Autopsy Groundhog Day - Freo 53 def by Hawks 84 at Tassie

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May 13, 2014
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Where's the autopsy thread? Well, like usual, Freo lost to the Hawks at Tassie. But they put up a decent fight this time! Fyfe may have hurt his shoulder, but whatever they gave him in the rooms turned him into megafyfe. Bhilly had the ball on a string, and Lobb had hands of glue.

MVP Votes: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/votes-rnd-17-vs-hawks.1223331/
Changes v Sydney: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/round-18-changes-vs-sydney-pre-match-discussion.1223328/
Positivity Thread: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/thre...n-rules-strictly-enforced-see-post-1.1214087/
Melt Thread: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/thre...n-rules-strictly-enforced-see-post-1.1214086/
 

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Gave a yelp for a little while but it was never really in doubt.

Selection was bemusing to say the least and not surprisingly the ones that were backed in after poor showings were s**t again. Go figure. No surprise.

We defended well but like almost every year under this coach we just couldn’t find enough ways to score. So no surprises there either.

Hawthorn almost never miss finals under the leadership of Clarkson and they can still make it this year.And they seem to have some nice young talent coming through. No surprise.

Ross can’t beat Clarkson and still can’t. No surprise.

We’re lucky we’ve got Fyfe, he played a lone hand out there today. Or are we lucky? Without him Ross would probably be gone by now.
 
One of our better efforts against Hawthorn in recent times. The score probably flatters us a bit, if Fyfe hadn't turned into Superman for 10 minutes we would have struggled to score at all.
Kind of depressing when you sit down to watch knowing that you're no chance. We don't have the skills or system to beat well organised sides like Hawks & WC.
 
Well that was an entirely predictable result which played out in an entirely predictable fashion.

Crap forward entries, crap forward structure and coordination. A bit better than last week on the bombing but still little effort to really try and manufacture a lead or hit one up. Even the D50 exits were pretty crap this week. Not much urgency to try and clear a bit of space. No real ideas there except kick it to Fyfe which happened a few times in the 2nd half.

Hawks much better at standing off the contest and working it out by hand and foot, whereas we have to rush it out. Trying to pressure the ball carrier specifically had us running around like headless chooks at times. Such a waste of energy and doesn't come off when the opponent is able to easily hit up a free man by foot 30m away.

I'm firmly of the belief that the team we put out today is better than that Hawks team. They are older and more experienced on average but have lost a lot of the genuine guns and the average is bumped up by the bits and pieces players and B graders left over from the last great Hawks team. Mitchell Lewis, Hanrahan, Nash etc are not that great. It is the system in which they play that plays to their strengths. Yes, we still have too many spuds but our system really makes it hard and relies on too few to do too many.

Positioning and personnel still a problem. Connor in defence, I am pretty certain he was directly beaten by Bruest once and someone else another time, both leading to goals. Why is he there? Playing the one KPD, also a bit baffling when they had two (admittedly s**t) talls up forward. That's compounded by whatever knock Hamling picked up. Colyer genuine spud, did some ok things, did some potato things. I don't mind a 5-10 game young bloke being a spud, I do mind a 27 year old just about 100-gamer being a spud.

Fyfe ensured that the scoreline flattered us. Easily BOG and the only reason we didn't lose by 10 goals.

Next week presents the battle of the movable object vs the stoppable force against the swans and if we lose that one, well.
 
Was good to see the defensive set-up basically working. As bad as last week's offence was, hidden in it all was our behind the ball work was crap. Though our drive from HB is still pedestrian compared to what it's supposed to be, but a good Hawks system will do that.

But that's about it. Fyfe and a few other moments from some individuals aside, we were never really a serious threat. I didn't think Hawks were anything special and patented "Ross Lyon effort pills" made it a game we could have won in theory, but lets face it, we are carrying too many ordinary footballers and our fwd play has locked into a shambles that it has been since we started losing our big men with Tabs.

Ho hum, two steps fwd 1.5 back. Can see improvements from this time last year, wasn't a terrible game which Launceston often is, but we're still a way from it. Until we get some midfield depth and smarter ball users, we will be for a while.
 
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Well that was an entirely predictable result which played out in an entirely predictable fashion.

Crap forward entries, crap forward structure and coordination. A bit better than last week on the bombing but still little effort to really try and manufacture a lead or hit one up. Even the D50 exits were pretty crap this week. Not much urgency to try and clear a bit of space. No real ideas there except kick it to Fyfe which happened a few times in the 2nd half.

Hawks much better at standing off the contest and working it out by hand and foot, whereas we have to rush it out. Trying to pressure the ball carrier specifically had us running around like headless chooks at times. Such a waste of energy and doesn't come off when the opponent is able to easily hit up a free man by foot 30m away.

I'm firmly of the belief that the team we put out today is better than that Hawks team. They are older and more experienced on average but have lost a lot of the genuine guns and the average is bumped up by the bits and pieces players and B graders left over from the last great Hawks team. Mitchell Lewis, Hanrahan, Nash etc are not that great. It is the system in which they play that plays to their strengths. Yes, we still have too many spuds but our system really makes it hard and relies on too few to do too many.

Positioning and personnel still a problem. Connor in defence, I am pretty certain he was directly beaten by Bruest once and someone else another time, both leading to goals. Why is he there? Playing the one KPD, also a bit baffling when they had two (admittedly s**t) talls up forward. That's compounded by whatever knock Hamling picked up. Colyer genuine spud, did some ok things, did some potato things. I don't mind a 5-10 game young bloke being a spud, I do mind a 27 year old just about 100-gamer being a spud.

Fyfe ensured that the scoreline flattered us. Easily BOG and the only reason we didn't lose by 10 goals.

Next week presents the battle of the movable object vs the stoppable force against the swans and if we lose that one, well.

Agree on all bar the Lewis call. He’s 20yo and played 10 games and killed Hamling. He’s the same age as Hugh Dixon yeah? Looks very good!
 
It was probably a closer game than the scoreline suggested. Besides that second quarter burst when Fyfe went berserk, we had little to no composure all day - much like last week. I thought Andy Brayshaw had a really good game and was involved in a lot of the possession chains.

If we lose next week, we should start cycling in some of the younger, untried players and see what they can offer provided they are fit. Hogan can be wrapped in cotton wool for the rest of the year so that he can have a full pre season and be cherry ripe for 2020.
 

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Firstly let me say Fyfes work rate could power a small town
weak links basically cost us the game
at one stage Hughes had 2 clangers which directly cost us goals, at the time we were 13 points down go figure
Colyer running around out there whilst Logue plays for Peel? WTF?
Bewly should be out there too
Matera went on holiday
soft frees in front of goals didnt help #freekickhawks
Our season Broke with Alex Pearce's ankle really

at the start of the year, you see that the afl in their wisdom send us down to tassie again, the week after the derby and you pencil it in as a loss
its not this one which killed us its the Melbourne and Carlton games.
PIes, Bombers and Dees have never been there, Sydney 2012, Cats, 2007 AND Richmond 2006 have been there once
Given the amount of travel we do and the fact that Tassie asked to not have us, and we never win there, the mind boggles as to why we cop it

Still, I reckon there's enough blue sky to inspire me for the 4 hour drive up next week, I love footy and Freo
 
There’s no pressure like scoreboard pressure, and unfortunately those three first quarter misses on goal (two set shots by Lobb, I’ve forgotten the third) were compounded by a couple of umpire-assisted goals to Hawthorn. It felt like an important fifteen minutes or so, because even though we matched them for play we were down three goals to zip—an alarming position after what happened last week.

I’m not blaming either Lobb or the umpires but we were set up to fail from there.

And speaking of being set up to fail—how absurd to have us play in Launceston, again. The best argument for a Tasmanian AFL team is that more (definitely not all though!) sides would have to play there each year, rather than sending the same minnows down there ... a bit like Mel Gibson in the closing shot of Gallipoli.
 
So over this season and the current state of this club that I’m finding it hard to even manufacture any post game outrage.

Fairly underwhelming once again. I am staggered that our skills can still be as bad as they are. Our players look tired and like they have absolutely no enthusiasm for the club or coach.

Looks like we are going to drop our bundle for the rest of the season and finish bottom 4/5. A 4th straight season of rubbish.
 
So I went and watched.
As others have said, entirely predictable. Without Fyfe we would nearly have gone 6 quarters of football for 3 goals, and Hill barely made the distance from 40m.
Darcy was great in the ruck, Fyfe was brilliant.
So that's the good.
The bad? Most will go into the Ross thread but we are a poorly skilled team amongst other things. Hawks far better organized around the ball.
Blakely shouldn't be in defence. Our players give far too much space. Far too much. We let them chip out of defense. We set up a sort of zone, they chip kick a couple of times. I look down field and see a Hawks player 20m from an opponent, the next long kick goes to him and away they go.
I know Ross can't make Lobb kick goals or stop Hughes kicking into the mark, but the players need a circuit breaker to clear their minds.
Bye Ross.
 
So I've watched the 2nd qtr to see the Fyfe show, are any of the others worth watching?

Once upon a time I would religiously watch the replay even if I knew we'd been flogged, but I don't think I can muster that kind of enthusiasm for this team at the moment.
 
During that brief period that we played well we had Fyfe forward and the forwards seemed to be leading up to the ball carrier. Our 5 goals appeared to be scored by short kicking to a player on the lead.
Memo to Ross : 1. play Fyfe forward with brief spells on the ball. He is a nightmare for any defender.
2. Stuff this long bombing, look for the short lead/loose man all the time.

In addition to all that why does Ryan keep kicking long high bombs. I thought that he was an elite kick.
 
Agree on all bar the Lewis call. He’s 20yo and played 10 games and killed Hamling. He’s the same age as Hugh Dixon yeah? Looks very good!

He did beat Hamling a couple of times (Hamling after a leg knock mind you in the second half) but I don't think it's by sheer talent. It was by having a forward line that is well coached and delivery that is intelligent. The one on the lead was a good kick to advantage after other forwards had drawn defenders out of the hole and no other forward is going in the same direction. Classic lead out forward play. The one he kicked after the 3 on 1 mark was more Ryan and someone else (Hamling was the last man in I think covering someone else) failing to judge ball flight and not putting enough body on. Again it was a kick that put it to his advantage in the middle of 3 of our players. The one in the first quarter, again, kick to clear advantage out of stoppage.

I think he's ok. I think in our system he'd be ******* useless. In their system Cam Mac would be a deadset jet.
 

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