Autopsy Hinkleys hobos vs the oldest team in the universe

[sobrave]

I still reckon TJ stood up in a shitty situation. Did a decent job as captain in 2020 and 2021 after the club had to re-group from the ridiculous joke of 2019 when we tried to play without a captain at all. That was always gonna be a tough thing to come back from, to me it remains the worst decision taken in Port's AFL history. The thing is though he just shouldn't have been captain this year - at this point he is a fringe player at best. The decision to not name Wines as captain after he won a freaking Brownlow is mindblowing to me.

If you look at all the off-season decisions:
1. Not reviewing the preliminary final or learning from it
2. Letting the coach's box fall to absolute s**t by not replacing Voss, not upgrading our senior coach, and getting in "jobs for the boys" Cornes
3. Not picking a better captain
4. Not trading in anyone outside of players that basically fell in our lap (Fivelayson, Dumont)

They indicate that we had totally given up on this season by January, if not earlier. Its really no wonder we went 0-5 and its not all on Ken even though a lot of it is.

That's an indictment on the club. We finished top 2, absolutely flogged Geelong in the QF.. we shouldn't have been as far off in the prelim as we were. To give up on a season from that position beggars belief. What the hell is going on down there?

 

[philreich]

Hey Gremio, didn't see this post.

Others have responded so I may be repeating what has been said or not be as detailed as those responses.

The problem I have with this ball denying strategy is that it goes against what Hinkley has promoted for years as a fast, exciting ball movement gameplan.

That doesn't make either one right or wrong, but it immediately creates the impression that we think we can't win playing expansive football against these sides. So the initial issue to me is you're telling the players they're not good enough to win playing the style that is externally promoted and you would think practised over the pre-season.

The other issue is we have played that retention style against two top teams this year and lost comfortably to them both. Ok, that happens, you can point to injuries in the Brisbane game and the playing environment with heat and humidity that wore us down, although they did really run over the top of us.

And Melbourne win games for fun these days. Against Melbourne though, you also had the compounding effect of the insane forward set up. Move the ball slowly and laboriously up the ground and then kick it long to medium sized flankers matched up against some of the best and most cohesive key defenders in the game and what do you get? A game where you actually believe you won't kick a goal for the entire game. It was like being a North Adelaide supporter at the 1989 grand final.

But the Geelong game really rankled. We had so much of the ball and the play in the first half and managed to eke out a 3 point lead to half time. We were so obviously vulnerable to any shift in momentum and a run of goals and once it came we had nothing to fight back with. And playing the crab game, Geelong just set up their tall defenders to play in front and like the Melbourne game we would kick in long from distance for shallow F50 entries and they just picked them off. Our key forwards are mobile leading type players, they're not contested beasts like Dixon. Although at least in this game they were more likely to take marks than Sam Mayes was against Stephen May.

The other issue I have with the crab game plan is it encourages uncontested footy to the point where players avoid the contest looking for easy outlets across the ground. That's fine and it's a part of modern footy, but there comes a time when you have to fight and compete and win the ball for quick multiple entries to create pressure and score goals. Or to hit up a moving target. Yet Hinkley will come out in the press conference time and again and lament losing contested ball. Geelong smashed us in that stat 150-121. But when you set up a game plan that encourages uncontested ball what do you expect? And Geelong to me are not a quality team, they're a middle of the road team that we should be beating if we think we are any chance for finals.

The Buldogs prelim final was a classic example of a team totally unprepared for the cauldron of a final. It had the stench of We just have to turn up to win. It's the coach's job to pick up on complacency during the build up and smack it down. From what I've heard, the coaching team might have contributed with a lacklustre build up. Now as we've seen two games this year against quality opposition and one against an ok team on its home deck have shown we haven't progressed in strategy, tactics and a real desire to impose ourselves on games.

All of the above is exactly why we need someone like Clarkson as coach. The man didn't win 4 flags with Hawthorn through being timid - the Hawks were the team dishing out the intimidation, and this Port team is crying out for a coach like that!!!!!!!

 

[EskimoPAFC]

All of the above is exactly why we need someone like Clarkson as coach. The man didn't win 4 flags with Hawthorn through being timid - the Hawks were the team dishing out the intimidation, and this Port team is crying out for a coach like that!!!!!!!

Might end up clashing with Tom Clurey then?

 

[philreich]

Might end up clashing with Tom Clurey then?

I reckon quite a few of our blokes will get a rude shock after Ken leaves.......