Review Good/Bad vs Essendon, R17 2023

[texanmike]

Some are still in the denial stage re: Port. I've been the acceptance stage for about a month. Not necessarily that they will win it all for sure, but are definitely contenders.

Yep it’s very much denial from those posters….there is something different about this port team this year, it gives me vibes of our 2017 team…had the same feeling and we made the GF, let’s just hope they fall over on the last day in September as well.

 

[cleanhands]

TT’s bigger problem is running 3 metres under a marking contest

At least it avoids opposition contact

 

[Mr_Moogle]

The red guernsey just sucks for aesthetic reasons. It's not actually cursed.

Exhibit A.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

I wonder if we'll be flat against GWS?

Whatever hopes and dreams we've had of being a genuine contender in the finals this season will surely have gone up in smoke. Yeah we might sneak in but hard to see us doing anything more than make up numbers if that's what we are going to dish up on a big occasion.

I know the margin finished up 3 goals on the weekend but we were absolutely nowhere near it when it counted.

Would have to have dented our confidence

 

[maxlilly]

Just a one week penalty for not even watching the ball and deliberately shouldering someone in the head
The tribunal is a farce

 

[maxlilly]

I wonder if we'll be flat against GWS?

Whatever hopes and dreams we've had of being a genuine contender in the finals this season will surely have gone up in smoke. Yeah we might sneak in but hard to see us doing anything more than make up numbers if that's what we are going to dish up on a big occasion.

I know the margin finished up 3 goals on the weekend but we were absolutely nowhere near it when it counted.

Would have to have dented our confidence

I wouldn't be surprised to see GWS do the same demolition next week, like they did last year when they were a bottom 4 team

 

[BRL121]

Just a one week penalty for not even watching the ball and deliberately shouldering someone in the head
The tribunal is a farce

And Rachele fined 3K for tripping. I didn't notice that.

 

[earlsta]

Saw this knob when I was at the game, has Hamish ever sat in our box? Haha

 

[Minor Threat]

I hate how we make average teams look like “premiership contenders”.

 

[NSolis]

I wonder if we'll be flat against GWS?

Whatever hopes and dreams we've had of being a genuine contender in the finals this season will surely have gone up in smoke. Yeah we might sneak in but hard to see us doing anything more than make up numbers if that's what we are going to dish up on a big occasion.

I know the margin finished up 3 goals on the weekend but we were absolutely nowhere near it when it counted.

Would have to have dented our confidence

I think the players will see Melbourne in two weeks as another, similar opportunity to the last two away games. For better or worse we've been handed three consecutive away games in Melbourne against top 8 sides, and winning just one of them makes finals pretty likely. I doubt they will be seeing the season as a writeoff.

Having said that, who knows. Can be tough to predict when we start well vs when we don't, and GWS is definitely a loseable game.

 

[MsTopG]

Was expecting we would go into this game and learn a lot about our players - and we did.

Good:
-We kept attacking in the second half and were the better for the most of it, kicked 6 in the last when Ess went defensive. When we get thumped in the first half, good we don't just roll over and die

Bad:
-Sloane: that is the worse game I can remember him playing. I was thinking he reminded me of Gibb's in his last season. Still good/classy in patches, but when the pressure is really on, now looks slow physically, and mentally. As others have said, give him his 250th then don't offer him another contract. Keep him as a sub or SANFL player for the rest of the season where he can add value, or atleast relegate his midfield time. The club were pretty ruthless cutting Gibbs, lets see if they will be with Sloane...
-Murphy: couldn't get involved, when he was around the ball....it just went around him or he was unclean/poorly positioned. Reminded me of him from a few years ago when he was putrid regularly.
-Scholl: Another weak display. Regularly getting exposed now. Time to send him off the field and into the gym for the next 9months. He would be just like Atkins in the 2017 GF if we got there now...
-Mchenry: Some good, plenty of vintage McHenry bad. He has definitely been far more valuable as the sub. Feels like his rabid style breaks down a bit over a full game. Reckon when he tires his disposal suffers greatly. When he tires from a full game he can't run/linkup/find space as well as when he is the fresh sub.


Open the check-book to Parish/Redman. We need a free hit or two and need to draft mids, mids, mids. We really are not that far off it and defintely ahead of where we should be for a young & developing side. But we definitely have weak & fragile links....

I think they will treat Sloane very differently to Gibbs. Sloane needs to retire but I see him getting the Thompson final year deal where he plays one game and then he's never seen again in the AFL side. If he's on a cheap wage he can be an extra onfield coach in the sanfl next year. Should finish up this year though.

 

[MsTopG]

I hate how we make average teams look like “premiership contenders”.

I think most teams do at times but we have a knack of doing it more regularly away.

 

[MsTopG]

Essendon have a very attacking and slick game plan and under the roof of Marval it was always a challenge particularly how we've perform away, we didn't turn up for the 1st half and it was game.

Their crowd really gets them going. Probably at the MCG it's a different game. We copped the Don's best performance of the year at marvel.

 

[1970crow]

This is just pure confirmation bias. After Dawson and Laird, our most CBAs went in order to Rachele, Schoenberg and Pedlar. In the first term, Soligo was right up there as well. We had kids in the middle, they just weren't getting the ball.

NTRabbit is right that you can't just kneejerk blame senior players because we lose. Not because those senior players didn't play poorly, some of them did, but we had young players who had the opportunity to positively impact the game and did not do so.

Even if Sloane plays the worst game of all time, it's not his fault if Rachele and Soligo are in the middle and give up a clearance or if Max gets beaten by his opponent.

So you’re saying Sloane’s leadership doesn’t have value in terms of Rachele and Soligo getting the pill?

 

[BRL121]

Their crowd really gets them going. Probably at the MCG it's a different game. We copped the Don's best performance of the year at marvel.

That's a really defeatist view. Sure, the Dons were hyped-up, smiling, and wanting to play that way, as that's the only way they know.
You forget that we came through the banner looking worried for all to see, and played just like that.
We didn't "cop" their best performance, we allowed them to give that performance. We repeatedly fumbled, bumbled, turned over, kicked and handballed into the man, etc.
They didn't believe their luck.

 

[BRL121]

Say what you like about Keays and ROB, at least they know their limitations

I disagree on ROB. He obviously is unaware that he taps straight to the oppo, as he doesn't try to correct this: it's even getting more prevalent, despite his much improved aggression and roving around the ground.

 

[Mutineer]

We didn't move to more senior players in the midfield, we just changed the mix. Sloane and Keays had two CBAs in the first quarter, and five in the last half.

Spoiler

First quarter

Dawson - 11
Laird - 10
Pedlar - 6
Rachele - 6
Soligo - 4
Sloane - 1
Keays - 1

Second half

Laird - 13
Dawson - 14
Schoenberg - 10
Sloane - 4
Rachele - 2
Jones - 1
Keays - 1

All we did is give Soligo's couple of CBAs to Sloane, and swapped Pedlar/Rachele for Schoenberg.

And then you look at impact for those players across the match

Dawson - 32 CBAs, 3 center clearances
Laird - 30 CBAs, 7 center clearances
Rachele, Pedlar, Soligo and Schoenberg combined - 34 CBAs, 4 center clearances
Sloane and Keays combined - 10 CBAs, 1 center clearance

I don't know how you can come to the conclusion it was our young players not standing up that cost us when chance for chance they were as effective as our other midfielders.

I'll tell you who the ineffective players were in the midfield:

Laird - 7 inside 50s, 5 score involvements
Smith - 6 inside 50s, 2 score involvements
Sholl - 4 inside 50s, 1 score involvement

Our other senior players:

Sloane - net negative impact on the game
Keays - good up forward, didn't play midfield
Walker - reasonable up forward, didn't play midfield
Murphy - no impact on the game
Milera - average game with little to no impact
O'Brien - even contest with Andrew Phillips

Laird had 10 clearances and 16 ground ball gets but only had 1 score launch, so of all that first possession use he had no impact on our scoring. He also somehow managed to have more inside 50s than score involvements, so his ball use going forward was poor

Rachele has been absolutely torched on here. He had three more touches than Sloane but +4 clearances, +2 score involvements, +10 pressure acts, +7 effective disposals, +2 ground ball gets, and slightly more meters gained - why on earth would the solution be to use MORE of Sloane?

I'm not saying that only our senior players were poor though, we could have used a bigger contribution from Soligo (though he wasn't played in the midfield) and a few others (McHenry and Sholl were net negatives) but it wasn't the reason we lost the game.

Cannot agree re ROB vs Phillips, ROB was clearly the best ruck on the ground, not even close. Only Dawson had more clearances just for starters.

 

[Soggy2112]

You forget that we came through the banner looking worried for all to see, and played just like that.

Not this s**t again.

 

[arrowman]

I disagree on ROB. He obviously is unaware that he taps straight to the oppo, as he doesn't try to correct this: it's even getting more prevalent, despite his much improved aggression and roving around the ground.

Yes, it happened a lot on Sunday. But at the same time, I recall at least one occasion where he got a clear tap down to a spot where one of our mids was in position to run on to it (and moving forward) - but an Essendon mid ran through and got there first. It looked like ROB did it right, but the receiving mid didn't.

 

[NSWCROW]

BAD

No report from when milera was tackled and his head hit the ground ???

I thought the head was sacrosanct

 

[MsTopG]

BAD

No report from when milera was tackled and his head hit the ground ???

I thought the head was sacrosanct

Only VIC players.