Autopsy Hawks lose to *

[Gralin]

So none of it could be on the players?

 

[OnTheRocks]

You’ve been here for 4 years, Sixpence has been posting here for 10.

Dig up.

**** you polarize people

Right, so it's all about the entries he has at his disposal......rather than the fact that we dump it long to a tall marking forward who does not exist?

we did until he got dropped
someone f'd up with that call

 

[savagelunchbox]

Spot on. It's priority number 1, yet we see the same **** week in week out. I'm now staggered by it to be honest. It's on Clarko and no one else.

Coach never makes a mistake, Tyler. You've been on here long enough to know the unspoken law.
Even though it's been happening for 3+ years, and there's only 1 consistency in that time; it's everyone else's fault.


We'll blame the players because they're unable to see 1m past their nose and see the 12 other teammates (and 15 opposition players) within a 7m radius of them when they stand at the top of the square a kick down field from where the ball is. Stupid players.
We'll blame the players for continually kicking to the top of the square to players who can't take pack marks because seeing these teammates, who are unable to pack marks, surrounded by opposition players at a 2:1 ratio does seem like a good kick strategy when you're running to the 50, but they're too stupid to remember back the 100x before that when it failed.

Stupid players. Too stupid to be coached to be elsewhere or kick elsewhere.

 

[Gralin]

Coach never makes a mistake, Tyler. You've been on here long enough to know the unspoken law.
Even though it's been happening for 3+ years, and there's only 1 consistency in that time; it's everyone else's fault.


We'll blame the players because they're unable to see 1m past their nose and see the 12 other teammates (and 15 opposition players) within a 7m radius of them when they stand at the top of the square a kick down field from where the ball is. Stupid players.
We'll blame the players for continually kicking to the top of the square to players who can't take pack marks because seeing these teammates, who are unable to pack marks, surrounded by opposition players at a 2:1 ratio does seem like a good kick strategy when you're running to the 50, but they're too stupid to remember back the 100x before that when it failed.

Stupid players. Too stupid to be coached to be elsewhere or kick elsewhere.

I mean maybe it's more complicated than just Burns or just Clarko or just the mids or just the forwards?

 

[TylerDurden]

Coach never makes a mistake, Tyler. You've been on here long enough to know the unspoken law.
Even though it's been happening for 3+ years, and there's only 1 consistency in that time; it's everyone else's fault.


We'll blame the players because they're unable to see 1m past their nose and see the 12 other teammates (and 15 opposition players) within a 7m radius of them when they stand at the top of the square a kick down field from where the ball is. Stupid players.
We'll blame the players for continually kicking to the top of the square to players who can't take pack marks because seeing these teammates, who are unable to pack marks, surrounded by opposition players at a 2:1 ratio does seem like a good kick strategy when you're running to the 50, but they're too stupid to remember back the 100x before that when it failed.

Stupid players. Too stupid to be coached to be elsewhere or kick elsewhere.

Correct.

Bloke is getting paid $1m a year to fix one basic problem. Lower the faarken eyes to a leading target. My 4 year old son could do that.

It's starting to piss me right off.

 

[OnceKicked50]

Thats a shame, because anyone who thinks you enter a season with a goal in mind and you just ignore all evidence that things aren't going as planned and don't adjust the goalposts according to that evidence, doesn't understand football.

Mate. That's not the context to what I was saying. Obviously plans can change. I'm glad ours has. But, the original aim at the start of the season shouldn't be lost in conversation as you are clearly trying to do.

The idea of accountability in business is you sit down and have a goal in mind right? You then judge yourself accordingly. Well, our goal clearly wasn't to be contending in 2022 at the start of the season. No matter the injuries, no matter the excuses. Excuses don't make you better.

s**t, I wish I could avoid a conversation with my boss when I miss KPI by just saying, it's OK, the goals are fluid and have changed. Don't judge me by what I set out to achieve at the start, let's now judge me on XYZ as that original aim didn't work out for me. Rinse and repeat, hello Carlton.

At the start of the season the club felt we were closer to contending than rebuilding. That's rightfully changed. But that also reflects decisions on our list were wrong, why can't this be discussed?

We learn, we adjust. But, we also should be free to discuss what went wrong. You're completely targeting some posters, like myself, to try and control and limit discussion. It's transparent, and again, perhaps you could reflect on this.

 

[Maybloomer]

Correct.

Bloke is getting paid $1m a year to fix one basic problem. Lower the faarken eyes to a leading target. My 4 year old son could do that.

It's starting to piss me right off.

What pisses me off is their reluctance to kick to a one-on-one if there are no leading forwards - and there normally isn’t. They would rather chip and handball between each other and then bomb to a more crowded F50 and hope Bruest or Poppy can burst through 5 defenders. Well, that ain’t happening.

Surely it can be tried for one quarter especially when the game is shot. One quarter of no backwards, no switching, no more than one handball. We have players looking up and seeing our AA forwards matched against ordinary backmen and saying “Nahhh I’ll go backwards “

 

[Judd2Sewell]

I mean maybe it's more complicated than just Burns or just Clarko or just the mids or just the forwards?

No doubt it does involve everyone, but primarily it's the coaches responsibility and that should be obvious.

If the players can't execute whatever the game plan is because it's convoluted, boring, slow, or they are just not up to it (etc) then it's incumbent on the coaches to make changes to make something work.

Clarkson has always been about making players play their role, which suggests that he strips back some of the intricacies of their individual games in order to play a team role.

IMO that would surely simplify things for the players. And if that is the case then IMO the players are most likely doing what's being asked of them. It's not the players fault they are being asked to play a boring, slow, possession style that is seemingly completely outdated and allows opponents to get back in time to affect our long bomb entries.

This is on the coaching group as a whole, but at the end of the day the accountability rests with the head coach.

 

[PhatHQ]

On Burns... I think he’s struggling. Our entries are poor but our forward movement & patterns are rubbish

On Clarko... it’s looking a bit like a head in the sand atm with the consistency of the s**t ball movement, entries inside 50 & the fwd 50 efficiency & Clarko not looking to change anything anytime soon.

On the players... it’s the kids that are providing. That tells me that the message is falling on deaf ears with the senior players & the spark isn’t there. It’s time to fix that.

Guys like Ross, Jones, CJ & Hanrahan should all be getting some exposure for the rest of the season as I think there will be some serious list changes this season.

In hindsight we could have easily played any one of those 4 before Brand & provide some more pace to quell the Dons half back rebound as well as adding some youthful spark of our own.

I’m not crying to play the kids but they sure need to be shown the requirements moving forward.
If the season is shot & we get two of these kids to show something there will be genuine excitement for 2020 with some added hope similar to Morrison & Worpel last season.

 

[Judd2Sewell]

Mate. That's not the context to what I was saying. Obviously plans can change. I'm glad ours has. But, the original aim at the start of the season shouldn't be lost in conversation as you are clearly trying to do.

The idea of accountability in business is you sit down and have a goal in mind right? You then judge yourself accordingly. Well, our goal clearly wasn't to be contending in 2022 at the start of the season. No matter the injuries, no matter the excuses. Excuses don't make you better.

****, I wish I could avoid a conversation with my boss when I miss KPI by just saying, it's OK, the goals are fluid and have changed. Don't judge me by what I set out to achieve at the start, let's now judge me on XYZ as that original aim didn't work out for me. Rinse and repeat, hello Carlton.

At the start of the season the club felt we were closer to contending than rebuilding. That's rightfully changed. But that also reflects decisions on our list were wrong, why can't this be discussed?

We learn, we adjust. But, we also should be free to discuss what went wrong. You're completely targeting some posters, like myself, to try and control and limit discussion. It's transparent, and again, perhaps you could reflect on this.

Good post

 

[tige19]

No doubt it does involve everyone, but primarily it's the coaches responsibility and that should be obvious.

If the players can't execute whatever the game plan is because it's convoluted, boring, slow, or they are just not up to it (etc) then it's incumbent on the coaches to make changes to make something work.

Clarkson has always been about making players play their role, which suggests that he strips back some of the intricacies of their individual games in order to play a team role.

IMO that would surely simplify things for the players. And if that is the case then IMO the players are most likely doing what's being asked of them. It's not the players fault they are being asked to play a boring, slow, possession style that is seemingly completely outdated and allows opponents to get back in time to affect our long bomb entries.

This is on the coaching group as a whole, but at the end of the day the accountability rests with the head coach.

It may be not the most brilliant comparison but look at Carlton since they have been “un-roboted”... they didn’t win last night bit they are a team that have had the shackles released and at least look likely to compete and try to win games.

I would like to see us take teams on, against Geelong we attacked the corridor, we tried to gain quick entries and whilst we lost you could see the intent and I was happy.

Abasi has said the goal posts have changed, but they’ve changed due to the ineptness of the way we are playing and lack of results, facts remain that we stated we are aiming at top 4, we recruited for now and thus far it’s been a monumental failure.

Now there has been some super positives, Worps the obvious one along with Lewis and the form of Scully and Scrimshaw.. you can see we have a bit to work with but there are a number of issues, starting with senior players and some of our supposed elite guys. It’s really really obvious this squad needs a genuine shake up, a good turnover and some fresh blood to liven up the club.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Mate. That's not the context to what I was saying. Obviously plans can change. I'm glad ours has. But, the original aim at the start of the season shouldn't be lost in conversation as you are clearly trying to do.

The idea of accountability in business is you sit down and have a goal in mind right? You then judge yourself accordingly. Well, our goal clearly wasn't to be contending in 2022 at the start of the season. No matter the injuries, no matter the excuses. Excuses don't make you better.

****, I wish I could avoid a conversation with my boss when I miss KPI by just saying, it's OK, the goals are fluid and have changed. Don't judge me by what I set out to achieve at the start, let's now judge me on XYZ as that original aim didn't work out for me. Rinse and repeat, hello Carlton.

At the start of the season the club felt we were closer to contending than rebuilding. That's rightfully changed. But that also reflects decisions on our list were wrong, why can't this be discussed?

We learn, we adjust. But, we also should be free to discuss what went wrong. You're completely targeting some posters, like myself, to try and control and limit discussion. It's transparent, and again, perhaps you could reflect on this.

Don’t be coy.
You made reference to the exact things I have posted, then when I respond to you you say you’re being targeted.
If you don’t want people to respond to your posts, why even post?

No one has said that how the club is going cannot be discussed, but if you’re going to do it accept that there’s more to how the team has gone than simply the win/loss column, because that’s all you seem to be doing “we thought we could improve on last year! We haven’t, so the club need to admit that they made poor decisions.”
It’s not that simple and that’s not how any review of our season to date should take place.

You call them excuses when there are reasons for our lack of form.

Injuries to key players, depth, form, connection, stability, leadership, experience, execution ....all of these things have had varying impact on our results to date.

 

[Pessimistic]

View attachment 692745

Memory bank.

So this is after the cheer squad had been eyeballed. By dome security clap clap clap AFL

Join joffa and boycott the AFL dome

 

[OnceKicked50]

Don’t be coy.
You made reference to the exact things I have posted, then when I respond to you you say you’re being targeted.
If you don’t want people to respond to your posts, why even post?

No one has said that how the club is going cannot be discussed, but if you’re going to do it accept that there’s more to how the team has gone than simply the win/loss column, because that’s all you seem to be doing “we thought we could improve on last year! We haven’t, so the club need to admit that they made poor decisions.”
It’s not that simple and that’s not how any review of our season to date should take place.

You call them excuses when there are reasons for our lack of form.

Injuries to key players, depth, form, connection, stability, leadership, experience, execution ....all of these things have had varying impact on our results to date.

The club has gone from contending, to aiming to contending in 2022, running with reference from Topiary and others.

My posts have nothing to do with 2019, or the win-loss record. It is that we have gone from a narrative of contending, to a narrative of 'exploring'. So, what went wrong?

Injuries heal. If this was the sole issue, why are we waiting to contend three years from now?

Depth and Experience is known prior to a season, at-least individuals are employed to know this. Did we incorrectly judge this?

Leadership. Was this incorrectly assumed within our playing group?

Point is, the narrative has changed so dramatically mate. 2022 is three seasons away. I couldn't give a s**t about the 2019 win/loss. It is evident from listening to Clarko now, compared to at the start of the year, we have greatly overestimated the list.

Along the way, people have made a mistake. And look, *, us of all supporters can cop that sweet. I am confident the club will rectify it, but just because we are Hawthorn doesn't mean we are absolved from making mistakes, or having them called out.

My biggest frustration is around, what I consider, the likelihood we made a win sooner move for Wingard, and gave up too much. He will be 29 in 2022 and honestly, doesn't come across as a guy that will do everything right, or love the game enough, to play well in his 30s'.

This is my big concern with making a mistake with where the list is at. And honestly, I cannot reconcile we make this trade if we thought 2022 was our timeframe. Burton will be in his prime at 25 then, and our first round pick, from a stacked draft, would be 50 games deep.

 

[Pessimistic]

Burns moved out of mids coach to fwd coach to make way for sam mitchell. Anything in that? i have no intel just thinking out loud

 

[StillAtLarge]

Burns moved out of mids coach to fwd coach to make way for sam mitchell. Anything in that? i have no intel just thinking out loud

Hmmm don't think so. Glass, Burns and Mitch are all highly rated for their football knowledge. Unfortunately I think we lost this game at the selection table.

Edit: I think most clubs rotate their assistants. But Sam does appear to be the guy Clarko wants to succeed him

 

[Pessimistic]

The club could not have forseen mitchells horrific industry nor Cyril retiring.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

The club has gone from contending, to aiming to contending in 2022, running with reference from Topiary and others.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone from the club suggest that we would contend this year.

Even if they did this was going to be as the result of a best case scenario, which I'd have thought didn't need to be spelt out.

Clarkson has the same target each and every year "try to win as many games as we can to make top 4 and then see what happens".

My posts have nothing to do with 2019, or the win-loss record. It is that we have gone from a narrative of contending, to a narrative of 'exploring'. So, what went wrong?

Over the preseason we had our eye on backing up from 2018.

Once again, this is the club targeting what they think we're capable of with a good run at it, which is not unlike half the clubs in the comp.

A whole of host of things have gone wrong since then. Tom breaks his leg, Mohr breaks his, Schoenmakers cant get on the park, Gunston has ITB issues, Wingard has calf issues, Burgoyne does his hamstring, Frawley, McEvoy, Shiels, Scrimshaw, Wingard again.....on it went, and we're not exactly stacked with depth at the moment, so none of this easily covered. We've had to throw Worpel to the wolves, have O'Meara shoulder the load, play Cousins even when he needed a rest....

All of these things have had major impact on our first two months of football. You simply can't just ignore it.

Injuries heal. If this was the sole issue, why are we waiting to contend three years from now?

Because we're not the finished product, just like we weren't in 2018. We have thin depth,

We've been hamstrung by a number of injuries in games this year, and have had other players like Smith, Breust and Gunston play through injuries during that same period because we'd already had our depth cut to the bone with Sheils, Frawley, Burgoyne, Wingard, McEvoy and Mitchell sitting in the stands at different times.

We could've had a very good run with injuries and been at least 7-5, but even then we'd still be aiming to meet the requirements for top 4, not necessarily the flag.

Depth and Experience is known prior to a season, at-least individuals are employed to know this. Did we incorrectly judge this?

Have a look at the list of players above who've either not got on the park since January or have missed slabs of games during the season....we didn't have a crystal ball.

Leadership. Was this incorrectly assumed within our playing group?

I think the leadership of the group has been the least of the impacts on the outcomes so far, to be honest. We could do with more leadership in key moments and in particular games, but I don't think our leadership issues are necessarily a key factor to our poor season so far. Not being able to manage players and form has been a far bigger issue.

Point is, the narrative has changed so dramatically mate. 2022 is three seasons away. I couldn't give a **** about the 2019 win/loss. It is evident from listening to Clarko now, compared to at the start of the year, we have greatly overestimated the list.

The narrative hasn't changed like you think though. All that's happened is that our year has not ended up in the "best case scenario" and so we're now talking about winning games of football as a whole rather than winning enough games of football to land in the top 4.

Clarkson always talks about winning as many games in the H&A as possible.
All he has done has spoken about the search for that next side that brings us silverware.

Along the way, people have made a mistake. And look, ****, us of all supporters can cop that sweet. I am confident the club will rectify it, but just because we are Hawthorn doesn't mean we are absolved from making mistakes.

That's fine, they most certainly have made mistakes at different times, but not in the manor that you seem to be implying.

And I don’t mention coaching or gameplan in any of this, because I don’t pretend to know what we’re actually trying to do out there every week.

The clubs had every right to think that with a bit of luck we could back 2018 up, though.

My biggest frustration is around, what I consider, the likelihood we made a win sooner move for Wingard, and gave up too much. He will be 29 in 2022 and honestly, doesn't come across as a guy that will do everything right, or love the game enough, to play well in his 30s'.

This is my big concern with making a mistake with where the list is at. And honestly, I cannot reconcile we make this trade if we thought 2022 was our timeframe. Burton will be in his prime at 25 then, and our first round pick, from a stacked draft, would be 50 games deep.

This is just hindsight thinking after a poor start to the year.

If Hawthorn don't go out and make changes to the list for the better after losing in straight sets in 2018, this board would have imploded at the thought that we weren't trying to build our way towards our next flag.

 

[Gaston]

Yeah it looks a bit like this. Add a fit Wingard, Mitchell and even Scrimshaw and we are better. Clarko is a systems based coach. He will stick with it imo so that when the side is built they will be able to execute the plan on autopilot.

Its not fun to watch but then 2005-2007 was tough viewing at times as well. I am keeping the faith for now.

Maybe for a game or two he could let the side off the leash and see what happens. It might even re-enforce his coaching method to the group if we drop a game by heaps..

Although people will ignore it, Brian Taylor said this exact same thing.
Players appeared stifled by process driven game style.

What irks me the most is during the GWS game, Luke Hodge was commentating.
He left 18 months ago but could still clearly predict where the ball would go.
The game has changed a lot but we were still playing to a style built many years prior.

Is this game style working for this group of players?
Clearly, the long ball to the forward line isn't.

 

[MasterSamurai]

So none of it could be on the players?

Not after round 12 mate.

 

[Gralin]

Not after round 12 mate.

Really?

 

[MasterSamurai]

Correct.

Bloke is getting paid $1m a year to fix one basic problem. Lower the faarken eyes to a leading target. My 4 year old son could do that.

It's starting to piss me right off.

Mate, it’s been clarkos “go to” plan since 2015 and every coach is onto it.

 

[MasterSamurai]

Really?

Yes, really.

 

[Gralin]

Yes, really.

What about all the missed kicks and hand balls to players feet or over their heads can we lay any of the blame for poor skill execution on them?

I know the buck stops with Clarko but by god did we butcher it Friday night, hard to get any sort of scoring opportunities when you're kicking it to the defenders advantage which we've done a lot this year, we've also stuffed up transition a lot putting ourselves under more pressure which leads to bombing it in when we should have had time to spot a target.

It's not all game plan

 

[Beandip]

What pisses me off is their reluctance to kick to a one-on-one if there are no leading forwards - and there normally isn’t. They would rather chip and handball between each other and then bomb to a more crowded F50 and hope Bruest or Poppy can burst through 5 defenders. Well, that ain’t happening.

Surely it can be tried for one quarter especially when the game is shot. One quarter of no backwards, no switching, no more than one handball. We have players looking up and seeing our AA forwards matched against ordinary backmen and saying “Nahhh I’ll go backwards “

The thing I have found interesting as the season has progressed is Hawthorn becoming MORE conservative and risk-averse, I remember thinking earlier in the season we were taking waaay more contested marks than normal, and we were backing players in 1-on-1, and I think we were even second/third in the comp for contested marking at one point. I distinctly remember it because it was a polar shift from the old Hawthorn and I was excited!

But then something has changed and we've gone back into our shells which has led to trying to play safe, which has reduced confidence which actually makes us less competitive than backing in 1-on-1 contested marking! As our season becomes more untenable, we should be doing more of this, trying kids, trying aggressive strategies etc., don't die wondering.