Review Let's take out the positives

[the_champ_2004]

We need to work on a few things in the week off but let's look at what was a positive from the game today.

1 Dane Swan - A true gun and no-one can deny.

2 Dale Thomas - Continues to improve and even though he needs to work on his engine a bit more he is putting in every quarter now.

3 Brad Dick - Try keep him out of the side now.

4 Dane Swan

5 This is the biggest positive I could draw but the main thing to look at and being of most benefit to us is we don't play next week.

 

[Nathan Q Brown]

ben reid has stepped up

 

[sgnl00]

Lockyer - can still compete as a small forward/flanker (never in the backline)

 

[Tarkyn_24]

Lockyer - can still compete as a small forward/flanker (never in the backline)

23 disposals, 7 tackles, 8 marks, 5 inside 50's and the match-drawing goal.

Not bad for someone that "can't cut it at AFL level", especially considering he lacked leg speed.

He would've been in the 30's with disposals if he had Davis' pace.

 

[recon]

Negative : Josh Fraser will keep on getting games.

 

[danielnajdek]

One positive is that Fraser won't be playing again this year. Sorry guys but can't take any positives out of this game.

 

[Prince_Rhodesia]

The biggest positive from that game was that we didn't lose. We still got two points, and that's two more than we would have got had we lost. 22 behinds though? Another positive that we can take out of it is that we were missing Dids, and Luke Ball, who would have made a hell of a lot of difference. Swanny, Thomas and Dick were best for us.

 

[Chief Ten Beers]

Sorry guys a team 2nd on the ladder who is supposedly a premiership contender can dish up a repeated insipid, gutless, poor performance like that. Not too much positive things to say!

 

[hellfire]

Percentage is no longer a factor for us. That's a positive, as it has burnt us in the past.

Swan, Thomas, Pendlebury, Dick... positives.

Fraser to be dropped, positive.

A week off, HUGE HUGE positive... because we are desperate for it. Come back against Sydney with Didak, Ball, Johnno and Maxy fit and firing, everyone rejuvenated... all will be fine.

 

[Ron]

Reid was good, very good i thought.

Swan was easily our best player.

Pendles was pretty handy.

Dick was very good, and done from limited gametime i reckon, he didn't seem to be out on the ground much.

Umm, thats about it.

 

[Ron]

Oh also, at least now i remember what a draw feels like. It's been 15 years since we drew with the Dogs.

Bloody sucks.

 

[Syphoncom]

Don't remember the draw against the Bombers? Or was that even longer ago? Now I feel old.

 

[Ant85]

I thought Pendles was quite good also.

Swan, Thomas, Pendles, Reid, Dick kept our team afloat.

Lockyer showed his experience when it counted, and boy it did today.

Harry O did well to hold up the defence after losing Maxwell. He shows plenty of heart, and that's what we're guaranteed from Harry each week.

 

[Shawt]

As above.

I think Medders pressure was important at times. He looked stronger than he has all year.

The biggest positive, is how much improvement we can get across the board. At the right end of the ladder, even with this awful crap we've pulled out for the last few weeks

 

[Go_collingwood_]

positives? lmao seriously we couldnt beat a bottom four team due to lack of effort and terrible goal kicking

 

[Ron]

Don't remember the draw against the Bombers? Or was that even longer ago? Now I feel old.

Nah we had 2 draws that year.

Round 4 against the Bombers and round 12 against the Dogs.

 

[notorious_zhang]

Harry O's run out of defence on the boundary. Now we know that if Heater gets tagged we can use Harry O to start running out of defence.

 

[Syphoncom]

Touche

 

[HFF]

Lack of effort was not a reason as to why we lost.

Maybe some lacked it but look no further than Thomas, Swan, Cloke, Dick, Pendlebury, Reid and Sidebottom. When the game and tide was going against us, these blokes continued to will and fight and not give in. Very positive sign come September when we will need to dig deep.

Goal kicking is a major worry. Again, it has come back to haunt us. Lets face it, Jamar said "they deserved to win" and they played well, yet we had an extra 10 shots on goal and some were very gettable. We should have won it comfortably so from that front, very disappointing.

Also, we get a very important 2 points because whilst we are only 2 points clear in 3rd spot, we are effectively a game ahead of Freo and then 2 games+ ahead of the rest.

 

[Boris the Contradiction]

We've come off the hardest month of football we will play all year;

-->Freo in Freo (2nd at the time, still top 4)
-->Geelong (2nd at the time, now top)
-->Brisbane in Brisbane (in bad form but always a tougher team when they play at home)
-->The Dogs (up there on the ladder, will finish top 6 and were the pre-season flag favourites)

.....and run into a young, fresh team who were playing like their lives depended on it. We ran into a brick wall half way through the last quarter last week as the players are absolutely spent. We went into the game without Didak and Ball (one in our top 3 this year the other in our top 6-7) and lost our captain for 3 quarters. We still ground it out and refused to lose. Our defence held out and we (nearly) lasted the distance with a man down (a very important man in terms of our drive).

We have now gotten to a much deserved break at 8 WINS, 1 DRAW and 3 LOSSES, are 3rd on the ladder and well entrenched in the 4. We are yet to play ANY OF the bottom 3 teams and have played all of the contenders (1 twice at their home ground and the other on the other side of the country). We have had the hardest 1st 12 rounds of any team and have stood up. It gets easier now and we don't leave the MCG from Round 16 to Grand Final Day.

Players like Sidey, Wellers and Reid have stepped up to be good AFL players. Beams has stepped up to be an out and out star. Thomas has gone from enigmatic game breaker to league wide star, AA possibility and one of the most consistent performers in the comp. Pendles started slowly but is now dominating again and we have Dick back. We have few injuries and have Dids, Ball and Max to come back with Medhurst and Davis still unfit and running into form..

Mostly positive people, keep the faith....

GO PIES!!

 

[Ron]

We've come off the hardest month of football we will play all year;

-->Freo in Freo (2nd at the time, still top 4)
-->Geelong (2nd at the time, now top)
-->Brisbane in Brisbane (in bad form but always a tougher team when they play at home)
-->The Dogs (up there on the ladder, will finish top 6 and were the pre-season flag favourites)

This is the same shit we heard after the Lions loss. Oh we've had a hard month of footy, hence the loss.

The time for bullshit excuses is over, we played a team with an average age of 13 and they outplayed us.

If we can't play a hard month of footy, then how the **** are we going to go in finals when we will have to play four hard games in a row.

 

[Boris the Contradiction]

This is the same shit we heard after the Lions loss. Oh we've had a hard month of footy, hence the loss.

The time for bullshit excuses is over, we played a team with an average age of 13 and they outplayed us.

If we can't play a hard month of footy, then how the **** are we going to go in finals when we will have to play four hard games in a row.

1) We didn't lose (didn't win either and is sucks arse but we still didn't lose)
2) We weren't even close to being outplayed. It was 31 scoring shots to 21, 58 inside 50's to 38 and 33 clearances to 29 despite losing the HO stats by 15. We outplayed them and should have won and in the 3rd quarter when we were actually outplayed, we held out despite being a man (our captain) down.
3) I read somewhere that this thread was about extracting the positives. It thought that's all I was doing?? We have come out of the hardest 5 week slog we will have all season (I am factoring the 2 interstate trips in 13 days sandwiching a game against the best team in the comp into this) for 2 and a half wins. We have 8 and a half wins from a possible 12. There are many positives.

 

[HFF]

If we can't play a hard month of footy, then how the **** are we going to go in finals when we will have to play four hard games in a row.

*3 hard games in a row.

 

[notorious_zhang]

Lack of effort was not a reason as to why we lost.

Maybe some lacked it but look no further than Thomas, Swan, Cloke, Dick, Pendlebury, Reid and Sidebottom. When the game and tide was going against us, these blokes continued to will and fight and not give in. Very positive sign come September when we will need to dig deep.

Goal kicking is a major worry. Again, it has come back to haunt us. Lets face it, Jamar said "they deserved to win" and they played well, yet we had an extra 10 shots on goal and some were very gettable. We should have won it comfortably so from that front, very disappointing.

Also, we get a very important 2 points because whilst we are only 2 points clear in 3rd spot, we are effectively a game ahead of Freo and then 2 games+ ahead of the rest.

Agree, it wasn't the lack of effort that lost us the game... bar Fraser.

I would say these are the reasons we lost:

1. Horrible match ups- Should not have played Presti, he is too slow and could not beat the Melbourne forwards on a lead. He may be bigger than them but he is too slow and Melbourne used this to their advantage

2. Centre Clearances- Probably another bad selection by Mick, should have brought in O'bree instead of Barham. We got done badly in the centre clearances and with Luke Ball out I think we needed O'bree badly.

3.Fraser, Brown, Jolly (BAD GOALKICKING)- We can not play all 3. If 2 of them go into the forward line it crowds it too much meaning we can't hit on the lead. If we can't hit on the lead then we just bomb it in. If we bomb it in then it falls to the ground and Melbourne will flood the backline meaning we are under pressure to kick a goal which= bad goalkicking.

I think what we need to work on is our structure in the forward line, our forward zone is very good and Medhurst, Dick and Davis really compliments this. However when we go forward we crowd it too much and we rarely go kick on a lead. The only time this happened was when they kicked it to Lockyer on the lead. We could blame it on the fact that we had bad goalkicking but Melbourne deserved to win because they took their chances by spreading out and leading and credit to their midfielders they were rewarded by good passes on the lead.

I would say a positive out of this is that we got the 2 points. I was hoping the siren would go because if the game went any longer we surely would've lost, Nathan Jones really ripped us in that last quarter.

 

[joefootylover]

1. Dick played an absolute blinder, backing up from a full game on Saturdy at VFL level, fantastic.
2. We are NOT second on the ladder and being talked up as the contender, nice to have the spotlight off us and on the Saints/Cats duopoly.
3. We ARE outright third.
4. We have a great percentage.
5. We are top 4 in quarters won, games won, points for and all while being the only team in the eight to have played 6 other sides in the top 8 (I think).
6. Reid continues to improve.
7. Presti played well I thought.
8. Swan played well.
9. Beams won a lot of clearances, Stelle played well too.
10. Pendles won a LOT of contested footy and continues to play well
11. Thomas ran and ran.
12. Didak, Ball and Johnson fit and in form all improve our 22.
13. Maxwell injured after half time makes it 4 out from injury which wil tend to disrupt a side.
14. Theres plenty of room for improvement from Medhurst, Davis and Fraser, we know thier best can be very good.
15. Dawes kicked 5 from full forward in the reserves.
16. We now get to promote Blair.
17. The back six did allright to hold the opposition to 11 goals.
18. Maxwells injury will mean that Goldsack will probably get a game!
19. Lockyer played well.