Great Effort

[Cassius_Clay]

I thought it was a superb effort today. Really impressed by O'Brien and Davies. Fanning showed that he is improving alot.

I know we didnt win in the end but to get that close with only 21 players from early in the first quater plus for the fact that we had a large amount of injuries was just great to see.

Well done Pies

 

[Rozza44]

Fanning was brilliant. For ths first time he looked like an AFL player instead of an NBL player and i think he will have a decent future at Collingwood.

Davies and O'Brien showed alot

Maxwell showed the agressiveness we so badly need

J.Cloke was great and took some good marks

Caracella found a bit of form

Shaw wasnt too bad either

There were a lot of positives today
GOOD EFFORT BOYS

 

[sp-mac]

Hard to know what to say after watching that. Was desperate for the win but so many of the young'ns did so well. Would be mad they didn't slow it down at the end but they didn't have any clean possesion for the last 5 minutes so what are you gonna do.

Is a close-enough win with draft-picks still intact the best we could've hoped for?

Doesn't feel like it to be honest, very hollow after the game.

 

[Jabso]

If we didn't have so many players out I would of been furious with how they let them go so much. However letting them burst through for 6 minutes is a sign of a young team.

Just some notes:
- Harry again very impressive. Shows confidence and also alot of strength. Gave Jones a bath in the first half and would of taken the points in the end although Jones was a bit handy in the end. Doesn't get caught one out and doesn't lose sight of his oponent or loose players roaming around half forward like Swan does sometimes.
- Fanning was very good. Strong hands or "dukes" as Brayshaw would say. I have been a bit of a critic of him but he has improved. Today he was very good in positioning around the ground, didn't let his oponent get into dangerous positions too easily and got into plenty himself.
- Egan didn't do much really but the things he does do are very exciting. His leap coupled with long arms gets him to many contests he shouldn't be in. His vision is superb, he spots up a player straight away. He knows how to run out of traffic and has very clean hands and a very good handball. His footskills can let him down but that is a composure thing that can be trained into him with experience. You can't teach a player vision.
- Davies gets the ball, has speed and looks to have improved his kicking a bit. He was so impressive he had to be tagged out of the game. With a bigger body he could be quite good as he has an outside wingers body but does get alot of ball in close. With Harry, Fanning and Davies all blazing will we promote all of them? I think we will need to promote Fanning because it's his last year but it would be a shame for Davies or O'Brien to be stuck in Willy with great form just because noone is injured.
- Buckley looks good up forward, very good. Times his leads perfectly.
- Brodie continues to impress as a key midfielder. Is between him and Jimmy for the Copeland
- Jimmy's form has tapered off in the past 4 weeks. Norf played it well by forcing Hale on to him.
- J.Cloke could prove to be a valuable back up to our team. I have always said he must be kept because of our poor tall defender depth. Now he has proved he has some flexibility and could become our spare parts man. If he was 10cm taller he would be an ideal ruckman. He would have to be the smallest ruckman in a while, Goodes was pretty small in his first season where he played ruck around 190cm if I recall. Jason is only 1cm taller than buckley i think :O.
- Woewodin is good at the hard ball situation. Now before you fall off your chair in horror of that statement let me expand. He is good at the hard ball, WHEN HE DECIDES TO GO FOR IT. That is his problem. In one situation he will put his head down and get the ball out, and in the next situation he will decide not to do it. Not many cases of that today though.
- Best wishes to Didak I hope this doesn't impede his career if it is an irregular heartbeat condition although that hasn't been diagnosed yet.
- Maxwell is good up forward. Unlike many other non-forwards who you wack up forward when you are short, he actually knows what he's doing he doesn't clog up the forward line, he keeps it open when needed and doesn't get in peoples way.
- Swan in the midfield is ok, we are obviously just plonking him there to test how he goes there since our season is a write off. However I believe his ideal position is in the back pocket playing on the loose player to get alot of ball.

 

[MarkT]

We lost!

 

[hoss]

I don't know how you can call it a great effort. This is the AFL not Playschool.

You were the best part of four goals up, with just minutes to spare and lost.

Had that been Freo or Port I'd have no doubt that Pies supporters would be laughing their heads off at the biggest choke ever. I don't get it.

Your young players played well for a considerable part of the game but should have been able to close out the game with that sort of lead and so little time left on the clock.

 

[pocketrocket#24]

couldnt have said it better myself hoss. it was an average game, and yes our youngsters did stand up, but everyone lacked composure at the end, and after such a tight game all day it was shocking to let them steamroll us like that.im not happy at all

 

[Murray]

We lost!

Actually Williamstown lost

I haven't done the 'math' but I suspect the average age of that team yesterday would be around 21.
We had 3 of our 4 rookie list playing and MM said if Leonard had been fit he would also of been playing - our entire rookie list.

Kids are notoriously inconsistent.
Yesterday was a prime example of that

I am not as 'over the top' on that performance as some on this board because we still have the same old problems (pace in the midfield) but I can see some improvement coming next year.

 

[jefffff34]

How the hell is it a great effort when we lose like that?

FFS.

(Not impressed by Egan's last quarter Mediocre Pies?)

 

[hotpie]

We lost!

So what. The form of the kids is the guide to the future. They looked good.

If we lost and it was the "old guard" doing all the work, the situation wouod be worse. But with 5-6 kids doing well there is a glimmer of light.

We may well be promoting 3 rookies next season, they way Fanning O'Brien and Davies are performing. That in itself is encouraging, on top of our four draftees, to have potentially seven long term players come out of the one year. If we pick up 2-3 "hits" next year and get Cole/Fraser/Rocca/Didak/C Cloke/Lonie/Davidson/Tarrant/Richards/R Shaw/Johnson back to full form and fitness, we could turn things around very quickly.

 

[Cassius_Clay]

We lost!

You mean Williamstown lost

 

[Cassius_Clay]

How the hell is it a great effort when we lose like that?

FFS.

(Not impressed by Egan's last quarter Mediocre Pies?)

Did nothing for the first 3 quaters and then decided to get a couple of cheap kicks in the last quater.WOW what a gun.

 

[jefffff34]

Did nothing for the first 3 quaters and then decided to get a couple of cheap kicks in the last quater.WOW what a gun.

hehehe

Hard to get a kick when on the bench and got what seven possessions and a goal in a tight final term.

 

[hotpie]

I don't know how you can call it a great effort. This is the AFL not Playschool.

You were the best part of four goals up, with just minutes to spare and lost.

Had that been Freo or Port I'd have no doubt that Pies supporters would be laughing their heads off at the biggest choke ever. I don't get it.

Your young players played well for a considerable part of the game but should have been able to close out the game with that sort of lead and so little time left on the clock.

Win a final.

 

[hoss]

Win a final.

Of course we need to win a final.

I wasn't having a go necessarily at Collingwood (arguably the greatest VFL / AFL club ever), but at the call that it was a "great effort". Quite simply, it wasn't. You should have won and most Pies supporters will agree with me. I have no doubts your young team will learn from it but there was nothing great about it - except from the Kangaroos.

 

[MarkT]

FMD. We lost. We have been good enough to win 5 times this year and not much more last year. We have Jason Cloke in the ruck and worse he is actually our best option at present. We have all our midfield in tact and it aint fast enough, skilled enough, hard enough or talented enough. Our defence has saved us from further embarrassment this year and did so again.

We lost because we lack class. Our forward line has been decimated but take a look at the stats. We scored nearly every time we went forward. Put another 4 forwards down there and they still can't score more often than it gets there.

We lost and the people sitting near me clapped the players off the ground. I couldn't believe it. We had a big chunk of grand final players out there with the kids. Sure there were some good signs but frankly we have not solved a single problem in two years that we have had for I don't know how long. Rucks and midfields failed us again when it mattered and North smashed us from the middle in the last Q and ran our arses off when it mattered.

And we were clapped off to a standing ovation. Imagine the reaction if we come second again next year!