AFL Autopsy Loss to The West Coast

[TheGrizz]

Effort: 8/10
Our pressure was up for most of the game, and we were winning the lion share of contests through the midfield and half back and were pushing forward. Cant fault this part, for once. Against a less clinical and organised side (i.e Hawthorn) we do a lot more scoring from half back.

Application (of game plan) 6/10
We had our game plan going in fits and spurts, and you could see what we were trying to do without it. Our ball movement in the first half was far too predictable foot. We tried to play away from their game plan by chipping it around to avoid bombing it to McGovern and Barrass, however we had no go forward whatsoever. Once we did put the foot down we took a few more risks in the second half and dominated the run of play with handball forward but our kicking i50 let us down (more of that later).
A few concentration lapses allowed some red time goals and a run of 3 goals by WCE in the second quarter, and it took too long to realise Gleeson was a horrible match up for Ryan. Also they had 15-3 contested mark differential at one point. We just needed to be better at the fall of the ball as you cant win when the West Coast can dominate the ball by air in between the 50s.

Execution: 3/10
Plenty to say but ill keep it short. Was woeful.
Seriously though our goalkicking was poor. Easy chances from 25m out by Daniher and Hooker were missed, and we couldnt put any scoreboard pressure on. Our kicking i50 was terrible we worked so hard to get the ball 60-70m out then butchered it going inside 50 and they just pucked us off in the air. We actually needed to just play chaos ball and have our forward spread and mung kick it in along the ground to avoid their tall defenders. A couple of big execution/concentration errors led to goals against (Ridley missed kick late in 1st quarter on last line, Saad just before 3QT) which didnt help.
West Coast were clinical in front of goal and with the ball going inside 50, and that was ultimately the difference.

Good:
Ridley - majestic
Walla - clinical in front of goal when no one else could be
Zerrett - rich vein of form continues
Draper - Naitinui probably won the duel, but Sammy more than held his own amd i loved the aggression in the 2nd half.

Bad
Gleeson- have long been a backer but my support is wavering. Looked shaky 1v1 and slow to react at
Times which is a baaaad combo for an AFL defender
Shiel - gets plenty but his disposal is now moving into the 'problem' category. Was good at GWS so something has gone awry
Joe's goalkicking - 0.3 on 3 very gettable shots (a banana from 45, Joe? Really?) in a game we lose by 15 points.
Goalkicking in general - WestCoast kicked 9.6, we kicked 6.9 with a couple misses failing to score altogether. Nuff said.

Ugly
McGraths ankle - PLEASE dont be too bad.
Fox Footy - fancy disrespecting a guy on his 200th just to inflate the already oversized ego of your special comments guys by showing a lowlights package. Really poor form.

 

[MightyDon]

How wasn’t Dylan Clarke in this side all year?

 

[Halftimehero]

Nice return by the skipper, didn’t get heaps of it but what he did do was good, stood up and kicked a goal when we desperately needed it and cracked in each time it was hit turn to go.

 

[DapperJong]

How wasn’t Dylan Clarke in this side all year?

Yeah, I’m really liking him in the team.

 

[Squeaky]

Effort: 8/10
Our pressure was up for most of the game, and we were winning the lion share of contests through the midfield and half back and were pushing forward. Cant fault this part, for once. Against a less clinical and organised side (i.e Hawthorn) we do a lot more scoring from half back.

Application (of game plan) 6/10
We had our game plan going in fits and spurts, and you could see what we were trying to do without it. Our ball movement in the first half was far too predictable foot. We tried to play away from their game plan by chipping it around to avoid bombing it to McGovern and Barrass, however we had no go forward whatsoever. Once we did put the foot down we took a few more risks in the second half and dominated the run of play with handball forward but our kicking i50 let us down (more of that later).
A few concentration lapses allowed some red time goals and a run of 3 goals by WCE in the second quarter, and it took too long to realise Gleeson was a horrible match up for Ryan.

Execution: 3/10
Plenty to say but ill keep it short. Was woeful.
Seriously though our goalkicking was poor. Easy chances from 25m out by Daniher and Hooker were missed, and we couldnt put any scoreboard pressure on. Our kicking i50 was terrible we worked so hard to get the ball 60-70m out then butchered it going inside 50. We actually needed to just play chaos ball and have our forward spread and mung kick it in along the ground to avoid their tall defenders. A couple of big execution/concentration errors led to goals against (Ridley missed kick late in 1dt quarter on last line, Saad just before 3QT) which didnt help.
West Coast were clinical in front of goal and with the ball going inside 50, and that ultimatelynthe difference.

Good:
Ridley - majestic
Walla - clinical in front of goal when no one else could be
Zerrett - rich vein of form continues
Draper - Naitinui probably won the duel, but Sammy more than held his own amd i loved the aggression in the 2nd half.

Bad
Gleeson- have long been a backer but my support is wavering. Looked shaky 1v1 and slow to react at
Times which is a baaaad combo for an AFL defender
Shiel - gets plenty but his disposal is now moving into the 'problem' category. Was good at GWS so something has gone awry
Joe's goalkicking - 0.3 on 3 very gettable shots (a banana from 45, Joe? Really?) in a game we lose by 15 points.
Goalkicking in general - WestCoast kicked 9.6, we kicked 6.9 with a couple misses failing to score altogether. Nuff said.

Ugly
McGraths ankle - PLEASE dont be too bad.
Fox Footy - fancy disrespecting a guy on his 200th just to inflate the already oversized ego of your special comments guys by showing a lowlights package. Really poor form.

Great summation Grizz!
Agree with everything there - How did Shiel become such a bad user of the ball as this was never ever so evident at GWS?
Has he become 'Essendoned'

 

[naraku]

Disappointing loss for sure. When you think we could of won this game-along with GWS and GC- thing's aren't too bad. Our execution is very poor and that is alarming. I'm not sure if there's a side in any league that over handball's as much as us on such a consistaant basis.

Ridlley, McGrath, Langford, Draper and Walla all where gutsy and /or great.

Stringer needs to be axed. His body isn't right and it shows -absoultely horrible. He needs to be put in cottonwool for the rest of the season and just getting him rested and recovered for the pre-season.

 

[Mercurial89]

Yeah, I’m really liking him in the team.

You can tell hes a little too slow when he does get the ball to take the quick kick in a link of marks because he knows its a weakness. Other than that he does some good things in the forward half of the ground.

 

[andleanback]

Bellcho has gone whack over fox footys effort to celebrate hooksy

 

[Lore]

Bellcho has gone whack over fox footys effort to celebrate hooksyView attachment 951218

He's in the hub obviously, so I wonder if they put the replay on the TV in the common area this morning or if he watched it by himself

 

[Yoda_]

can someone please show me these lowlights everyone keeps talking about ? The Cale Hooker ones

 

[eth-dog]

can someone please show me these lowlights everyone keeps talking about ? The Cale Hooker ones

One was from his 3rd or 4th game playing on Brown, guess which one they put up against Hawthorne.

And then Lewis had the audacity to whinge about the highlight of the snap against Hawthorne. * off with that s**t.

 

[TheGrizz]

can someone please show me these lowlights everyone keeps talking about ? The Cale Hooker ones

It was highlights of Jono Brown kicking 5 on him in Chooks second year (2009) and the Buddy goal at MCG where he took 5 bounces and kicked it from the pocket (with Chook unable to catch him)

 

[Zach Package]

He's in the hub obviously, so I wonder if they put the replay on the TV in the common area this morning or if he watched it by himself

He was on the bench with a headset last night

 

[ghostdog]

Didn't get any of last night's game unfortunately.

Not sure what to make of Joe sitting on the fence... and hoping his misses last night have nothing to do with OP. If we've played him too soon after Hawks I'll be ropable.

Why was sacrificing Saad's run so he could lockdown on Ryan not an option. If we've got Dev back there or Redman, we would have had that covered. Could have taken Ryan out of the equation.

And why, when Richmond showed you could wormburn it in and make McGovern a non-factor, did we not do the same? All of Daniher, Stewart and Stringer are pretty clean below their knees anyway.

Did either of Stewart or Daniher roam up the ground? Sounds like they killed us in the air.

Good for Drapes to get some 'learnings' playing on NicNat, but I would gave thought Phillips in as well would have made our contested work in the centre and at stoppages a bit more competitive in terms of NicNat having to go against some fresh legs.

Anyway, it is what it is and people here seem pleased with what they saw. There are gaps in my understanding of what happened.

 

[Lore]

He was on the bench with a headset last night

Does the headset play the television commentary? I mean I guess it could, but I'd have thought it'd be connecting him to the coaches box or something like that.

 

[Vander18]

Yeah, I’m really liking him in the team.

If we are going to have role players let’s at least have ones who crack in all day and genuinely care - i.e. Dyl Clarke.

So much easier to accept players limitations when they give real effort.

 

[Zach Package]

Does the headset play the television commentary? I mean I guess it could, but I'd have thought it'd be connecting him to the coaches box or something like that.

I daresay he’s watched it back after the fact, it got a fair bit of play on Twitter and instagram after the game and TBC and Chook are best mates. Probably just didn’t sit well with him

 

[Yoda_]

Something glaring last night was the lack of disconnect between the midfiield and the forwards. We had very little from Joe (2 inside 50's), Stewart (0), Stringer (0), Hooker (0) whilst the small brigade of Mossie (0), Tippa (0) didn't offer a whimper either.

Have banged on about it before but we need a hard working marking target who connects the midfield with the forward group.

 

[andleanback]

Now Brown and Lewis are going after Joey and saying it’s unprofessional to sit on the fence while tippa lines up. You know what’s unprofessional... showing a lowlights package on a blokes 200th when all his family would be watching because they couldn’t be at the game.

 

[Sanj48]

Bellcho has gone whack over fox footys effort to celebrate hooksyView attachment 951218

Unsure if it's been posted already (sorry if it has!) - but good on Bucks for calling it out too.
Players like Hooker are the unsung heroes of every football club and they deserve to be appreciated and celebrated!

 

[FlyingV]

We went into this season not knowing If Parish, Ridley, Langford, McGrath and Draper were upto it. We go into next season with all of them in our top most improved/important players.

also was liking what Laverde was starting to do before he cooked it. There’s some talent out there!

 

[DapperJong]

Something glaring last night was the lack of disconnect between the midfiield and the forwards. We had very little from Joe (2 inside 50's), Stewart (0), Stringer (0), Hooker (0) whilst the small brigade of Mossie (0), Tippa (0) didn't offer a whimper either.

Have banged on about it before but we need a hard working marking target who connects the midfield with the forward group.

I don’t understand pointing to this stat when trying to display a connection between mids and forwards. Especially when Tippa did his job with 4 goals.

Are you meaning to say they didn’t mark from an inside 50?

 

[half time raffle]

Why are we so easy to kick in against? Any side waltzes it to centre wing before any resistance.

On CPH1725 using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Yoda_]

I don’t understand pointing to this stat when trying to display a connection between mids and forwards. Especially when Tippa did his job with 4 goals.

Are you meaning to say they didn’t mark from an inside 50?

sorry, poorly written. Not a single Inside 50 from any oof our 5 main fwds. NOT ONE Poor really. I understand it's about what happens inside 50 (marks, goals, tackles etc) but you would think they would help with getting the ball inside our Fwd 50

 

[Lore]

Didn't get any of last night's game unfortunately.

Not sure what to make of Joe sitting on the fence... and hoping his misses last night have nothing to do with OP. If we've played him too soon after Hawks I'll be ropable.

Why was sacrificing Saad's run so he could lockdown on Ryan not an option. If we've got Dev back there or Redman, we would have had that covered. Could have taken Ryan out of the equation.

And why, when Richmond showed you could wormburn it in and make McGovern a non-factor, did we not do the same? All of Daniher, Stewart and Stringer are pretty clean below their knees anyway.

Did either of Stewart or Daniher roam up the ground? Sounds like they killed us in the air.

Good for Drapes to get some 'learnings' playing on NicNat, but I would gave thought Phillips in as well would have made our contested work in the centre and at stoppages a bit more competitive in terms of NicNat having to go against some fresh legs.

Anyway, it is what it is and people here seem pleased with what they saw. There are gaps in my understanding of what happened.

Liam Ryan wasn't that big of an issue really, and our marking wasn't that bad either. We actually nullified their marking* and clearance work a fair bit considering they basically have Ridley clones across the field, and managed to force turnovers when they did have it. They didn't run over the top of us, their score was decently low and we had the same number of scoring shots, with the game played mostly in our forward half.

Despite the loss, the game actually showed a lot of promise to come out of the gates ready to go, put up a 4 quarter effort with all the bits of the game plan coming together against a quality opposition. What we really need at this point is to practice what we've been attempting to train for the better part of a year now, which with all of the interruptions and no full contact training is actually pretty crucial. You can see the pieces are there but we are missing team chemistry, a bit of polish with our disposal through the middle (which also comes with chemistry and your teammates being where you expect and train for them to be), and conversion in the forward half.

Skill errors got worse towards the end, Shiel was notable but I think it was the same across the ground. We really missed McGrath both for his class and for the effect it had on the interchange with players getting gassed towards the end and being a bit silly with it, but even with that we should have pinched it. Three shots at goal were hampered by silly free kicks against us within 40 metres of goal in the last 5-8 minutes of the game as well.

So it's not the doom and gloom scenario it might seem.

Like one particular thing that really stood out to me was a contest with Merrett diving at the ball and going to shovel it out to the guy three metres in front of him before realising that there wasn't anyone there. With eagles all around he dished it sideways to one of our guys who then had to get out of trouble. Lucky for us that it didn't cause an immediate turnover.


*Feel pretty sure someone will ask about this. Yes, they had more marks overall, they had more marks than their 2020 average, we also had a lot more marks than our average. It was a marking game generally. But what did they do with those marks, and where did they take them? We had more intercept marks than they did, and were fairly even with marks on the lead and marks inside 50. We had 9 more inside 50s than they did. So while they still took marks, those marks were not particularly damaging.