Review PAFC 2020 Season Review

Didn't exactly say that it was out of order. It's not even surprising, I've purely sighted it because it's exaggerated. I want our fans to keep the pressure on Ken but that doesn't mean going straight for his neck.
What about this is exaggerated? Or has anything to do with KH?


Season Review. Failed again/End
Really. Was the same as last year. Oh, and the year before that... and the one before that etc etc
 

AwwThatsApples

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Mar 24, 2019
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What about this is exaggerated? Or has anything to do with KH?
Because the season wasn't a failure and neither was it the same as years prior.

A missed opportunity?? Sure, a complete failure?? Not in the least.

And this was the FIRST thing he said in the Prelim review thread:

Sack the campaigner in the coaches box. End.
 
Because the season wasn't a failure and neither was it the same as years prior.
If we are in a premiership window (and if we are it is going to shut soon given the age of Boak, Gray et al) it absolutely was a failure. Especially given everything that we had going for us.

And the finishing position may not have been the same, but the deficiencies in our game plan were very much so. s**t inside 50s, poor disposal efficiency and decision making when the heat is on, and senior players failing to stand up.
 
Number one for me is improving our forward entries - 58 inside 50's for just 10 scoring shots in a knock out final is abysmal, and won't win many games against the big boys.

Plenty of positives to emerge from the year, but it doesn't really lessen the pain of missing a grand final, which we should have been a part of this weekend. Hopefully by 2030, we're not still looking back at 2020 as the last time we got this far. These opportunities are rare, and need to be grasped with both hands when they present themselves.
 

AwwThatsApples

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If we are in a premiership window (and if we are it is going to shut soon given the age of Boak, Gray et al) it absolutely was a failure. Especially given everything that we had going for us.

And the finishing position may not have been the same, but the deficiencies in our game plan were very much so. sh*t inside 50s, poor disposal efficiency and decision making when the heat is on, and senior players failing to stand up.
It will be a failure if and when the window shuts without a premiership in the next few years. Until then we've got to focus on ourselves and maintaining dominance on the ladder for years to come. With most 30+ year old players you just don't know when they shut down. We could have 5 more years or 1. We have to wait and see.
 
It will be a failure if and when the window shuts without a premiership in the next few years. Until then we've got to focus on ourselves and maintaining dominance on the ladder for years to come. With most 30+ year old players you just don't know when they shut down. We could have 5 more years or 1. We have to wait and see.
Have you seen the age profile of our list? There is a glaring hole where the next generation behind Boak, Gray, Westhoff, Ebert etc should be. We don't have the luxury of a few years, and we will be waiting for the 2018 draft class to hit their peak before we can challenge again.

That aside, Hinkley has been at the helm for 8 seasons now, and overseen 2 generations of a playing list. At what point is it time to look in another direction?
 

AwwThatsApples

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Have you seen the age profile of our list? There is a glaring hole where the next generation behind Boak, Gray, Westhoff, Ebert etc should be. We don't have the luxury of a few years, and we will be waiting for the 2018 draft class to hit their peak before we can challenge again.

That aside, Hinkley has been at the helm for 8 seasons now, and overseen 2 generations of a playing list. At what point is it time to look in another direction?
DBJ SPP aren't as young or as old as the names you've just mentioned, neither is Housten or Wines. Marshall and Ladhams also have lots of years ahead to get things right, and even some of our peak age names (Namely Dixon and Jonas) will still be trying to push their best football out. If we stuck with the same list-plan during 2017s offseason and 2018s season we would be cooked and probably falling off a cliff like the crows, but we drafted just at the right time and need to sustain our unique list combination. It's not like Brisbane fans said that their team was cooked after the straight sets of 2019, because the minor round was one of their best since Leigh Matthew's lions, and it put them back on the map. That's how we need to treat this year, or I guess Essendon in 1999 would be a better example of redemption with silverware?? There are plenty I can use, but to make sure this isn't another flash in the pan we need to focus, however, we do that.
 
Aug 13, 2007
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We built on our strengths around stoppage and ability to execute our forward half game. I think we got better at slowing our opposition down and allowing time to set up our defence to help each other out so that we didn't get exposed 1 v 1 MOST of the time.

The biggest negatives was the midfield going missing for patches in all of our losses.

Our gamestyle is designed to limit the impact of pretty much all of our mids being s**t field kicks - bombing it out of stoppage, bombing it on top of Dixon. We need huge numbers of inside 50s vs our opponent because we can't hit targets and are going for a real hit it to Charlie, bomb it to the top of the square hit and hope approach. In my opinion this won't improve until we're getting most of our delivery from the Houston, Butters, Rozee, Marshall generation not the Boak, Ebert, Wines, Rockliff, Motlop era.

There is no magical gameplan that will make those mids better kicks.

Next year our best chance of a flag is more of the same but with some better composure with the ball and continued improvement from the younger players.

Longer term should see better quality though, we just need to do our best to avoid the dip due to the gap in quality between our 28+ brigade and the younger 18-24s.
 

Port 2004

Premiership Player
Jun 27, 2012
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If we are in a premiership window (and if we are it is going to shut soon given the age of Boak, Gray et al) it absolutely was a failure. Especially given everything that we had going for us.

And the finishing position may not have been the same, but the deficiencies in our game plan were very much so. sh*t inside 50s, poor disposal efficiency and decision making when the heat is on, and senior players failing to stand up.
I think Boakey is one of the main culprits when it comes to lack of composure. Maybe some of these senior players just aren’t good enough when it counts.
 
Oct 8, 2004
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What worked

Port Adelaide simply got the most out of its players. From Ken Hinkley's remarks of "look out, we're coming" in February, right throughout an interrupted and complicated season, the Power looked strong and united. They sat atop the ladder throughout the entire season, won the minor premiership, had five players selected in the 40-man All-Australian squad, helped Charlie Dixon claim second place in the Coleman Medal count and propelled Travis Boak to second in the Brownlow Medal. It was a superb season, regardless of the preliminary final result, and will give the club something to build from ahead of 2021.

What failed

'Failed' might be strong, given the way Port Adelaide travelled throughout the season, but there's no doubt the club would like to get another key defender into its mix. Tom Jonas, Tom Clurey and Trent McKenzie performed admirably throughout the year, but none stand above 193cm and each struggled against the game's dominant key forwards at times in 2020. The loss of Dougal Howard to St Kilda was felt throughout different stages over the course of the season, so gaining more defensive support would be a boost.

Early call for 2021

Port Adelaide will be back. Yes, it will be hard for veterans like Travis Boak and Robbie Gray to retain such strong form, but the club has an abundance of talented youngsters. Expect players like Connor Rozee, Xavier Duursma, Zak Butters, Miles Bergman, Mitch Georgiades, Dylan Williams and Lachie Jones to help the Power continue their improvement in 2021.

Overall rating

A. It was an incredible season that no one saw coming. The narrow preliminary final defeat will hurt, but we shouldn't overlook just how improved this Port Adelaide team is.

 
Jul 31, 2005
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I spent much of my career in competitive tendering. If I'd pulled out a spectacular offer and lifted our company from tenth in the pecking order to third, I'd still have been performance rated "unsatisfactory".

I understand the AFL's rating because we followed the script and spared them the ignominy of winning their precious cup, but Kochie should know better.
 
Oct 12, 2007
30,501
52,049
The Hills
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
What worked

Port Adelaide simply got the most out of its players. From Ken Hinkley's remarks of "look out, we're coming" in February, right throughout an interrupted and complicated season, the Power looked strong and united. They sat atop the ladder throughout the entire season, won the minor premiership, had five players selected in the 40-man All-Australian squad, helped Charlie Dixon claim second place in the Coleman Medal count and propelled Travis Boak to second in the Brownlow Medal. It was a superb season, regardless of the preliminary final result, and will give the club something to build from ahead of 2021.

What failed

'Failed' might be strong, given the way Port Adelaide travelled throughout the season, but there's no doubt the club would like to get another key defender into its mix. Tom Jonas, Tom Clurey and Trent McKenzie performed admirably throughout the year, but none stand above 193cm and each struggled against the game's dominant key forwards at times in 2020. The loss of Dougal Howard to St Kilda was felt throughout different stages over the course of the season, so gaining more defensive support would be a boost.

Early call for 2021

Port Adelaide will be back. Yes, it will be hard for veterans like Travis Boak and Robbie Gray to retain such strong form, but the club has an abundance of talented youngsters. Expect players like Connor Rozee, Xavier Duursma, Zak Butters, Miles Bergman, Mitch Georgiades, Dylan Williams and Lachie Jones to help the Power continue their improvement in 2021.

Overall rating

A. It was an incredible season that no one saw coming. The narrow preliminary final defeat will hurt, but we shouldn't overlook just how improved this Port Adelaide team is.

Posts like this are just unreadable on the app at the moment. What happened?

Endless scrolling.

On SM-G960F using
BigFooty.com mobile app
 

Harlott

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Jul 5, 2010
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Look, we weren't far away. We gave every team a tough time except for the stinker vs Geelong and basically one qtr vs Bris and St K. To me the balance was too much in the playing of a brutal style and not enough on the finesse or class. This probably suggests where we're at. We just don't have the class of the Rich, Geelong, Brisbane, WC midfields nor the ability to get the quality entries to give our forwards better service. Having said that I don't think it's much of a tweak to take the next step by giving more game time there to guys that are smart, quick and skillful by hand and foot like Rozee, Butters, Amon etc. Hopefully these guys can start bulking up more to allow them to cope with the demands.
 
Mar 10, 2008
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Look, we weren't far away. We gave every team a tough time except for the stinker vs Geelong and basically one qtr vs Bris and St K. To me the balance was too much in the playing of a brutal style and not enough on the finesse or class. This probably suggests where we're at. We just don't have the class of the Rich, Geelong, Brisbane, WC midfields nor the ability to get the quality entries to give our forwards better service. Having said that I don't think it's much of a tweak to take the next step by giving more game time there to guys that are smart, quick and skillful by hand and foot like Rozee, Butters, Amon etc. Hopefully these guys can start bulking up more to allow them to cope with the demands.
Yep, just a couple off-nights against the only other teams who didn’t check out of the season completely after round 1.
 
The loss of Dougal Howard

Not really a ‘loss’ when you take the #1 spoiler in the league (2018), move him all over the field because of incoherent list management, and then all but force him out via trade.
 

AwwThatsApples

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Not really a ‘loss’ when you take the #1 spoiler in the league (2018), move him all over the field because of incoherent list management, and then all but force him out via trade.
He's overrated.

After the Saints' Elimination finals win everybody talked up Dougs as the BOG even though his matchup was a horribly out of form Josh Bruce and an underwhelming Naughton. Then the next week Tom Lynch absolutely smashes him. Even when we brought him into the team early last year he gave away 6 goals on Hipwood and Lynch, so the team was essentially giving him one last chance to redevelop himself as a forward in order to prove that he was willing to commit. Meanwhile, Mckenzie does all the hard work off the ball and played a bit part in trying to keep Lynch and Riewoldt quiet the other night. It wasn't "incoherent" list management that made him leave, the club wanted him to work harder off the ball and he didn't, so they tried him in different positions on the field and that didn't work either. Both clubs have won that trade so complaining about it is useless.
 
Even when we brought him into the team early last year he gave away 6 goals on Hipwood and Lynch, so the team was essentially giving him one last chance to redevelop himself as a forward in order to prove that he was willing to commit.

He had a combined 24 spoils in those games and we later conceded 15 goals to Brown/Larkey without him.

Defensive vulnerability to key forwards in 2019 was clearly systemic, but it still makes zero sense to move your 199cm spoiling machine out of defence.

And now we’re a key defender shy. If that’s not incoherent list management, such a concept doesn’t exist.
 
I don't rate Dougal. However for lack of better options it was a big call to trade him.

Having said that, the picks we secured were pretty amazing based on his career to date.
 

AwwThatsApples

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He had a combined 24 spoils in those games and we later conceded 15 goals to Brown/Larkey without him.

Defensive vulnerability to key forwards in 2019 was clearly systemic, but it still makes zero sense to move your 199cm spoiling machine out of defence.

That's exactly why we disposed of him. We needed him to play deeper roles in the team's defence to compliment the spoiling ability of Jonas as well as Clurey's pack capacity, but he pretty much just wanted to be another third man spoiler and limit his physical involvement.

Then we put him forward and he had the same problem. He didn't put in the work to make leads, take big marks or bring the ball to the ground as a target. I would argue he's almost a cherry picker wherever he is on the field, even now he is only successful while Carlile does most of the deep position work.

The commentators also admitted on Saturday night in the second prelim that Harris Andrews can only do so much when he is left alone in a 1 on 1 with guys like Hawkins. I have open arms ready if we get a taller defender because that physical advantage is still important, but as you said our former defensive vulnerability was systematic, and all things considered I don't want to change anything about our defensive players from this year other than finding a better replacement for Burton that isn't Bonner.
 

Tibbs

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Sep 9, 2013
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He had a combined 24 spoils in those games and we later conceded 15 goals to Brown/Larkey without him.

Defensive vulnerability to key forwards in 2019 was clearly systemic, but it still makes zero sense to move your 199cm spoiling machine out of defence.

And now we’re a key defender shy. If that’s not incoherent list management, such a concept doesn’t exist.
He is tall, spoils well, moves fast & athletically for a tall guy, but geez he lacks footy smarts! I was happy if he stayed, but as the Doc said, we gained a great draft pick for essentially the loss of a few centimetres. McKenzie easily covered him in everything else!
 
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