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How do we improve our hardness?

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give our strength and conditioning staff the boot for starters. Our blokes are in poor condition and have terrible strength. Players came into this season lighter and weaker than last season. Get them built like footballers FFS and not bloody marathon runners.

Time to make a few more rules at the draft table. No more Bootsma, Lucas, McCarthy body types. Haven't seen a team win a premiership for a very long time with a team of scrawny rats, quite the opposite.

We have spent all this money on a big arse training facility and the players aren't built properly for AFL football. It's a joke.
 
gbatman said:
give our strength and conditioning staff the boot for starters. Our blokes are in poor condition and have terrible strength. Players came into this season lighter and weaker than last season. Get them built like footballers FFS and not bloody marathon runners.

Time to make a few more rules at the draft table. No more Bootsma, Lucas, McCarthy body types. Haven't seen a team win a premiership for a very long time with a team of scrawny rats, quite the opposite.

We have spent all this money on a big arse training facility and the players aren't built properly for AFL football. It's a joke.
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Which players arnt built for AFL football? Bootsma, Lucas and McCarthy didnt play today, so dont use them to make your point.
 
Did Yarran look a touch underdone to you blokes?

Looked very tentative when approaching the contest........maybe another week or so in the VFL would have helped his attack on the ball?
 

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gbatman said:
give our strength and conditioning staff the boot for starters. Our blokes are in poor condition and have terrible strength. Players came into this season lighter and weaker than last season. Get them built like footballers FFS and not bloody marathon runners.

Time to make a few more rules at the draft table. No more Bootsma, Lucas, McCarthy body types. Haven't seen a team win a premiership for a very long time with a team of scrawny rats, quite the opposite.

We have spent all this money on a big arse training facility and the players aren't built properly for AFL football. It's a joke.
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Couldn't actually agree withy this any more!

Essendon have nailed it this year with their pre-season.

I could actually handle our loss of strength if it was obvious we have more emdurance and speed but the majority of our team seem spent on their feet by Quater time !! WTF?????
 
TheGeneral said:
All that fancy food Jason Johnson cooks in the club's cafe has clearly turned them into pampered brats. Don't they realise that Hayes, Selwood and Dangerfield only have raw meat and tepid water for lunch to hard them up. Ratten is so soft on these boys. Raw steaks from now on. And no one plays unless they grow a mullet or shaves their head so they look like Ivan Maric or Barry Hall.

Premature thread. We've just dropped off to lose by five goals. after we've become the hunted. It's mental with other clubs coming at us like we're the team to beat. It's not physical after we did Collingwood earlier this year with a tough performance. We're copping that now. It's not as simple as getting bigger bodies and blaming the recruiters. The likes of Duigan and Russell aren't small, just out of form due to different reasons. Ellard is smaller like Murphy, but has intensity and want.

The club just needs to re-discover that hunger they showed against Collingwood and WC in the finals. No one expected us to play well under the pump at Subi and beat the Pies by ten goals. Collingwood aren't shot because of that game. We need to learn play their own game again whilst having everyone coming at them hard like a top four side. Get back to basics where we played hard and attacking footy. The results will take care of themselves. As long as we kick straight and improve our inside fifties. ;)
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Still think so TG :confused:
 
I bleed Blue said:
Which players arnt built for AFL football? Bootsma, Lucas and McCarthy didnt play today, so dont use them to make your point.
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Lets start with the ones that are, it's a smaller list. Betts, Carrazzo, Davies, Duigan, Hampson, Jamison, Laidler, Robinson, Betts, Murphy, Russell, Scotland, Thornton, Touhy, Yarran and Waite is borderline. Compared to the team the cats have been winning flags with and Essendon/WCE/Crows/Saints lists I would rate the following as lacking strength and size. Some make up for it with extra effort and blind courage but that can not be relied on like Simpson.
 
Five said:
Still think so TG :confused:
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Don't know why they've gone from playing hard team footy to being smashed in the space of five weeks. Except for Carrazzo, Laidler and a few others, the same players are there. They don't turn soft overnight. If their confidence is shot, then they're playing soft and conservative footy as a result. Even one of our hard players in Kreuzer isn't playing to the same level. You can't tell me that everyone at St Kilda, Hawthorn, Essendon, WC, Geelong and St Kilda are hard bastards. It's application.
 
TheGeneral said:
Don't know why they've gone from playing hard team footy to being smashed in the space of five weeks. Except for Carrazzo, Laidler and a few others, the same players are there. They don't turn soft overnight. If their confidence is shot, then they're playing soft and conservative footy as a result. Even one of our hard players in Kreuzer isn't playing to the same level.
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I think we read too much into the Collingwood win. Collingwood weren't and aren't going that well. Even though the Geelong v Scum game was good TV, did you see the record clanger and turn over stats
 
Well I'm not fully on the "we are soft" bandwagon. Yes we have a few players who aren't real hard at it but we had moments when we had a real go against the Crows and they were still controlling things. I'm taking the analytical view on why we are losing. We have been beaten physically by bigger stronger sides and why we have been beaten is because we are not a real big strong side. Why that is, is up for you to decide.

The other teams in the competition have noticed this and have made efforts to force us to play contested footy. Yes losing Carrazzo was a massive loss but it is not the be all and end all of our problems. Teams have made sure to set up a zone and cover the space outside the contests much more and forward of contests which Richmond and Collingwood did poorly, hence we found space and ran all over them. Get the numbers out wider around contests and stoppages and that stops us coming out the back and finding a running player in space. Get numbers in front of the contests and stop us running forward with the ball. Hence we now have to play contested footy and we aren't up to it. Block the space, stop the run and you beat carlton because carlton can not play contested footy because they aren't physically big enough, strong enough and powerful enough. They are also blocking our run through the contests at stoppages with a lot of blocking and we aren't dealing with bigger stronger bodies planting themselves infront of us.

I have a very good feeling we may have also been beaten by the soon to be premiers today. Doesn't help.
 
crackers57 said:
Did Yarran look a touch underdone to you blokes?

Looked very tentative when approaching the contest........maybe another week or so in the VFL would have helped his attack on the ball?
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To mods who keep deleting posts in reply to this troll - how about you delete his trolling post too.
 
TheGeneral said:
Don't know why they've gone from playing hard team footy to being smashed in the space of five weeks. Except for Carrazzo, Laidler and a few others, the same players are there. They don't turn soft overnight. If their confidence is shot, then they're playing soft and conservative footy as a result. Even one of our hard players in Kreuzer isn't playing to the same level. You can't tell me that everyone at St Kilda, Hawthorn, Essendon, WC, Geelong and St Kilda are hard bastards. It's application.
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Getting worried, we're agreeing too often...lol!
 

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There's an old saying...

Size matter's...!

Another: it's not the size that matters but what you do with it...!

Both of these relate to our current position, we are a little undersized at the contest and up forward, Hammer and Kruezer are not the answers in the goal square as we need the gorilla to create a contest and crack in...

As for the stoppages, I think Warnock needs to be brought in to give us 1st use of the ball... Play Kreuzer as a ruck rover if possible for some stoppages...
 
goreds said:
There's an old saying...

Size matter's...!

Another: it's not the size that matters but what you do with it...!

Both of these relate to our current position, we are a little undersized at the contest and up forward, Hammer and Kruezer are not the answers in the goal square as we need the gorilla to create a contest and crack in...

As for the stoppages, I think Warnock needs to be brought in to give us 1st use of the ball... Play Kreuzer as a ruck rover if possible for some stoppages...
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Yes! Yes! At last someone else who sees it. He is best at roving and when moving around the ground as a ruck rover who are the opposition going to play on him so that he does not become a marking target.

Only problem is - where is Warnock?
 
Five said:
Yes! Yes! At last someone else who sees it. He is best at roving and when moving around the ground as a ruck rover who are the opposition going to play on him so that he does not become a marking target.

Only problem is - where is Warnock?
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will never happen, his opponent will burn him 4 pace
 

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We improve by going back to basics and trying to hunt the FOOTBALL. Get in lower and block for your mates. If you can't get the pill, smash the bloke with it and also smash the guy waiting for the overlap run, who gives it to one of the 8 blokes spreading hard unmarked on the outside, (cause were downhill skiers) who stream into the front half of the ground and make our defense look 3rd rate. It all starts in the middle. HUNT THE FOOTY! HASSLE! TACKLE! basically go back to under 10s
 
The Old Dark Navy's said:
Particularly good analysis. We appear to be off the boil, slow and not trying because we are not winning the ball as we used to. We are just not reading it, not knowing when to go in and when to wait. All of our instincts have deserted us.
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Was so obvious today - fumbling, playing hot potato, second guessing, ball watching, spending it before getting it. These are the skills we can do without - come on, I'm talking to you, come on.
 
That's exactly how it looked today. handballing to your team mate who is under the pump and has no time or space to execute any decent disposal was the theme of the day. I reckon the crows got a whiff of it early and then just tightened the screws for the rest of the day. well coached, well drilled.
 
TheGeneral said:
Don't know why they've gone from playing hard team footy to being smashed in the space of five weeks. Except for Carrazzo, Laidler and a few others, the same players are there. They don't turn soft overnight. If their confidence is shot, then they're playing soft and conservative footy as a result. Even one of our hard players in Kreuzer isn't playing to the same level. You can't tell me that everyone at St Kilda, Hawthorn, Essendon, WC, Geelong and St Kilda are hard bastards. It's application.
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This whole post is spot on. Esspecially the highlighted point.

Hardness was not an issue last year. Last year it was one of the aspects we prided ourselves on and was a big part of our improvement.


I dont know what has gone wrong in the past month but we need to sort it out urgently. It appears like teams have just figured out how to beat our game plan.
 

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