Autopsy Post Hawks vent thread

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I'd love to spend a good essay bashing the shoddy work rate, but I'd just like to highlight one player and one play in particular.

Midway through the second quarter the ball was errantly kicked towards the far wing, heading towards the boundary but very unlikely to cross it. With no-one else nearby a hawks player of some description was ~5m ahead of the nearest Eagle and likely to retrieve the ball first. That Eagle was unable to maintain a sprint to the ball and twice slowed to a jog allowind the Hawk to retrieve the ball, run around and deliver to their forward line.

That Eagle was Chris Masten, one of the supposed endurance / gut runners in the team.

People talk about Masten's running as an asset. It is clearly not, or he is clearly not 100% fit.
 
I'd love to spend a good essay bashing the shoddy work rate, but I'd just like to highlight one player and one play in particular.

Midway through the second quarter the ball was errantly kicked towards the far wing, heading towards the boundary but very unlikely to cross it. With no-one else nearby a hawks player of some description was ~5m ahead of the nearest Eagle and likely to retrieve the ball first. That Eagle was unable to maintain a sprint to the ball and twice slowed to a jog allowind the Hawk to retrieve the ball, run around and deliver to their forward line.

That Eagle was Chris Masten, one of the supposed endurance / gut runners in the team.

People talk about Masten's running as an asset. It is clearly not, or he is clearly not 100% fit.

Its not that he can't run its that he is s**t scared of a contest. Hard ball gets are his kryptonite.
 

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Oh yeah, so the couple of players who have shown something weren't even available.

I'd prefer we go to the draft in the future, but not looking like we missed much anyway...
I was arguing that point last week. A pick 21 will on average get you a 30 game afl player. The club chose to use on an established midfielder (an area of need) who by round 23 this season should have have the 30 game mark covered. Sure, it hasn't worked out with Redden being the 25 possession bull that he was at Brisbane, but he's probably tracking better for us than Jed Lamb (if it was pick 22 there's an absolute gold mine of s**t players there).
 
Its not that he can't run its that he is s**t scared of a contest. Hard ball gets are his kryptonite.
The old "if I don't get to the contest I don't have to go hard". I know "there's no easy games", but Masto would be one bloke I'd defintely look at seeing if the team could do without. I'd pick Hutch over him purely for the extra level of effort at the contests he does get to.
 
I also think it's time to experiment with less time on the ball for Priddis. I could honestly take a dump off the side of a hill and it would roll downhill faster than he can move. I don't know what he's towin' but please, can we just lighten his load a bit and relieve him of some on ball time.
Question is - what else do you do with him? Defensive forward? Loose defender?
 
I have said for years and years that Hurn is the epitome of a fair weather captain. He leads during sunny skies but goes missing below deck when things get rough. I have never, ever seen him be capable of marshalling the troops or leading by example when a game is going south.
For the third time in a row, i have watched those boys come out to the MCG against hawthorn looking nervous and insipid when they should be coming out savage, aggressive like they stole something from us (they did, a premiership!). They need to come out like someone had slapped their mother, not like they have come from a meditation retreat singing "kum bah yah" and holding hands

Bitterly disappointed, something has to give
 
Doesnt matter. The day that we become the club who takes solace in beating their cross-town rival during a sh*t season may as well be the day where we feel that just making the finals is "good enough". I will turn my back on this club before I see that attitude of failure set in.

I will be f*cken furious if we beat Fremantle next week and the boys celebrate big. After yesterday's effort they should all be disgusted with themselves for a long time to come.

We are playing a horrible brand of football at the moment, and something is wrong with the club. Little things like the playing group dropping their heads too often when a challenge arises, not flying the flag for your teammates, not being visibly angry or upset with a poor onfield performaces, etc. Someone in another thread said that, if a West Coast player was shot onfield, the next guy in line would just step over the body - that is 100% the attitude we are dealing with, and it needs to be sorted out just as much as we need to sort out our midfield issues.
It stands out like a sore thumb - THERE IS NO LEADERSHIP (on or off the field so it seems). Fix this and there may be some improvement. The worst part is that it can't easily be fixed in a hurry:(
 
First time poster guys. But just curious, do we have a separate game plan for the MCG? It certainly feels that way considering I live in Melbourne and whenever I have the luxury of watching the Eagles live they seem to not have numbers around the ball.

The Eagles players seem to prefer to dance around as their first option, then try to tackle the opposition as the second option. Attempting to collect the ball or tap it on to the advantage of a team mate is almost non existent.

Why do we gift the opposition possession without even trying to take it ourselves? Trust me when I say that this is NOT a speed issue. There are even instances where we are first to the ball but allow the opposition to take it. Sorry but it is frustrating as a Victorian based Eagles supporter to have no faith watching the boys live and be confident of a win...

There is simply no consistency in the way the boys play. I definitely know the boys are capable of winning the ball, I've seen it enough over the past few years with the SAME players in the team. Why not consistently play the way that wins games?

Given tackling/intent seems to be Simpson's KPI, are the boys letting the opposition players take possession so they can lay a tackle to please the coach? Simpson is the one to blame if this is the case.
Yes agree - I noticed it time and time again watching it on TV - the players are just so reactive, not proactive. They wait for the opposition to get the ball, and only then will they attempt to tackle or try to win the ball - more often than not this fails. If they attempted to be the first to the ball, they may have more success.
 

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On Shuey's goal from 50
He and others need to do this more. It happens so much we have a player running and about to cross the 50 line with only eyes for JK, which doesn't eventuate, they get closed out start the backwards handball triangle work under pressure.

Was so refreshing for him to realise the spot up leads weren't on and just slot it from the 50, the full 6m face of the goals available, not that difficult a shot for AFL players. Hit it nicely too.

Can't be bothered trying to find the stats, but surely we'd have to be damn close to the bottom of the league for goals from the midfield. Priddis, Gaff, Masten, Redden, Hutchings etc, they'd be lucky if they average 1 goal a game between them.
 
Distinct lack of Keys to tell us all to stop over reacting. I wonder if he went too far with the Autoerotic Asphyxiation?
It was right to call for calm after the Richmond loss - a close scrap in awful conditions, these games tend towards being 50/50 and Richmond aren't bad this year.

But this is a humiliation by a winless team with the playing group displaying all the signs of mental scarring from a match two years ago. There is real concern now even if it's 'only' Round 5. Can't win the flag if the boys s**t themselves at the MCG.
 
When Shuey got run down kicking for goal that useless seagull Hill ran in front asking for a chip and then spat the dummy when he didnt get it... why didnt he run behind Shuey and put a shepherd on the player, he no doubt could see, so Shuey could make the kick... old school 2005 players like Chick would not have thought twice about it. Useless almost everywhere and I've significantly lowered my expectations for this year. We do not play for each other. Stopped watching 7 or 8 mins in to the last qtr. Absolute crud.

'Shepherd' is not in this team's vocabulary. Can't remember the last time a player laid a good shepherd to put a team mate into space. They're always looking for the hand off, the old one two etc. I've even seen players hand off and then step out of the way of an oncoming opponent rather than blocking.
 
We paid extra for Redden because he was under contract at the time. We don't know who we would have picked if we kept the pick or how that player would have turned out for us. In any case, it is still way to early to assess that draft class.
Everybody seem to agree that the Redden trade looks like a failure for us. My point is that we might not be able to get anything worthwhile if we were to trade him away at the end of this year.
 
'Shepherd' is not in this team's vocabulary. Can't remember the last time a player laid a good shepherd to put a team mate into space. They're always looking for the hand off, the old one two etc. I've even seen players hand off and then step out of the way of an oncoming opponent rather than blocking.

That is really annoying watching a player get tracked and just asking for the handball instead of clearing the way.
 
The worse thing is the player's have probably gone had a coffee to talk about how they can be funny in the next eagle back chat podcast.

And who is going to drive that s**t box in the next episode of conversation in cars.

bloody frustrated with these bloody campaigners.....
 
Yesterday there was only 7 players (Hurn) in our team who didnt have not 1, 1%er. Another 7 who had only 1 each. 14 players who managed in total 7 one percenters for a whole game. Meanwhile Shuey is getting mowed down holding the ball with teammates metres away not saying/doing s**t. He just got up and didnt say anything to anyone, you could tell he was super pissed though, in a ''not this s**t again'' way.
 
Too depressed to even bother melting, but I will say that the only positive yesterday was that the youngsters in Nelson, Barrass and Duggan showed none of the mental weakness of their senior comrades.

At the risk of sounding like one of those talkback radio muppets, just play the ******* kids. We're not going to win this year's flag with players who've shown time and again they can't handle big-game pressure away from Subi, so they can piss off to the WAFL. What's the point of keeping the likes of Karpany and Lamb for this season and then play them only in the WAFL.
 
Next person to tag me in a ******* eagles meme is going to get the scrotum ripped off and get rammed in their throat.
 

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