Game Day North vs Bulldogs. Preseason game 1. Welcome back Maj.

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Can say was not impressed with that performance last night. Too many mids going in and not staying out. Even with 5 or so good players out, should of performed better than that. Would of played BMcKay forward last to help out Larkey.
On the good side was Bonar, Taylor, Xerri, TT. North need to move on from some of our average players.
 
Would like us come out in the pre-season and win some games. I know we had some injuries but why couldn’t we come out like bulldogs and blitz it

Our skills at times were deplorable. I thought we were concentrating on our skills this year

injuries to cunners maybe and even Daw was hobbling is worrying haha
 

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If the Bulldogs can deliver a consistent season - not lose to the bottom four teams - they may well win the flag.


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Steele7 said:
and players like Garner LMac Atley should be driving the team without our top players out. Gee Atley has nearly played 200 games. And it is still scary when he’s running with the ball, what he is going to do with it.
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Atley is lucky he has had Macmillan who plays shitter every game making Atley look ok

getting rid of Macmillan is a good start
 
Ball Dont Lie said:
Bit of an over reaction here both ways. Yes it’s ok to be disappointed. No it’s not the end of the world we lost. We were missing 7 of our best. Our skills were poor. Our game plan lacked finesse. The dogs are a good team. Bont is one of best players in the game and we have no lockdown at the moment. Let’s see how they go next game to see if changes happen.
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So were they.
Wood
Naughton
Libba
English
Suckling
Bruce
Duryea

I think it's too easy to dismiss it as a pre-season game where we had some of our best out. It's a cop out. Our skills were horrible, and our stoppage work was poor (they constantly seemed to have free players on the outside).

Apart from some more tackles and hits (and Marleys will cost him weeks), we don't look much different compared to a year ago. Which is bloody disappointing when you consider all the changes that have been made, particularly on the coaching side, since then.
 
Our attack on the player subsided as the game went on, then became undisciplined. We also were out tackled by the Dogs by the end of the match.
Crock Hunter said:
Some of this analysis is genuinely hard to fathom. People on here complaining that our ‘Gameplan’ didn’t look solid??
What hope did we have when we were missing all of our most important players?
Let me spell it out for you:

No TARRANT means that DAW (1st game in how long) had to play as our number one lock down key defender. This limits his ability to be able to leave his opponent and fly for intercept marks. This is critical for the structure of our back 6 as it is where we generate our rebound from.

No HIGGINS means we not only lose elite ball use and an ability to break away from a stoppage, but also means the bulldogs midfielders had a license to be less-defensive minded. Anyone remember what Higgins did to them in R10 last year? Yeah, fat chance the bulldogs mids have that license in the real thing.

No ZIEBELL meant we lacked some of your grunt in the guts which left a lot of it up to Cunners. I think the telltale sign of this impact was that Cunners was caught holding the ball a few times last night when let’s be honest, we all know that doesn’t normally happen. We were throwing Bonar in to have a run around which would’ve been a good learning experience, but you can’t expect him to be able to match the motors of Macrae, Bont, Hunter etc (Their complete A-grade midfield). I cannot stress this enough, they played their BEST POSSIBLE midfielders and we were missing 2 out of 3 of ours!

No BROWN, and I shouldn’t even have to spell this one out but our forward structure was a laugh. Larkey was left up forward with the highly inexperienced Xerri to kick our goals. Instead of having Ben down there to clunk them and Larkey a bit further up the ground, we just had those 2. Not to mention due to points already discussed, it wasn’t exactly coming in on a silver platter was it? I’ll be much more comfortable when it is POLEC (one of our key run/carry/ball users) delivering it to Brown or anyone really as opposed to Dumont to Xerri.

If you really can’t understand why we looked a shade off it last night then I can’t help you. But understand this: the one thing Shaw has talked about with our gameplan was how aggressive and hard/tough we are going to be around the footy. Was that not evident last night? Did we see the bone crunching tackle from Zurhaar in the first minute of a pre-season game? How about Majak absolutely launching into Sam Lloyd? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be filthy if Marley got himself rubbed out but he went hard and hit the bloke to hurt him. This was ALWAYS the base of our gameplan, everyone said it. We are going to beat teams up, and all that last night showed you, was that it’s actually gone up a level.

So everyone, just settle, premierships aren’t won in February, but they can be lost in Round 1, and I guarantee you one thing, we won’t be asleep by then, because we’re already wide awake. Rusty. But wide awake.

Go Roos!
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On SM-G950F using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
Bugsy Malone said:
The style of footy we play under Shaw was never going to put on display in a practise game. I am confident that this team will have a good season after a couple of practise games and our best players on the park. I think people read to much into these games, if we dished up this effort in rd 1 like last season i will start worrying.
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The style of footy we play under Shaw was displayed in the first minute of the game - Shaw hasn't tried to hide the brand of play he wants to go with - he has laid his cards on the table.

We simply weren't good enough to execute and maintain the style for 4 qtrs and the jury is well and truly out on whether we will be able to other than against witches hats and Gold Coast.

Our mids were soundly beaten and our ball use over the park was horrible - no good talking about who was out for them and who was out for us - the fundamental inadequacies of the playing group remain.
 
Nutjob said:
The melts on here are embarrassing. There are people literally putting a line through us for not just this year, but expecting another 20 years of mediocrity after a f**king practice match haha... people seriously get a grip.

We were missing our best mid, our best forward, our best defender, our best outside runner and our captain, as well as others. It was a PRACTICE match in which we were more undermanned than the opposition.

Seriously just STFU and discuss it for what it was. A meaningless game where we had several kids show good signs.


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You make a number of good points. Looking at the game analytically, key stats like clearances, inside 50s, marks inside 50, rebounds, etc were all pretty even. Reverse those forward line marks that weren't paid, throw in at least a couple more fumbled marks inside 50 that should have been held, and at least break even on the "chaos ball" kicks inside 50 that landed on a Bulldog chest every freakin' time, and we would have at least been in the contest.
 

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“Overreaction” “It’s just a preseason game” “‘Other’ excuse”...

No one can justify the lack of game plan.

I can excuse the skills for maybe 1 more week but that excuse is gone by round 1. Ditto with our midfield setup, which was a complete mess, once again the opposition outnumber us at every contest (or we are just slow). Mind you both these have been issues for a very long time, and should have been one of the biggest priorities when Rhys took over. Must be addressed.

The injuries may excuse Turner, Macmillan & MacDonalds positions, that also goes by round 1. If Rhys plays them all based on output over last 5 years and this preseason, then we may as well still have Brad.

Dunno what the f*** they’re gonna do with the backline tbh, Tarrant helps a lot obviously but the lack of composure out of our backline has been a problem for over a decade.
 
Wasn’t what we hoped to see - that’s for sure.

Observations from at the game, haven’t seen TV (and won’t!):
Overall, a good hit out. They will have learned a lot. Dogs came to play and were physical - exactly what Rhyce would want... Too many came up short in response though.

I thought Simpkin, Anderson and Bonar battled hard inside. But the dogs matched and bettered them physically.

Some of the boys may be believing their own hype a bit. Zurhaar way ahead of himself - looked cocky and didn’t back it up. Breaking the tackles of your soft team mates in intraclubs is a bit different to hardened opposition. He got shown up. Needs to respond. Get more of the ball - and use it. I like him, but he looked a poser last night.

Half forwards in general were poor. Curtis Taylor the highlight. Zurhaar out for Zeibs on that show. Garns didn’t do much. In saying that - Brown and Zeibs make a huge difference for that structure.

Ball movement out of the back was stilted and lacked coordination. Have to improve that. But where from?

Dumont got it, but didn’t use it well at all. Let himself down... Not alone.

Bont was a class above. TT showed some signs of being able to similarly open the game up, but he’s years away from that type of consistent, dominant performance... Higgins our equivalent.

There was a lot of rotation of positions. I think some were trying too hard to prove themselves. I thought Pittard and Jmac were rotated though the same role and are perhaps competing?

Larkey was good and battled hard.

Disappointing overall. But a great wake up call. Dogs will be good this year. Some good lessons to learn early and compel them to improve before the season starts.

Finally, we’re exposed without our best player on each line big time. Brown, Taz, Higgins out means a big drop to next best. The next wave need to stand up and develop big time this year.
 
I'm not one for picking on particular players but some of that butchering that went on tonight was just horrible. Hacking it out of a stoppage is one thing. Being 5 meters in the clear and not even kicking it to advantage is just not on.

I feel like the habit has been to believe the hype the club put around the players in the pre-season so when a real opponent comes along we just don't look ready for them. Suddenly when the real pressure comes we seem a bit overawed, a bit stunned.

Rhyce don't bow to the pressure of playing senior players, simply because they are senior players. Butchers need to have a spell in the 2nds.
 
Those saying “it’s only a February practice match ffs” are, of course, correct. But in a practice match it would be nice to see some er practice. Someone said a while back we were training not getting sucked into the contest and blocking easy outlets, what did I see last night? Us getting sucked into the contest and the dogs getting easy outlets. Also we had quite a few kickouts and generally went the tried and not so true kick down the line several of which were marked by dogs. They had few kickouts but the one I recall was a kick to a dog standing by himself then another kick to a dog standing by himself and they’re away. Sorry but these things shouldn’t be happening even in a February practice match.
 
Jabba the Trump said:
You make a number of good points. Looking at the game analytically, key stats like clearances, inside 50s, marks inside 50, rebounds, etc were all pretty even. Reverse those forward line marks that weren't paid, throw in at least a couple more fumbled marks inside 50 that should have been held, and at least break even on the "chaos ball" kicks inside 50 that landed on a Bulldog chest every freakin' time, and we would have at least been in the contest.
Click to expand...

Ifs and buts don't win games. Forget stats. They kicked it better, they handpassed to advantage and they put us under pressure. We missed easy targets, handpassed under pressure to more pressure and were undisciplined in the contest. We didn't mark it in the forward line because of the horrible delivery. One of the very few marks came from a once-in-a-year hanger. That's not a plan, that's just luck.
 
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Groucho said:
Those saying “it’s only a February practice match ffs” are, of course, correct. But in a practice match it would be nice to see some er practice. Someone said a while back we were training not getting sucked into the contest and blocking easy outlets, what did I see last night? Us getting sucked into the contest and the dogs getting easy outlets. Also we had quite a few kickouts and generally went the tried and not so true kick down the line several of which were marked by dogs. They had few kickouts but the one I recall was a kick to a dog standing by himself then another kick to a dog standing by himself and they’re away. Sorry but these things shouldn’t be happening even in a February practice match.
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Agree. Bad habits stick. Last night our skills were as bad, if not worse, than last year. Terrible to watch. Right now we need to be generating a little excitement and anticipation, getting members over the line. Any fence sitter would watch last night and not bother. Lets hope the outs (significant) were the reason. If not it does not auger well for a good year.
 
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Crock Hunter said:
Some of this analysis is genuinely hard to fathom. People on here complaining that our ‘Gameplan’ didn’t look solid??
What hope did we have when we were missing all of our most important players?
Let me spell it out for you:

No TARRANT means that DAW (1st game in how long) had to play as our number one lock down key defender. This limits his ability to be able to leave his opponent and fly for intercept marks. This is critical for the structure of our back 6 as it is where we generate our rebound from.

No HIGGINS means we not only lose elite ball use and an ability to break away from a stoppage, but also means the bulldogs midfielders had a license to be less-defensive minded. Anyone remember what Higgins did to them in R10 last year? Yeah, fat chance the bulldogs mids have that license in the real thing.

No ZIEBELL meant we lacked some of your grunt in the guts which left a lot of it up to Cunners. I think the telltale sign of this impact was that Cunners was caught holding the ball a few times last night when let’s be honest, we all know that doesn’t normally happen. We were throwing Bonar in to have a run around which would’ve been a good learning experience, but you can’t expect him to be able to match the motors of Macrae, Bont, Hunter etc (Their complete A-grade midfield). I cannot stress this enough, they played their BEST POSSIBLE midfielders and we were missing 2 out of 3 of ours!

No BROWN, and I shouldn’t even have to spell this one out but our forward structure was a laugh. Larkey was left up forward with the highly inexperienced Xerri to kick our goals. Instead of having Ben down there to clunk them and Larkey a bit further up the ground, we just had those 2. Not to mention due to points already discussed, it wasn’t exactly coming in on a silver platter was it? I’ll be much more comfortable when it is POLEC (one of our key run/carry/ball users) delivering it to Brown or anyone really as opposed to Dumont to Xerri.

If you really can’t understand why we looked a shade off it last night then I can’t help you. But understand this: the one thing Shaw has talked about with our gameplan was how aggressive and hard/tough we are going to be around the footy. Was that not evident last night? Did we see the bone crunching tackle from Zurhaar in the first minute of a pre-season game? How about Majak absolutely launching into Sam Lloyd? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be filthy if Marley got himself rubbed out but he went hard and hit the bloke to hurt him. This was ALWAYS the base of our gameplan, everyone said it. We are going to beat teams up, and all that last night showed you, was that it’s actually gone up a level.

So everyone, just settle, premierships aren’t won in February, but they can be lost in Round 1, and I guarantee you one thing, we won’t be asleep by then, because we’re already wide awake. Rusty. But wide awake.

Go Roos!
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Those might be valid points, but you do realise that the Dogs also had many best 22 players missing? Yet they still had more talent and polish out there than we did.

They were a team that made finals and got thrashed, and they just gave us a touch up. We've got a lot of work to do.
 
Psicosis said:
“Overreaction” “It’s just a preseason game” “‘Other’ excuse”...

No one can justify the lack of game plan.

I can excuse the skills for maybe 1 more week but that excuse is gone by round 1. Ditto with our midfield setup, which was a complete mess, once again the opposition outnumber us at every contest (or we are just slow). Mind you both these have been issues for a very long time, and should have been one of the biggest priorities when Rhys took over. Must be addressed.
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Can't expect skills to suddenly come good, across the board, in 3 weeks. On last nights evidence, doesn't look like much has been done to address it over the pre-season, when it's been a glaring weakness for years.

It's all good to be known for being physical, having heart, never tanking, etc. But that's all useless if we can't properly handle a football, in a game called football.
 
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