AFL Autopsy Pre-Season Game 2: Geelong vs Essendon, Kardinia Park, Saturday 06/03/2021 @ 7:10 PM AEDT

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Cold Sober

Norm Smith Medallist
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Was hoping for a bit more from Cox. Looked at sea a couple of times. I'd like to see him play round 1 though. We need to get games into guys like him this year.
Bit light on build wise but looked ok. Jones similar, but closer for round 1 imo.
 

WindyHillWarrior

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Maybe it’s a bit soon but it actually looked like we had a game plan tonight and we actually we’re able to play to the plan. We had numbers around the ball and actually spread at the right time. My biggest worry is our fwd line, but we must not kid ourselves we are never going to win this years premiership but we need to develop and move fwd as a club. I think Rutten has a good team around him and it sounds like brasher wants a clear direction for the club, I can see good times coming around the corner. Go Dons!
With you.

We look disciplined and aggressive for the first time in 20 years.
 

foj1

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Lucky enough to go tonight.
‘the happiest I have been at an essendon game for four years.
we are finally playing a hard running accountable competitive style of footy that can actually hold up and be played consistently and win games. We will finish bottom 6 still but there may be a means to an end.
the Good
sam Draper is going to be very good if he gets a good run with injuries
zac merrett played the best game I have seen him play live in terms of his two way running and accountability. Zac doesn’t hurt the opposition enough with the footy and commands the ball when he shouldn’t but he worked hard defensively tonight.
darcy parish like Zac only a poorer user of the footy.
jye Caldwell could be very good. Very competitive and proficient on the inside and runs hard both ways. Needs luck with injuries.
kyle Langford runs both ways and showed real leadership out on the ground. Shows composure.
harrison Jones is a real competitor. His work rate enables a contest instead of kicking to tippa all night long. Will not win a great deal of footy yet and will probably tire as the year goes on but could be that hard working up and down tall like Nick Reiwoldt used to play.
Nick hind is an adequate replacement for Adam saad. Less sizzle but is accountable and will attack when he can.
stewart and Laverde both competed and are athletically way ahead of Hurley and hooker in 2021 and beyond. Our defensive structure enables the two to use their athleticism to compete.
jordon Ridley showed a better balance between defence and attack. He was very composed.
andrew McGrath’s defensive running was elite. He works very hard.
nik cox can cover the ground, works hard defensively and could be an Andrew emblem type in years to come. As expected lacks physical strength but will be a good player in time.
Nick Bryan showed promise in limited time. Is athletic, competes and has a nice frame that will fill out in time.

the jury is out
dylan Shiel looks to have lost his legs a little. He did not have the ability to break lines with speed. Without speed he is an undersized mid and a poor user of the footy.
peter wright took a couple of nice marks and played his role as second ruck competently however he showed his past tendency to drop the easy ones and run under the footy.
aaron Francis is very skilled football in hand. Seems a bit confused when to attack and defend. He needs to find that balance and he will be better.
brayden ham is not strong enough yet. Covers good ground but cannot cope with physical pressure and doesn’t have repeat efforts yet.
ned Cahill lacked composure in tight. Not sure if playing back is for his education or if they will stick to this idea.
waterman does not cover the ground well. He looked slow and lacking agility was a step up from last week but he did play senior footy last year.
dyson Heppell is slow. He is honest and shows leadership but is much closer to the end than some would think.
cale hooker has lost serious athleticism. I know he has trimmed down but his speed is gone. This year is his last and he will provide veteran leadership and protect Jones, Reid, eyre, perkins and the less physical.
devon smith is also going to struggle. He looks a bit lighter on his feet compared to last year but has no depth to his kicking. Copped a couple of sprays from teammates due to his selfishness.
will snelling is honest but is aplodder. Poor kick for his position and lacks speed.

random thoughts
geez it would have been nice if we traded joe Daniher in 2020 and got our hands on Logan McDonald. Jones and McDonald may have been a nice replica of Lloyd and Lucas.
martin Gleeson shouldn’t play afl footy in 2021.
archie Perkins had a few contests which taught him he has a long way to go and he has to do the work.
jake stringer is important for us. Along with tippa who was good tonight he has the gift to do the special which we lack as an overall side.
David zaharakis will find it hard to play this brand of footy
why did Matt guelfi not play
saw josh eyre at the ground. Impressive looking athlete.
josh Dunkley would complement our side moving forward
the coaches and players looked very focused before the game and in huddles. No need for silly jokes at half time.
if the Davey twins develop this year they would suit this game plan tremendously. Mosquito would be handy if he can get a tank.
rutten Looked relaxed and confident tonight. richardson has been sacked should Campbell too for allowing last years messy structure to happen?
 

blitzer

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The most impressive thing about tonight was the overall defensive structure implementation and attitude towards making it work.
It gives me hope that we can genuinely become a reliable side to watch week to week and work on a game plan that will stand up in big games.

Draper looked good against admittedly weak opposition. Still important to show good form though.
Harrison Jones is better than I expected. Competes really hard, moves well and I'd be surprised if he didn't at least become a good KPF in the future. We won't know his true potential for a while and this year is a development year for him so he'll have his ups and downs but plenty to work with.
Nick Hind also making a stronger impact than expected. We knew he could run but his kicking has been very reliable as well. Very nice pickup at a cheap price.
Ridley just looks great. I'd have him as by far our best chance for an AA spot this year.
McGrath comes straight in and looking good as always.
Laverde better down back than I expected especially his effort standing Hawkins who honestly is completely out of his weight and size class (and ability).
Nik Cox wasn't as good as last week but honestly he's going pretty damn well for a 200cm first year player. Based on what I've seen I'd play him about 18 games this year (with a few rests as needed). He's skinny but he works really hard and our list will be better for getting games into him now. I don't think it will be that long til he's a real weapon for us. Additionally lets face it we aren't blessed for talent on the wing right now - might as well develop a youngster or two (including Ham).
Nick Bryan has something. I like him. He moves well, competes hard and I can see him putting serious pressure for spots sooner rather than later as a KPF/2nd ruck. Its all going to depend on how his forward craft goes. I'm actually really looking forward to a Draper Bryan combo - I think they can really complement each other - you have the big physical presence of Draper and the more polished game of Bryan.
Caldwell and Wright doing their bit. Both seem to be handy pickups and Caldwell should have a big future for us.
Smith did some good things and is certainly moving better than last year. 18 possessions, 2 goals and 4 tackles is a good stat sheet. That said he annoys the crap out of me the way he burns teammates when he's within range of the goals and goes for very iffy shots at goal most of which he misses by miles (particularly annoys me when he goes for them on the run on his left foot).
Shiel seems to be struggling a bit. One of his issues is that he is really poor at other positions than midfield. He's a complete non threat up forward. We haven't seen any of his trademark explosive pace this preseason.
Snelling really shouldn't be part of our midfield rotations going forward. We already have too many smaller midfielders and his impact doesnt justify his presence there. Needs to work to secure a small forward spot or play reserves for mine.
 

Cup_o_Jobe

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All in all an encouraging performance. Echo everyone else marvelling at a side with a clear game plan, excellent work ethic, and (more often than not) smart decision making. Little things like players tapping the ball to advantage rather than take possession and get immediately dumped, seeing a teammate leap at the ball so setting up behind in case it spills to ground, players dishing off and then immediately running to space to provide the outnumber forward of ball. All the things we're used to seeing good teams do and Essendon never do, we seem to be doing.
 

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Great night in Geelong, felt like pre 2020.

Quite surprised how competitive we looked and really nice style of ball movement. Biggest surprise was defence, Laverde, Stewart and Hind all looked good there.

Jones and Wright showed a bit and Caldwell could be a badly needed addition to the mid.
 
Mar 11, 2018
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All in all an encouraging performance. Echo everyone else marvelling at a side with a clear game plan, excellent work ethic, and (more often than not) smart decision making. Little things like players tapping the ball to advantage rather than take possession and get immediately dumped, seeing a teammate leap at the ball so setting up behind in case it spills to ground, players dishing off and then immediately running to space to provide the outnumber forward of ball. All the things we're used to seeing good teams do and Essendon never do, we seem to be doing.



Yeah we got the Richmond style tap on thing going on both when ball is on ground or up in the air. Players look to be expecting it happening which is good.

Watching the game again this morning it’s very encouraging to see the tackling efforts by everyone. We consistently wrapped geelong players up tight and brought them to ground with genuine aggression. This is great to see after years of being rather weak in the effective tackling department and having a habit of giving away too many frees for in the back.

Repeat efforts after missing the first one in tackling was good too.

Our centre square set up is seen as small but with the super quick hands of Parish, Zac, McGrath and Caldwell feeding off the ever improving Draper i think we can match it with anyone’s mids in the guts and around the ground in ball ups and boundary throw ins.

The worries for me are..

Smith ..no pace left and looks slow

Hooker ..even slower..like a lumbering dinosaur

Heppell..zero pace ..slow

Shiel...no good as a forward ..doesn’t do any damage in the midfield and is more of a receiver working off others efforts


The positives ..

Langford finally looks comfortable and confident at league level now and will be an important role of this side as a bigger mid and a marking forward

Laverde will be fine on the backline and will settle into the role as the weeks roll on

Getting Stringer back into our forward line with his strength and smart footy skills will be so important for our lineup.
We need a fit Jake playing every week.
 
Smith ..no pace left and looks slow

Hooker ..even slower..like a lumbering dinosaur

Heppell..zero pace ..slow

Shiel...no good as a forward ..doesn’t do any damage in the midfield and is more of a receiver working off others efforts
Tough crowd.

Smith kicked 2, set up a couple and ran himself into the ground.

Hooker kicked 4.

Heppell got caught a couple of times, which happens in a new role, but still played well. Rohan thought he was slow too. Heppell also had the most intercept possessions on the ground.

Shiel had most score involvements, most clearances, most centre clearances and only played barely half the game.
 
Mar 11, 2018
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Tough crowd.

Smith kicked 2, set up a couple and ran himself into the ground.

Hooker kicked 4.

Heppell got caught a couple of times, which happens in a new role, but still played well. Rohan thought he was slow too. Heppell also had the most intercept possessions on the ground.

Shiel had most score involvements, most clearances, most centre clearances and only played barely half the game.


Yeah well ..we’ll see where the first 3 are at by round 10 in the middle of winter.

Shiel is a great receiver and reads the play well running forward. And that’s ok.
But he’s not a good kick when trying to drill a low pass at a lead up forward. We know this.

I don’t expect the hard nut stuff from anymore too and have given up complaining about it. He’s better for us staying on his feet and being a ball carrier/link up midfielder who occasionally has a ping at goal.
 
Yeah well ..we’ll see where the first 3 are at by round 10 in the middle of winter.

Shiel is a great receiver and reads the play well running forward. And that’s ok.
I don’t expect the hard nut stuff from anymore and have given up complaining about it. He’s better for us staying on his feet and being a ball carrier/link up midfielder who occasionally has a ping at goal.
I'm not talking about round 10 though. I've just made the observation labelling them "worries" after last night's game is a bit rough, since all 3 played fairly well.

Shiel can be a strong mid. 55% game time didn't help him but s**t he still lead the way in some important categories.

I don't know if it's just me but it feels like posters on here are trying to find negatives just coz. We played a decent game against one of the benchmarks and came up short. We don't have to find criticisms, we can accept everyone did their job, we're just not good enough at the moment.
 
Mar 11, 2018
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I'm not talking about round 10 though. I've just made the observation labelling them "worries" after last night's game is a bit rough, since all 3 played fairly well.

Shiel can be a strong mid. 55% game time didn't help him but sh*t he still lead the way in some important categories.

I don't know if it's just me but it feels like posters on here are trying to find negatives just coz. We played a decent game against one of the benchmarks and came up short. We don't have to find criticisms, we can accept everyone did their job, we're just not good enough at the moment.

Identifying weaknesses in our list is not criticism. It’s what you do to achieve a goal of having a solid 22 who can play finals.

All and all I think we played very very well against an experienced and well drilled Geelong side.
We had a bunch of new players finding their role in the team who did well and the young recruits are extremely promising.

I’m confident that Rutten can get this squad winning games this year and being super competitive and consistent.

No more blow out defeats like last year is what I look forward to this season.
 
Apr 3, 2007
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I was very impressed. Best we have looked in a long time. Players are believing in Trucks message.

However, be prepared for the next two seasons to be Brisbane 2017/18. We will have games where we scare teams like Richmond and Geelong. We will also cop a flogging here and there, however, if we stay the course and pay the dues, we will burst onto the scene in 2023 out of nowhere.
 
I watched the replay half cut so I might be way off base here, but here goes anyway:

The good:

I thought Stewart played a much better game this week than last defensively, although he still gets caught out opf position occasionally.
Cahill looks a lot like a Caleb Daniel type defender and I love it so far.
McGrath was very impressive again, hadn't missed a beat despite the concussion.
Draper was dominant in the ruck.
Parish looked really good mostly playing midfield.
Langford's kicking was really top notch.
Jye Caldwell looks really, really good. I wasn't a fan of us picking him up but he's done well so far.
Merrett doing Merrett things.
Dylan Shiel was excellent despite the lack of TOG (just picking that up from this thread).
Ridley wasn't dominant but he was doing the things he usually does anyway.
Nick Hind looks really solid defensively and had a few really good runs.
If last night was what we'll see of Wright being the key forward/ruck I love it.
Harrison Jones has "it". Excited to see how he does against Hawthorne.
Bryan only played a quarter but he showed quite a few signs.
Hooker was really good at reading the ball a fraction earlier than his opponent. Plus the four goals thing.
Walla's intensity inside 50 was really good.

The bad:

Did not notice Marty at all, but not sure who he was playing on either.
Francis got beaten one-on-one quite a few times, concerning.
Don't think I saw Perkins once but again, no idea about his TOG.
After a great first Praccy I thought Waterman struggled this game.

The in between:

I thought Smith was decent but seemed a tad slow.
I didn't really see a lot of Cox, but the things he did were nice.
I thought Laverde got a lot of cheap sideways possessions that didn't really impact the game, but defended decently.
Heppell did some things really well but he got caught out a few times.
Brayden Ham shouldn't be playing inside but still think we have a nice little player here.
Snelling was okay. Just okay.

Overall a very promising performance against a good side. Now let's bring on Hawthorne.
 

DapperJong

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The bad:

Did not notice Marty at all, but not sure who he was playing on either.
Francis got beaten one-on-one quite a few times, concerning.
Don't think I saw Perkins once but again, no idea about his TOG.
After a great first Praccy I thought Waterman struggled this game.
All of Marty, Perkins and waterman only played the last quarter
 
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