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Review Groundhog Day at MCG vs Collingwood

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The club has for a number of years now traded for players who are the icing and seldom the cake, particularly with the `key' position types, eg Lukosius who is obviously a magnificent kick but plays more of a flanker type role, and that lack of genuine size at both ends of the ground definitely exposed a number of the smaller players yesterday.

The current line up desperately needs two quality big men, ie a key forward who can demand the ball and if he can't mark it bring it to ground and create opportunities for the crumbers, and a chb who can take the strong pack mark to not only stop the the other team's momentum (ala Greg Phillips) but also turn defence into attack by distributing the ball to the runners.

Atm Aliir is a one man band, who in a top line up would be a 2nd or possibly even 3rd defender and not the number 1 banana he is forced to be currently.
The return of BZT will hopefully alleviate the need to match him up on the oppo gorillas and allow him to play the intercept role which is obviously his strong suit.

The two talls who could? (and that is obviously a very big ?) make a difference are Lord and Ratugolea.
Imo for what is almost certainly going to be another wasted season the former needs to be given as many games as possible to see if the forward line can be built around him, and if he isn't up to it then it could be sayonara time at season's end.

Which leaves Esava, whose football nous at crucial times in games last season was non existent, particularly those heart in mouth moments he gave supporters when he was played in defence, and as per Lord 2025 has to be a make or break year for him as well.

Of the younger blokes, hopefully at least 1 or 2 of Walsh, Moss and Whitlock will eventually make the grade, but from what I have been told by regular attendees of Maggie games Walsh is probably still at least a season away from AFL level, so the untried two should be even further away than that.
 

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Didn’t watch any of the game but if our game plan was anything like what we saw against the Saints and during PS, it’s absolutely trash.

This kamikaze run forward with random handballs and no structure is just an absolute disaster. It doesn’t work, the ball ends up being turned over 90% of the time and we have players who pass the ball off to players in an even worse position, backwards or just in circles.

If that’s what we’ve worked on over the PS, it’s an absolute disaster from the coaching group and shithouse plan.
 
We actually went into the game with a premeditated plan to use Wines as a chop out in the ruck and not as an emergency response to losing a few key players to injury in the game.

Just WTF?
Kornes strafed Carlton coaches on tv Thursday night for doing the same thing with Cripps.

Wonder if he’ll say the same for Port’s coaches.
 
Last night clearly showed we’ve gone backwards in just about every metric used to measure success.

Fitness - half the team were out on their feet by half time. They simply weren’t physically prepared for the contest despite having 6 months to get ready.

Leadership - we allowed the opposition to kick 10 unanswered goals. Respected & competent on field leadership doesn’t allow this to happen. No motivation or accountability from one end of the ground to the other.

Skills - horrifically bad, possibly the worse I’ve seen under Bottom 10 Ken’s entire era.

Gameplan - what gameplan? It looked like a Hanoi intersection during peak hour. No method, no organisation, no structure. Utilising Wines as a 2nd Ruck is about as dumb as it gets.
 

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Didn’t watch any of the game but if our game plan was anything like what we saw against the Saints and during PS, it’s absolutely trash.

This kamikaze run forward with random handballs and no structure is just an absolute disaster. It doesn’t work, the ball ends up being turned over 90% of the time and we have players who pass the ball off to players in an even worse position, backwards or just in circles.

If that’s what we’ve worked on over the PS, it’s an absolute disaster from the coaching group and shithouse plan.

It is.

I'm utterly bemused that last year we prided ourselves on having a "go down the guts at all costs - kamikaze" gameplan that, when it came off, looked amazing but often left us badly out of position and conceded easy goals out the back.

So what does Hinkley do this year? He DOUBLES down and devises an even "Go harder down the guts at all costs for longery" gameplan

It's a dumb system, it leads to fatigued players who cannot run defensively because they are so cooked.

It works against teams that we are better than, but it simply cannot beat the top teams, we've known that for years
 
We will be stuck in a wilderness for a very long time. Everyone who thought we were overreacting in the crows practice match we saw every bit as bad that day as today.

Butters and Bergman leaving so we can trade back into the top 10 this year. We legitimately have no grunt or players to look forward to for the next 10 years besides George and JHF. Aliir and Wines are both 30. Absolute poo after those 4
 

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I don't know if being a Mavs supporter has just completely broken me and nothing could be as bad as the way that organisation conducted itself this year, or I just don't care about AFL anymore, but I feel nothing after this result.
You're such a nothing club now Port, and your words don't mean shit. You've let everyone down so many times that it doesn't register anymore.
 
Why would the coach be bothered about trying to get the team up, or implement a new gameplan? He is on a farewell tour. He gives zero fjcks about what happens to this club once he leaves.
 
And our next coach has been part of the same bubble for three years. So is he the answer? I very much doubt it.

Imo his hands are all over this, what has Sprinkles done for the last 2yrs, sat on the bench no headset and

with a vacant look on his face pointing to signs and patting bums
 
What go me about the supposed quick handball game was how inept it was. Handballs would go to a player 2m away and immediately under pressure from the same opponent as the disposer. They were easy to read and either loopy, allowing the opponent to close the gap by the time the ball arrived, or misdirected, resulting in a fumble and the same effect as the loopy HB.

Then, there was the non-existent forward line structure for the 13th consecutive year…
 

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Review Groundhog Day at MCG vs Collingwood

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