Review Good/Bad v North Melbourne, R1 2016

[radiojake]

I don't know if it was shown on TV, but Eddie got knocked over in our forward line as they waited for the reset for a goal less than a couple minutes after the Thomas flop..

The umpire down that end was looking straight at it. Didn't blow the whistle.

Just shit like that really pisses me off -

How many goals from bullshit 50 metre penalties?

Also Lynch's free kick in the 2nd where he go tackled with a bit of a sling was soft too

 

[Paladin]

I can.. but you can't see that it comes at a price.

In all seriousness, this was the least of the reasons why Adelaide lost the game. Lack of input from our senior players, combined with poor discipline across the board, were much more significant factors.

So you agree it was a factor, thankyou

Whats the price miss out on VB's 9 touches? I think Hartigan would provide more offensive drive and fumble a lot less.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

Hartigan wasn't the answer. Cheney isn't a tall defender, but that was the role he filled last night and he did it better than Talia & Lever.

I also think you're misunderstanding what I'm talking about with the structure. What you're suggesting would make sense if our defence went man on man, and Hartigan was directly responsible for Waite or Brown (Talia spent most of the night on Petrie). That's not the way our defence is structured these days, with the "web defence". Having an extra tall in that structure may well have caused more problems than it provided solutions.

Agree ...Hartigan wasn't the issue last night .....had more midfield issues that would have taken some pressure off the defense

 

[WaynesWorld19]

So you agree it was a factor, thankyou

Whats the price miss out on VB's 9 touches? I think Hartigan would provide more offensive drive and fumble a lot less.

oh cmon now

I understand the criticism of VB.....but that analogy is just not correct

 

[Paladin]

oh cmon now

I understand the criticism of VB.....but that analogy is just not correct

VB provides zero so how cant it be correct?

 

[Bay62]

Have to agree .....Lever, Crouch Brothers, Sloane .....also suspect McGoven has a nasty side as well

McGovern definitely. Kept knocking players over as they were disposing of the ball. Sometimes just after

I don't like it when a player runs at a guy with the ball and slows down because he can see the guy will probably get his kick away. I know he's trying to avoid a free down ground for after disposal, but I'd rather he went full bore and took the risk. Need 100% pressure and McGovern supplied it

 

[Brentmeister]

So you agree it was a factor, thankyou

Whats the price miss out on VB's 9 touches? I think Hartigan would provide more offensive drive and fumble a lot less.

Can we have lever, talia, Cheney and hartigan in the same lineup. I don't think we can. I like hartigan though and I think he's our best option against the big gorilla forwards.

Knight must come in this week for VB and maybe a Lyons/CEY for Mackay. Hartigan in for Cheney so he can match up on Dixon.

 

[Pugsley]

I think there were a number of reasons why we lost last night. Isolating any one of these reasons and blaming it solely for the loss would be a major mistake.

Lack of input from senior players
Too many of our senior players were absolutely awful last night. VB had the worst case of the fumbles that I've ever seen from him. Tex and Betts were both liabilities when kicking for goal. First Tex missed from the point of the goal square, then Betts missed from 20m out running into an open goal. Neither redeemed themselves. Sloane was nowhere near his best and appears to be struggling with the extra attention he's receiving, now that He Who Must Not Be Named is no longer with us. Lynch was barely sighted and his shank in the final quarter was one of the final nails in our coffin.

Brad Crouch is much hyped as the player who is going to make up for losing Dangerfield. He was awful last night, but that's to be expected given the time he's spent out of the game due to injury. There's not a lot of point in playing him in the SANFL. His problems were caused by a failure to adjust to the increased speed and physicality of the AFL competition. Playing in the SANFL won't fix that - only more game time at the AFL level will make a difference.

Poor Discipline
I can give Brad Crouch some slack for struggling with the pace of the game, given that he's missed 18 months due to injury. What I can't forgive is his shocking lack of discipline throughout the game. He needs to pull his head in, and he needs to do it now. Matt Crouch got reported and it looked ugly in real time, though a number of posters seem to think slow motion replays may help his case. Either way, it was unnecessary and poorly disciplined.

Adelaide gave away a number of goals through 50m penalties. Laird's push, combined with Thomas' diving skills, gave North a 2nd goal without the ball being bounced - that halved our lead in an instant. Yes, it was in response to Sloane being punched in the jaw, but it was still dumb football. He shouldn't have allowed himself to get sucked in by North's niggling and diving tactics.

Murdering the ball
Adelaide had an abundance of wasted opportunities to win the game in the final quarter. We wasted every single one of them. Betts ran into an open goal, and missed. McGovern tried to kick a checkside goal, and missed. Walker had 2 misses from 50m, normally the only range where he does kick reliably. We had 2 players streaming towards the 50m arc, confronted by a single North player - a certain goal beckoned. The handball goes behind the player, and the opportunity goes begging. Time after time we bombed the ball into our 50m arc, hoping for the best - with the ball invariably being turned over.

Then there's the Brodie Smith hospital pass to Sloane, earlier in the game, when he should have been taking the shot himself. Smith turns the ball over and it goes down the other end for a goal - a 2 goal turnaround, in a game we lost by 10 points. Not to mention Tex's miss from the point of the goal square.

Goldstein
Unlike the other factors, which were entirely within Adelaide's control, there was nothing we could do about Goldstein. His marking and calm assurance in the final quarter was the biggest individual difference between the sides. I sincerely hope that he is rewarded with 3 Brownlow votes for this game, as he thoroughly deserves them.

Umpiring
Adelaide had a pretty good run in the first half, but the price we paid in the second half - when the umpires decided to even things up - was just plain vicious. North were given free license to rip Adelaide heads off and throw the ball at will, with the umpires doing nothing to discourage them. In return, Adelaide just had to touch a player or go within 25m of them after a mark, and it was an instant 50m penalty. Shocking display of incompetence. I'm not accusing them of bias, just incompetence.

North's Tall Forwards
Brown, Petrie and Waite kicked 7 goals between them and looked dangerous whenever the ball was coming in high. None of our defenders looked like matching them in the air - not Talia, not Lever, not Cheney. Often they found themselves competing against vastly undersized opponents, such as Seedsman and Smith, with our taller defenders nowhere to be seen. I guess that's the nature of the web defence... Adelaide had no answer - and things weren't helped by these players receiving multiple 50m penalties, bringing them within scoring distance. Hartigan wouldn't have made one iota of difference.

Yep. Spot on.

This feels weird.

 

[Iron]

OK here is where I thought we lost it.

we were on top in the first half, with speed, swarming defence and just thrusting the ball forward albeit without a lot of system.
in the second half we were nowhere, our senior onballers went missing leaving too much to the second tier and/or new blokes. North took control of the stoppages and was able to pump it forward with more system and structure where their talls were decisive.

our game plan was to stop that happening, we stopped scrapping and surging it forward, and they were too tall as they were always going to be if we lost control of the breakdown. the only way to stop that forwardline was to do it in the middle of the park. Sauce and Sloane too quiet for mine.

yes errors could have saved us, yes a couple of misses could have have saved us, but we lost the arm wrestle in the second half and our selection meant that we in big trouble from that.

I mean who stood up in the last? where was the leadership in the middle of the ground?. I don't think we lacked fitness but maybe we spent all our gas too soon? we weren't clean enough either.

Good summary mate. Had very similar thoughts.

 

[Bay62]

Did anyone else want to punch Sandy Roberts face in when he kept referring to the 'Couch' brothers.

Shut the **** up campaigner

Especially given the recent tragic demise of Paul Couch

You might be getting the two confused Sandy. Wise up and show a little respect

 

[footy4ever]

I don't know if it was shown on TV, but Eddie got knocked over in our forward line as they waited for the reset for a goal less than a couple minutes after the Thomas flop..

The umpire down that end was looking straight at it. Didn't blow the whistle.

Just shit like that really pisses me off -

How many goals from bullshit 50 metre penalties?

Also Lynch's free kick in the 2nd where he go tackled with a bit of a sling was soft too

Yes. I lost my excrement at that point and the neighbours paid dearly. Their ears would still be bleeding.

 

[Paladin]

Can we have lever, talia, Cheney and hartigan in the same lineup. I don't think we can. I like hartigan though and I think he's our best option against the big gorilla forwards.

Knight must come in this week for VB and maybe a Lyons/CEY for Mackay. Hartigan in for Cheney so he can match up on Dixon.

I'm not fussed either way on Cheney he is an average player who does the team thing and gets the best out of himself.

Our best setup regardless of opposition is Talia and Hartigan as the key defensive talls with lever as the third tall providing run and intercept marking/chop outs. If they want to squeeze Cheney in as the 4th or not isn't important - probably not in our best 22.

 

[Redleg Crow]

Stats from todays paper.
View attachment 228943

Seedsman's 6 kicks for 342m gained. Every kick was long and to advantage. Need him to get 15+ though. Think I said it during the GC game, that the correlation with his possessions and our winning will be pretty high.

 

[little graham]

We've played in four states this year already? three of last years top 4 teams as well

Acquitted ourselfs ok as well.

 

[Pugsley]

Especially given the recent tragic demise of Paul Couch

You might be getting the two confused Sandy. Wise up and show a little respect

Sandy wouldn't know how to do that.

 

[MRB37]

Or you can use this site ....with filtering options

http://www.afl.com.au/stats

Yep, but I usually post the paper one cause it includes things like "metres gain" "intercepts" and "pressure acts" which they don't include in the AFL stats or on Footywire.

 

[Scorpus]

Lynch didn't get a lot of it because he was being tagged. However, even when he did get it his disposal was awful. 11 disposals, with 54.5% DE and 3 clangers, was a very poor return.

I'd have Lynch as our WOG, by a fairly comfortable margin. VB and Rat tie for 2nd.

Atkins the second worst on ground? That's a stretch. I thought he did some good things

 

[MRB37]

Seedsman's 6 kicks for 342m gained. Every kick was long and to advantage. Need him to get 15+ though. Think I said it during the GC game, that the correlation with his possessions and our winning will be pretty high.

Yea, the only thing that held him back was only the 11 touches. He needs to get that up to 18+ and if he can still kick them with the same effectiveness we could have two really damaging players in Seeds and Smith.

 

[Vader]

So you agree it was a factor, thankyou

Whats the price miss out on VB's 9 touches? I think Hartigan would provide more offensive drive and fumble a lot less.

I always accepted that it was a factor. That's why I mentioned it in my OP. Just not a very significant factor, when compared against the others.

Happy to agree that VB had a very poor game. Never seen him fumble the ball so much.

As to whether Hartigan should have been replaced VB in the team.. That assumes an awful lot. If VB wasn't selected, then the replacement probably would have been CEY or Lyons, not Hartigan. VB earned his place in the team with good performances in the MMC games. Hartigan was poor in the pre-season and left the door open for Cheney. Not a lot of point in arguing that player X was bad and player Y would have been better, when all signs going into the game were that X would have been a better option. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

 

[marvin]

I agree .....really tried hard ...and IMO the ball just didn't run his way last night

Will say though when he got an opportunity to run into goal for a certainty, but chose to put the ball on his boot immediately rather than run with it ......I am dead set sure he remembered being run down in the goalsqaure against GC ......that affected his decision

Another factor was how stuffed both teams were physically. From about 10 minutes to go in what was a very long 3rd term (35 minutes) and then all through the last both teams look spent. I remember one kick in by us in the 3rd term where the ball cleared the defensive 50 and at least 12 players from both teams were walking or stationary well behind the ball. Plenty cramped up in the 4th too.

When we were 5 points down at about the 20 minute mark of the last term I was hoping we could lock it in for 5 minutes before scoring because I didn't think we could muster the drive to bring it back from our defensive lines. As it happened North took a good grab on the city wing and we couldn't cover Garner and that was game over.

Eddie looked like he'd burnt everything he had and didn't trust himself enough to run the 20 or so metres to the goal line.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

Another factor was how stuffed both teams were physically. From about 10 minutes to go in what was a very long 3rd term (35 minutes) and then all through the last both teams look spent. I remember one kick in by us in the 3rd term where the ball cleared the defensive 50 and at least 12 players from both teams were walking or stationary well behind the ball. Plenty cramped up in the 4th too.

When we were 5 points down at about the 20 minute mark of the last term I was hoping we could lock it in for 5 minutes before scoring because I didn't think we could muster the drive to bring it back from our defensive lines. As it happened North took a good grab on the city wing and we couldn't cover Garner and that was game over.

Eddie looked like he'd burnt everything he had and didn't trust himself enough to run the 20 or so metres to the goal line.

In that last qtr .....a lot of our players were walking & not exactly demanding the ball .....not me, not me .....that's where a Dangerfield steps up in a last qtr, where he is traditionally strong, and drags a team with him .....our leaders last night didn't do that

 

[hey shorty]

In that last qtr .....a lot of our players were walking & not exactly demanding the ball .....not me, not me .....that's where a Dangerfield steps up in a last qtr, where he is traditionally strong, and drags a team with him .....our leaders last night didn't do that

Douglas tried but no one went with him.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

Douglas tried but no one went with him.

Poor disposal last night Dougie

 

[TheLeftFist8]

Can we have lever, talia, Cheney and hartigan in the same lineup. I don't think we can. I like hartigan though and I think he's our best option against the big gorilla forwards.

Knight must come in this week for VB and maybe a Lyons/CEY for Mackay. Hartigan in for Cheney so he can match up on Dixon.

If that's deemed the case then Cheney is the casualty.

Against smaller forward lines or sides with strong, mid-sized targets then Cheney/Shaw replaces Hartigan.

Whilst taller, Shaw is quite athletic…he's an option.

Or a little left field…CEY.

He's tall, great overhead, composed in traffic, has reduced his errors by foot, and obviously can assist the mid rotations.

Or simply put Seedsman back. Isn't finding the ball a lot but his touches coming out of the back half are gold.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

Atkins the second worst on ground? That's a stretch. I thought he did some good things

Great disposal ....but Atkins took some wrong options, and looked off the pace .....but no worse than a dozen others