Autopsy Geelong defeated by Port by 16 points.

[Finknottle]

In the third quarter Port went up a gear and Geelong was barely hanging on. It was pretty much panic stations. Geelong completely lost their structure with all 18 players on or inside the defensive 50. Even when they got the ball there was no way out and they kept bombing it out to the wall of port players camped just outside the 50m arc. With no genuine speed or players who could break the lines (apart from DF) we were sitting ducks. Clearly Scott and his coaches had no plan to address it.

 

[Overhang]

I appear to be in the minority but I didn't mind Rohan's game, he was quite crucial in that first half where we controlled the game, I recall a couple of contests that he prevented a defender from intercept marking (what we lacked for the Richmond game) and these don't count on the stat sheet. He passed the ball perfectly to Hawkins that should have lead to the Hawkins goal where Hawkins elected to snap and missed. He absolutely should have won the free (I think late in the 3rd or early 4th) where he was held onto in the 1 on 1 on the forward flank where it was a foot race. I rate his game better than Miers, Gaz and O'connor. The dew coming in really didn't help though, without dew he hangs onto one of those late game grabs.

 

[Live in hope]

Taylor looks cooked but there is absolutely no way he will be dropped. He was far from worst and the MC will play the retiring champs Ablett and Harry until our (and their) last game, unless injured - as they should. Terrible blight on our club if they don’t.

 

[darrenmorgan]

Why when your 7 points down, at the centre bounce, play Atkins Dahlhaus in the centre bounce...

i could not believe my eyes. why? why?

 

[goyoucatters]

In the third quarter Port went up a gear and Geelong was barely hanging on. It was pretty much panic stations. Geelong completely lost their structure with all 18 players on or inside the defensive 50. Even when they got the ball there was no way out and they kept bombing it out to the wall of port players camped just outside the 50m arc. With no genuine speed or players who could break the lines (apart from DF) we were sitting ducks. Clearly Scott and his coaches had no plan to address it.

If/when they got on top in the territorial battle was always going to be our biggest problem in this game. When sides press up as hard as they do, most teams are going to struggle to move the ball effectively if they get caught in the back half. I get we're not good at it but we're hardly alone there.

Our best opportunity was to limit the territorial issue by winning the ball at the source. Once we started getting roundly smacked in that area at the start of the third, all we were doing was delaying the inevitable in terms of conceding goals and momentum.

I haven't seen the figures but surely the contested ball and clearance numbers for the third quarter were shocking for us. Whatever you say about the coaching around that, you're always going to be in trouble when you're not first to the ball and not playing the game where it's dangerous for them.

 

[kickazz]

There is a lot we did wrong, but it is unreasonable, generally, to expect the fourth placed team to beat the top team, in front of their home crowd, in a final, comprehensively.

Some incremental improvements across the board would have been enough to win a game we were underdogs for. Had we won, it would have been a great win, and a rare interstate finals win.

As with any interstate game, if you have the ascendancy early, you have to translate that to the scoreboard. We didn't, and when Port lifted in the 3Q, so did the crowd. It almost never goes your way after that.

So why didn't we get the scoreboard ascendancy? Not sure. Could be mental. More likely structural. Just about all our goals and shots at goal were hard work.

 

[Kyuss]

1/15 post bye, 1/8 first final since 2012, 1/6 from QF final since 2013, 4/16 in finals since 2012.
Raw cold hard facts.

Good news - 3 of those wins have come in Semi finals so lock us in next week.
Bad news - 0/4 in prelims.

So it might be a repeat of last year. Beat West Coast then lose to Richmond.

 

[iameviljez]

There is a lot we did wrong, but it is unreasonable, generally, to expect the fourth placed team to beat the top team, in front of their home crowd, in a final, comprehensively.

Bingo.

This is the crux of it - we are not that good. Our winning streak flattered us - the only team of note that we really took care of in that time was Port. Richmond showed us up comprehensively, whereas we steamrolled Brisbane in one quarter and (from memory) lost the other three.

I too hate our go-slow style, but it wasn't the main culprit last night.

 

[kickazz]

I was at the game tonight and behind the goals. If anyone is criticising Harry Taylor tonight they have an agenda or simply don't understand the game. He was absolutely sensational against Dixon tonight. He destroyed him in one on one contests and more often than not didn't receive any help in the air. Dixon didn't take one mark for the entire game. Not 1 ******* mark. He had six touches and a goal from a free kick. Seriously anyone that bags Harry is a complete and utter moron. He was enormous and probably BOG for us!! Stop embarrassing yourselves people seriously

You'll need to excuse us folks that had to watch ch7. The camera work and selection of cameras to show was much worse than their usual useless effort. Close ups of players while the game is going on, etc. Hard to tell what was going on.

 

[mcwilrob]

In the third quarter Port went up a gear and Geelong was barely hanging on. It was pretty much panic stations. Geelong completely lost their structure with all 18 players on or inside the defensive 50. Even when they got the ball there was no way out and they kept bombing it out to the wall of port players camped just outside the 50m arc. With no genuine speed or players who could break the lines (apart from DF) we were sitting ducks. Clearly Scott and his coaches had no plan to address it.

Exactly - Scott's seems to have a clear inability to adapt on game day when opposition coaches create an issue that needs to be countered in some way...

 

[son of meto]

Yes the big fella is copping a caning on here and he was the best key forward in the ground by a mile...missed two he shouldn’t have and the rest were tough set shots.

Yes he is copping it...that's because most people on here actually know nothing about footy...especially the mods and the gatekeepers in here, you know the CHRIS SCOTT ENABLERS!!!!

The reason Hawk missed a lot tonight was simple...LOOK at where he had to lead to - the boundary line. WHY? Because there was NO OTHER KEY FORWARD to split the defense which would leave Hawk one-on-one more often in the middle of the ground. If I was Esava, I'd be talking to my manager about a transfer to another club...Geelong is not a club for tall forwards to thrive and prosper!!!

It's SOOOOO SAD watching the talent we have just get shafted by continual poor coaching. Scott, for some reason unknown, can not bring himself to play two talls in finals. And his record for that philosophy...4-12!!!

Time to GO Chris! Have a little more dignity than the moron running Victoria and fall on your sword!

 

[Down at K Park]

 

[son of meto]

View attachment 975349

You obviously know nothing about football. Blame the player forced to the boundary line by his inept coach!!!

 

[00VicWard001]

Well done, Cat_Mancini. First page I've looked at for this thread, and it pretty much sums up my thoughts entirely.

Goal kicking abysmal before half-time, intensity and effort atrocious from there until the last change. That's the game right there.

I thought the key factors on the night were:

Terrible conversion from us when we were on top in the first half.
Embarrassing capitulation around the ball in the third quarter.
Easy goals from centre clearances for them, which we simply never got.
Crazy match-ups in the middle when the game was still alive in the last (so crazy even Bruce commented on it in the call).
Mids were quite ordinary for most of the night, and Port set up their game by dominating clean and quick exits from there.

As Mancini said, if you'd said Hawk would have that many marks and that many shots (with Dixon having no marks and one shot), you would have thought we were a massive chance to win. As it was, our best player was a guy we delisted and then rookied after last year, and he had precious few teammates that could say they even performed to parity, let alone well.

To get embarrassed by a club that had so little finals experience compared to us (less than Selwood and Taylor combined) makes this truly one of the worst losses in finals since 2011. And that is truly saying something.

No matter how much experience at the level they get, we appear to have a whole host of players who are simply incapable of raising their game. While this is the case, winning more than one final in any year is clearly beyond them.

Just. So. Flat.

The form of Henderson was discussed in this great article, where he was quoted as saying that he treats every game as his last and is there to have fun and enjoy the moment. Mindset has everything to do with it.

 

[catman2006]

Yes he is copping it...that's because most people on here actually know nothing about footy...especially the mods and the gatekeepers in here, you know the CHRIS SCOTT ENABLERS!!!!

The reason Hawk missed a lot tonight was simple...LOOK at where he had to lead to - the boundary line. WHY? Because there was NO OTHER KEY FORWARD to split the defense which would leave Hawk one-on-one more often in the middle of the ground. If I was Esava, I'd be talking to my manager about a transfer to another club...Geelong is not a club for tall forwards to thrive and prosper!!!

It's SOOOOO SAD watching the talent we have just get shafted by continual poor coaching. Scott, for some reason unknown, can not bring himself to play two talls in finals. And his record for that philosophy...4-12!!!

Time to GO Chris! Have a little more dignity than the moron running Victoria and fall on your sword!

Stanley played in Fwd line 1st Q and should have nailed two goals, its our spread from the contest thats killing the forwards along with slow ball movement which allows defenders time to get back and clog the space...

 

[00VicWard001]

And so it was all on the Players when they won in 2011.

On the day 75% was the players, 25% was the coaches with positional changes etc when Pods went down. Execution trumps all else when it comes to the actual game.

 

[son of meto]

THE PLAYERS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM PEOPLE...It's the GAME PLAN...FFS, WAKE UP!!! It's been happening for 10 years!

 

[tielgaz]

Ablett, selwood, taylor all should retire at the end of this season. Then hawkins, hendo, rohan, dalhaus, steven and blicavs the year after. Maybe even danger.

So Close and Steven would have made a big difference, right, ok......

I don’t get the love affair with Close his 3 touches a game won’t help. We need a forward marking option we have to may defensive forwards playing.

 

[RegHickeyStand]

Open question to everyone: to what extent does a coach impact the mental strength of his players? I don't ask this rhetorically to imply that I know the answer; I'm genuinely unsure which side to come down on and would love to know people's thoughts. Although it would be absurd to suggest that the entire team choked tonight - as I said in an earlier post, if it were the case that *everyone* choked, we'd have lost by 50+ points - it's certainly true that *some* did, and individual players choking in finals has been an issue for years now. I guess it just makes me think, does the coach have any influence over that, and if so, how? Is it possible for a coach to prepare his players well from a strategic and game plan perspective, but not from a mental preparedness perspective?

Coaching is the number one influence on how players run out on to the ground. Geelong has Hawkins, Selwood, Ablett, and Dangerfeild in their team, ffs how does a team like that get beat by 50 points?

I believe Scott's biggest problem is he won't eat a salad sandwich and relax and watch his team play. I got a sneaky feeling he wants to be talked about. The coach who won a premiership. He has got a premiership team together, and that is no mean feat. But he doesn't know how to let go and let them play the game. This reflects in his team selection too. If he has to choose between a talented attacking player with some risk attached, and a drone who is basically a role player, we all know what he goes for. That isn't finals football.

 

[son of meto]

Stanley played in Fwd line 1st Q and should have nailed two goals, its our spread from the contest thats killing the forwards along with slow ball movement which allows defenders time to get back and clog the space...

He didn't play IN the forward line...he was dropping of Lycet creating an extra tall option, he was sneaking down ahead of the play...Hinkley fixed this after 1/4 time. But your point proves the FACT that permanent multiple talls in a forward line cause havoc for defenses.

I'm sick of this club! I'll be back when Scott leaves!

 

[catman2006]

THE PLAYERS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM PEOPLE...It's the GAME PLAN...FFS, WAKE UP!!! It's been happening for 10 years!

Well its because of the players limitations that we play the way we do thats been happening since the golden generation

 

[Down at K Park]

You obviously know nothing about football. Blame the player forced to the boundary line by his inept coach!!!

Durr.

Chris Scott should be sacked, but Hawkins missed some absolute sitters, and even the boundary line shots he's generally pretty good at kicking them. He choked big time.

Doesn't take away from our useless coach though.

 

[cats_09]

His 13 touches would equate to far more metres gained than Kolo. It’s not just about quantity.

Hasn't really this year though; these are his metre gained stats this year:

Rnd 1 vs GWS: 13 disposals, 117 metres gained
Rnd 7 vs Coll: 12 disposals, 227 metres gained
Rnd 13 vs Crows: 13 disposals, 135 metres gained

Last night Kolo had 12 disposals & 134 metres gained

Across the season the average metres gained is:
Clark: 159.7 vs Kolo: 153.6
Clark in 2019 average 330.9

Average disposals:
Clark: 12.7 vs Kolo: 10.5

Average disposal efficiency:
Clark:70.9% vs Kolo: 77.1%

Average Clangers:
Clark: 3 vs Kolo: 1.6

Not really a lot between them this year when you start to break it down

The Collingwood game prior to his injury looked promising for Clark and would have been good to see where he went from there without the injury

He didn't look the same player when he returned for the Crows match - when he had opportunities to put the ball under the arm and break away from packs, he instead opted for 1m handballs to stationary teammates

One of the really telling stats from Clarks 3 games this year is that he had 0 bounces - last year he had 15 bounces in 18 games or 0.8 per game. He didn't run & carry the ball this year & didn't take a bounce.

It would have been good to see more of the Clark that we saw last year, but watching his few games this year he looked more hesitant. Sounds like he struggled a bit with the initial break early in the season, so hopefully during the upcoming offseason he can reset & recharge, and we get to see more of the season 1 Clark as we go into season 2021

 

[Down at K Park]

 

[Pollywaffle]

A number of reasons we lost. Good game by Port they brought heat and Kenny worked us out.
The thing that really irks me these days is we have no real consistent, big game changing performers who relish the contest.
Just a bunch of guys, staying safe, picking up pay checks
(ps:that includes coaches,administrators etc)