thanks Ross

 

[Taylor]

It took too long to counter their clearance dominance early, we didn't score enough from stoppage play (unlike us), we barely scored at all from defensive rebounds (not unlike us at all), we didn't take our chances at goal but if they had done that too we would have still lost.

Our greatest area of weakness is scoring from defense, if we fix that up we will add multiple goals per game to our score and reduce our opposition's defensive fifty numbers significantly.