Roast Inefficiency

[Knightmare]

Brent Harvey would be handy right about now with those i50 entries. Could be 7-8 goals up at 3/4 time rather than 7 points down.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

There's simply no excuse. Mayne, Fas, Aish, Treloar, Moore, they have all wasted gettable shots at goal tonight. Even Pendles and Maynard have put balls out on the full on the run.

 

[Peter Sidorkiewicz]

Today's game:
Treloar 65%
Adams 64%
Crisp 46%
Goldsack 57%
Fasolo 36%
Ramsay 63%
Moore 62%

 

[Soaring Magpie]

These players have a lot to answer for, how you can preform at this standard
As AFL footballers is inexcusable

 

[No SPIN]

1st qtr - had the gun and couldn't shoot them

2nd qtr - had the gun and shot our selves in the foot

3rd - qtr - we wrestled for the gun

And they took the gun off us


4th - qtr we got the gun back and shot ourselves in the HEAD

 

[El cane]

If only we'd aimed at the coaches and shot Blair instead

 

[swoop42]

Last night we had the dominant midfield and won in important areas like contested ball, clearances and inside 50's.

And yet we've come away defeated.

Again.

This is something I've identified and raised in the past and it's become rather common place these past few seasons under Buckley.

We seem to have no problem getting our hands on the ball but doing something constructive with it time and again and getting the reward on the scoreboard is the problem.

Last night we had the 4 leading possession winners on the ground and 7 of the top 10.

Sidebottom, Pendlebury, Treloar and Adams staggeringly had more than 30 touches each.

You'd think for most sides that would equate to an almost certain victory but for us it seems at best a 50/50 proposition we'll get the 4 points.

So what's going wrong?

To me it would indicate 3 probable scenarios.

a)A fundamental flaw in the game plan.
b)Real inadequacy in one area of the field.
c)Below average skill of the playing group.

I guess the answer could be d) all of the above but I feel we're doing quite a bit right and it's frustrating that we continue to let games slip we could and should be winning.

For me the glaring difference between the two sides last night and the reason we lost was our costly mistakes by foot especially on the break which stopped golden scoring opportunities as well as some poor decision making deep inside our forward 50 arc.

But there were others areas that are a continuation of problems we've seen over the last few seasons:

1.Is it just me or do we seem to have to work bloody hard just to create scoring opportunities and goals?

In comparison to many of our opponents it seems an easy goal is hard to come by for us and we seem to often rely upon weight off inside 50 numbers and creating contests to score.

While hard work and pressure should be applauded it's a very taxing way of playing the game and maintaining it for 4 quarters or across a 22 game season is unrealistic.

For me this is the number one thing I've questioned Buckley on these last few seasons. While no doubt we have many set plays and positioning that make up our game plan I often feel we rely on pressure first and foremost to make the other aspects of our game function, to hide some flaws if you will, whereas top sides can be off a little in the area of pressure but there style of play is robust enough in other areas to still find ways to win enough games across the season to make finals.

2.Seeing the dogs break our wall across high half forward and coast to a number of easy goals last night is something we've all become accustomed to in recent years and it does our head in.

Now it's easy to lay blame and wonder why it continues to occur but the reasons for it are quite likely linked to our ability to often gain more forward 50 entries than our opponents like we starkly saw last night.

The question is is it the best option for us?

It's obvious that the opposition know what we want to do and there response is to simply flood our forward zone to make it near impossible for us to find space to find a free target and as stated above we often then have to scrap and fight for the ball on the ground to achieve a scoring opportunity and to often resort to kicking the ball long and high to our forwards giving them little chance.

As we saw last night though if we make a mistake by foot and the ball is intercepted by our opposition or they win an easy clearance at ground level then all to quickly they can break our line and waltz down the other end for an easy shot on goal.

The dogs had what 20 odd less inside 50's last night yet only 1 less scoring shot?

While the number of forward entries might look good on the coaches stat sheet if a high percentage of them are of low quality and not to any real advantage of our forward targets is it the best approach?

I don't pretend to have the answers but what I do know (or think I know) is that our style of play appears taxing and not overly efficient inside f50 and if like last night we have wave after wave of forward thrusts for no scoreboard benefit you've expelled a hell of a lot of physical and emotional energy only to see the opposition eventually break your line and add 6 points with relative ease.

I'm interested in peoples thoughts on the areas we need to improve in or rethink in order to take the next step and return to finals.

After watching the game tonight it reminded of another point I should have raised in my OP.

3.How is it that time and again when we actually construct a fast break situation from half back our player looks up only to find no options to kick to?

This wasn't a unique situation we witnessed tonight, it's a continuing problem over a few years and it's something that becomes only more visible when you're actually at the ground and can see the play unfolding unlike the narrow focus of television broadcast.

While I can accept this would happen sometimes just like sometimes you do see a benefit on the scoreboard in relation to a fast break or sling shot as some would call it but really does anyone believe a scoring shot eventuates anywhere near the amount of times we see our progress up the field come to a grinding halt because no one is there to kick to?