I'm ashamed

[blackshadow]

The game plan was exciting for the first ten minutes or so. Game plan wasn't the larger part of the problem last night. It was execution of skills and decision making under pressure. I think we have a few blokes whose brains are a bit fried. And not just on the field. The only part of the game plan that I was truly offended by was set plays. Our centre bounce and full back kick in set ups remain worst in the AFL.

I agree - especially with the having a few blokes whose brains are fried comment. Time for a new sports psychologist in the club as I don't think our current one is effective - they need to work with both players and coaching staff.

 

[Mr Reliable]

When Boomer and Spud went off the ground we appeared to lack leadership and hardness. Nearly, everything I've read in each post went through my mind last night. In relation to Dean Laildey, at the beginning, I was sure he couldn't coach, then I felt guilty because I thought I was being unfair. So I started to look for the positives and appreciate his efforts. My old doctor and I would always talk footy. He was a Carlton supporter and he would always say, that North was the most mentally tough team in the competition. Now, I think we have lost our way. I'm hoping it's temporary. Please don't turn your back on the club.

We wouldn't be banging away on here if we didn't love the club and want it to succeed.

 

[Groggyk]

We've always been a club who has shown a fighting spirit, last few weeks we've shown zero.

Totally agree with Kangalovers' sentiments.

There is a cancer at the club and it needs to be identified and removed, immediately.

I'm gutted today.

 

[Zvim]

Agree with all of this.

However, David Hale has to remember he is 6'6 and 100kgs. I reckon I could bustle him off balance and I'm not 6'6 and 100kgs.

He doesn't have sticky fingers and seems to go to ground in a lot of marking contests, he needs to look at his attack on the ball in the Geelong game compared to recently, he is not going hard enough. There were about 5 or so kicks to the top of the goal square where not only didn't he get hands to the ball but didn't get to the contest.

Yes, our terrible movement of the ball had a lot to do with it but he should just stand like a zombie if the opposition is dropping 3 players in front of you, move position and free up the corridor.

I don't blame David, I blame the coaches. We played dumb footy and as usual Dean did nothing for 3 quarters to improve the room in our forward 50. Until we get a coach that knows how to counter a flood every team is going to flood against us because we play horseshit footy when teams flood us.

 

[DarwinRoo]

So its the coaches fault that he stands there appealing for a free kick instead of at least making an attempt to contest the mark?

 

[Hearts to hearts]

One more for the injury list: I strained a muscle in my groin running away around the Docklands concourse to get as far from that rubbish as possible as fast as I could. We were worse than Richmond. We can't go any lower. Please God, we can't.

 

[fairdinkum]

I got inside late and missed 3 of our 7 goals. A stuff up with the membership cards or something; they told me to ring the club during the week to get it fixed for Friday. So anyway, I got to see us kick 4 goals. 4 goals. In almost 4 quarters of footy. At the dome. In this day and age...

 

[snrub]

We can't go any lower. Please God, we can't.

Ed was far from the worst on ground, you can't blame him.

 

[Groggyk]

I didn't get there until half time due to dinner with friends which turned into a 5 bottles of wine plonk-a-thon.

It wasn't an accident, and thankfully I can happily say that the last quarter was just a blur.

Waterside Oriental Bistro, quality authentic Chinese, just across from the Dome in the Docklands precinct.

Two thumbs

 

[blackshadow]

Ed was far from the worst on ground, you can't blame him.

His putrid indecision cost us what should have been a certain goal and three or four other chances at a goal. Yes he got the ball, then he held it up and butchered our chances. He was one of the worst when it came to poor decision making.

 

[RoyalBlue]

If Lower is dropped before Power I'll ****ing spew and not be surprised all at the same time.

 

[miss_kate18]

His putrid indecision cost us what should have been a certain goal and three or four other chances at a goal. Yes he got the ball, then he held it up and butchered our chances. He was one of the worst when it came to poor decision making.

Ed was far from the worst when it came to making crap decisions under pressure. Yep, he flubbed a few disposals, but when you've got absolutely no options and kicking it in Hale's direction will result in him falling over when the ball is still a metre away, you panic. I think people forget how young he is, and after dispiriting s*** like last night will blame players who may not have played to their capacity but also can't be expected to shoulder the blame for the whole fiasco.

This is a kid who is constantly getting shifted in and out of the seniors, seems to be given no consistent position and received very little help yesterday. I had my head in my hands a few times watching him yesterday but I did see him running hard and actually collecting possessions. I'll take that over Lindsay "oh f*** me I've run five metres, I'm exhausted and will handball to Warren when he's 12 seconds away from being crunched" Thomas any day.

 

[blackshadow]

Ed was far from the worst when it came to making crap decisions under pressure. Yep, he flubbed a few disposals, but when you've got absolutely no options and kicking it in Hale's direction will result in him falling over when the ball is still a metre away, you panic. I think people forget how young he is, and after dispiriting s*** like last night will blame players who may not have played to their capacity but also can't be expected to shoulder the blame for the whole fiasco.

This is a kid who is constantly getting shifted in and out of the seniors, seems to be given no consistent position and received very little help yesterday. I had my head in my hands a few times watching him yesterday but I did see him running hard and actually collecting possessions. I'll take that over Lindsay "oh f*** me I've run five metres, I'm exhausted and will handball to Warren when he's 12 seconds away from being crunched" Thomas any day.

I'm not saying he was our worst but he was horrible. This is what I saw from him last night.

 

[miss_kate18]

Yeah I'll give you that, I reckon he could have a good football brain but has an issue at the moment with panicking under pressure. Someone made a point about sports psychologists in an earlier post, perhaps Ed could use someone to coach him on his cool-headedness and hardness (absolutely no pun intended).

 

[kangalover]

Yeah I'll give you that, I reckon he could have a good football brain but has an issue at the moment with panicking under pressure. Someone made a point about sports psychologists in an earlier post, perhaps Ed could use someone to coach him on his cool-headedness and hardness (absolutely no pun intended).

Panicking under pressure and losing confidence appears to be permeating throughout the entire team. This problem has to be eradicated quickly and permanently if we are ever to move forward.

 

[blackshadow]

Panicking under pressure and losing confidence appears to be permeating throughout the entire team. This problem has to be eradicated quickly and permanently if we are ever to move forward.

How do we reinstate the confidence? I'd opt for a twofold approach:

1 - A new sports psychologist at the club (for both players and coaches)

2 - Adopt a play on at all times approach - have it drilled into the team that there should be runners coming past and the need to run the ball and when we do kick we kick to position not a flooded mess. This style will not work all the time when it does it will be dangerous as all hell but when it fails it will result in the opposition rebounding. When it works though it should pump the players up and the more we do it the more often it will work.

 

[Missing The 90s]

I got inside late and missed 3 of our 7 goals. A stuff up with the membership cards or something; they told me to ring the club during the week to get it fixed for Friday. So anyway, I got to see us kick 4 goals. 4 goals. In almost 4 quarters of footy. At the dome. In this day and age...

Thanks to a tree falling over powerlines on the Werribee line, I missed our first 4 goals! Saw the worst half of football I have ever witnessed live and add that to the 100 point loss my local side had during the day, it was the worst footy-related day I've experienced!!!

Laidley has put faith in Hale as a key forward position at the start of every year since I can remember. Every year we go through this same stuff. Eventually Hale will have a couple of good games, and we will say, wow, look at Hale, finally producing.

The fact is that IMO Hale won't produce consistently ever.

Agree whole heartedly. I'd love nothing more than for him to prove me wrong, but at the moment the only thing keeping Hale in the side is his few cameo appearances each year. He can't ruck, he is not threatening enough up forward and now he barely produces a contest, whether the ball is kicked straight to him or not. He is not our worst performer, but he is just not a genuine forward unfortunately.

 

[RooBoyz24]

The performance last night was not good enough and we showed again that we dont respect the opposition.We started so well and yes Harvey got injured but we have to move on from that.They let us all down and they let down there captain cos how many times has he put in for them.I am very unhappy with the team and i am afraid i dont know where we go from here.
To the team either lift yur self of the canvas and show us what it means to wear the blue&white or go to the reserves and stay there.I dont care if we lose but to lose the way we did last night it not good enough.We spend our hard earned buying memberships,merchandise etc and get that crap.
Wake up and show up all of you are letting down yurselfs and yur members and all the people that worked so hard to keep the team in Melb.

 

[fairdinkum]

Thanks to a tree falling over powerlines on the Werribee line, I missed our first 4 goals! Saw the worst half of football I have ever witnessed live and add that to the 100 point loss my local side had during the day, it was the worst footy-related day I've experienced!!!

The worst part was I pretty much predicted it. The young lady I was attending with was taking too long to get ready and I feared we would miss our train and have to wait for the next one, so we would miss most of the first quarter.

I said 'You watch: Petrie will kick 6 in the first quarter and we will struggle to kick that many for the rest of the game, so we'll miss the only exciting part of the match'.

Well, we just managed to catch our intended train and were on track to get in to the Dome on time before the little membership card problem held us up. Sure enough, we missed the only exciting part of the match. A little ironic in retrospect.

 

[Rippednew1]

Apart from getting flogged by a winless Richmond without Nafe Brown, Johnson, Simmonds, Cousins, Crotchin the shameful part of the game last night was-
1) WMD still thinks playing all of Power/Rawlings/Swallow/Simmo is working. 1 has to go. The sooner the better, although the horse has bolted.
2) Flimsy Thomas played.

3 of our bunny teams over recent years have been the Hawks, Dogs and Tigers. All made us look like their bunnies.
Is unfortunate WMD will coach out the full season as it will set back our chances next year.

 

[ApplecrossWC]

His putrid indecision cost us what should have been a certain goal and three or four other chances at a goal. Yes he got the ball, then he held it up and butchered our chances. He was one of the worst when it came to poor decision making.

I've never understood why so many people on here rate Ed Lower. What exactly has he done? I don't think he's very good at all.

 

[DarwinRoo]

Kane Johnson is a spud yet this guy seems to be rated by North fans more than Simpson and Rawlings are

 

[Sandgroper35]

Ed has a crack which is more than most of our boys can say.

 

[Ghostwriter]

How do we reinstate the confidence? I'd opt for a twofold approach:

1 - A new sports psychologist at the club (for both players and coaches)

2 - Adopt a play on at all times approach - have it drilled into the team that there should be runners coming past and the need to run the ball and when we do kick we kick to position not a flooded mess. This style will not work all the time when it does it will be dangerous as all hell but when it fails it will result in the opposition rebounding. When it works though it should pump the players up and the more we do it the more often it will work.

You're an idiot.

 

[Tiberius]

Kane Johnson is a spud yet this guy seems to be rated by North fans more than Simpson and Rawlings are

Possibly because if they're anything like me they they still wake up at night screaming about him ripping us to shreds one september afternoon in 1998.