Review R9: The Good, Bad and the Ugly vs. Port Adelaide

[feenix67]

So Bartel and Hird do a segment on Rankine’s touches being the difference between a good and great player and

feenix67 doesn’t like my post though

Do you know why I disliked your post? It's because you come on after wins and act like an obnoxious little fanboi. The poster you were belittling had gone to the effort of providing his thoughts in a comprehensive post, and you use words like "moronic" to counter it.

Did it occur to you that the game may not have been close if Ranks and co didn't get torched in the midfield? Sure, his class up forward in the last was elite, but he struggled (again) defensively all night with a top class midfield opponent.

It's hardly moronic to point that out. One might say it's simple-minded (ie moronic) to have such a one dimensional view as yours.

 

[Redline]

Not a criticism but I do agree with Kingy and his question to Nicks this morning. When Thilthorpe is dominating in the forward 50 maybe he isn't the best second ruck option. We were getting beaten in the clearances anyway I would of rucked Curtin until he was subbed off or even Tex.

 

[Cromulant]

Nkt a criticism but I do agree with Kingy and his question to Nicks this morning. When Thilthorpe is dominating in the forward 50 maybe he isn't the best second ruck option. We were getting beaten in the clearances anyway I would of rucked Curtin until he was subbed off or even Tex.

You're not rucking Tex at the CB, that's just asking for trouble.

We kinda left ourselves without any option, and Filthy goes well in there.

 

[hippyhippy]

It isn’t pretty sound, the commentators were all saying it’s very dangerous to be going that early. We are lucky Port butchered their chances otherwise you wouldn’t be able to write your all is glorious post.

We were getting smashed in clearances and contested ball and yet Nicks turned it into a contest and with the crowd behind them, it wasn’t going to take much for them to come charging, which is exactly what happened.

As for Dawson, you saw him kick 3 against Carlton right? Would you have expected to break the tag we might have played him up forward for 5 minutes?

I have to agree here. We racked the queue too early. We were kicking a few goals and should have kicked on. We let them back into the match. So that defensive play failed because they almost won the match if they kicked straight. Dawson could have been moved forward or even defence. Who was the spare? I couldn't even tell.

 

[1990crow]

Nkt a criticism but I do agree with Kingy and his question to Nicks this morning. When Thilthorpe is dominating in the forward 50 maybe he isn't the best second ruck option. We were getting beaten in the clearances anyway I would of rucked Curtin until he was subbed off or even Tex.

It's a good point. When you have such a dominant player and scoring most times you go forward don't change it.

 

[jo172]

Watching them struggle with Thilthorpe brought back memories of watching Bassett and Smart struggling with Tredrea prior to Truck coming on. Was nice.

 

[Redline]

You're not rucking Tex at the CB, that's just asking for trouble.

We kinda left ourselves without any option, and Filthy goes well in there.

We were getting done anyway even with Filthy.

From Nicks response it sounds like they do discuss it, Curtin was the best option but he needed to be subbed off.

The other thing I noticed is I thought he got drawn up the ground a bit at times. He was getting it on the wing not in the forward 50 but that's probably a result of Port's dominance.

Anyway, not a big deal but something I noticed and obviously Kingy did as well.

 

[Slippery Pete]

Absolutely inexplicable not to have every number behind the ball with 20 seconds to go at a stoppage. Seriously, what the f*ck was that?

Nicks should be in a crisis meeting with Neil Balme and the board this morning, explaining very clearly why his team nearly threw away four premiership points by not executing one of the most essential football strategies known to man.

Don’t even get me started on the ten minutes to prior to that.

 

[Slippery Pete]

Not a criticism but I do agree with Kingy and his question to Nicks this morning. When Thilthorpe is dominating in the forward 50 maybe he isn't the best second ruck option. We were getting beaten in the clearances anyway I would of rucked Curtin until he was subbed off or even Tex.

He’d throw him in there at times when he was hot too. F*cking idiocy that even a trained monkey could see.

 

[Cromulant]

We were getting done anyway even with Filthy.

From Nicks response it sounds like they do discuss it, Curtin was the best option but he needed to be subbed off.

The other thing I noticed is I thought he got drawn up the ground a bit at times. He was getting it on the wing not in the forward 50 but that's probably a result of Port's dominance.

Anyway, not a big deal but something I noticed and obviously Kingy did as well.

We were getting done with RT sure, but you're not putting a 35yo Tex with a dodgy back in at a CB

 

[Slippery Pete]

We were getting done with RT sure, but you're not putting a 35yo Tex with a dodgy back in at a CB

RT should cease playing in the ruck immediately.

Only a moron would think it’s appropriate to put him there right now.

I don’t care who you use as a backup, as long as it’s not him.

 

[SugarShane]

Not a criticism but I do agree with Kingy and his question to Nicks this morning. When Thilthorpe is dominating in the forward 50 maybe he isn't the best second ruck option. We were getting beaten in the clearances anyway I would of rucked Curtin until he was subbed off or even Tex.

Last time Aliir pantsed us in the Showdown I was begging us to stand Thilthorpe next to him. Well we finally did this week and all of a sudden Aliir was a non-entity. Until they moved around anyway.

We kick it to him anyway, so might as well put a 7ft marking beast next to him to keep him accountable. Football doesn't have to be hard.

 

[GameofSloanes]

Was at the game, knew we were losing at stoppages but not as badly as the stats showed!

However, our system going forward looked much better than theirs, and every time we did go forward we looked like scoring, whereas Port was much more chaos ball that our defenders were able to deal with than easy passes to leading forwards or players that were free. So the impact of their midfield dominance was much less than it could/should have been

Was very obvious we shut up shop once we were 4 goals up in the last, was way too early, but didnt really look shaky until Laird's ridiculous throw out of a pack. One of the stupider things I've ever seen (even worse than his 50m penalty in Q1). That gave Port a sniff, the crowd (who had started leaving) got involved and nearly cost us the game. Probably wouldnt happen without us going defensive, as we would've at least threatened to score again and kept the ball out of Port's forward line, so it's on Nicks as well.

Overall feeling at the end of the game was relief rather than joy. Was a tight game, our defence and forwards were better, their midfield was better. But hey, if we're now at a point where we can win and still be complaining, that's a good step forward than what we've had to put up with the last 7 years. More work to do on the midfield still, I think it's now more of a structural/setup issue which is primarily coaching.

 

[Cromulant]

RT should cease playing in the ruck immediately.

Only a moron would think it’s appropriate to put him there right now.

I don’t care who you use as a backup, as long as it’s not him.

I do agree, it makes it tough though when hes a better ruckman than our actual ruck.

 

[CharlieCrow]

Hadn't thought much about Thilthorpe spending time in ruck until raised here. He is actually very good in there and could possibly become the best going around. So, it raises the question do you want Gawn or do you want Carey? He's good but you can't have both in one player. I choose Carey. Find someone else to fill in the ruck position.

 

[GreyCrow]

Nicks should be in a crisis meeting with Neil Balme and the board this morning, explaining very clearly why his team nearly threw away four premiership points by not executing one of the most essential football strategies known to man.

There was a post here or another thread that highlighted Nicks ' blame the players ' mantra

Do the coaches have a coach meeting where they discuss the things that cropped up? Or is it '' we won so we did good ''

 

[jenny61_99]

There was a post here or another thread that highlighted Nicks ' blame the players ' mantra

Do the coaches have a coach meeting where they discuss the things that cropped up? Or is it '' we won so we did good ''

I am not sure Nicks blamed the players per say. He did say WE... and we would include the coaching performance as well.

 

[GreyCrow]

RT should cease playing in the ruck immediately.

Only a moron would think it’s appropriate to put him there right now.

I don’t care who you use as a backup, as long as it’s not him.

I think this is right. Teams are scared of RT and when that happens you utilise that fear

I said during the game before Curtin is subbed off that you put him in the ruck to get into the action - doesnt need to win it but at least get involved

Some might be surprised how well he goes

 

[Slippery Pete]

Hadn't thought much about Thilthorpe spending time in ruck until raised here. He is actually very good in there and could possibly become the best going around. So, it raises the question do you want Gawn or do you want Carey? He's good but you can't have both in one player. I choose Carey. Find someone else to fill in the ruck position.

The worst part is you’re risking him getting injured, and in fact, it will become an opposition tactic for a full-time ruckman to try and hurt him at the centre bounce, given how much he is dominating up forward.

 

[Crow till I die]

Hadn't thought much about Thilthorpe spending time in ruck until raised here. He is actually very good in there and could possibly become the best going around. So, it raises the question do you want Gawn or do you want Carey? He's good but you can't have both in one player. I choose Carey. Find someone else to fill in the ruck position.

Its not comparing apples for apples though, I will take the generational key forward (the Carey) every day of the week over the great ruck (Gawn). they are just worth so so so so much more to a side

 

[CharlieCrow]

Nicks is sounding a bit like the Federal Liberal Party - nothing wrong with our policies, just not enough people voted for us - oh and those mean oppo types did bad things to us.

 

[FR0GGY]

My favourite part was showing the footage of DBJ flopping when he took the mark to get the 50 metre penalty, he completely ignored that dive to focus on Worrell in the background

I saw that in a clip without sound, I assumed they would mean DBJ, and laughed because someone went down in the background.

 

[Apsaalooke]

What if we had actually won even more than a few of those contests we kept losing? We probably end up scoring out the back. Perhaps Port and Hinkley had something to do with the last 10-15 minutes, not just Nicks pulling the strings?

They scored 2.6 because every entry was to a 8+ player contest in our D50 and it took Laird doing something stupid as usual and Finlayson getting a hack kick out of nowhere to score a goal.

The trouble with going defensive is that the mindset is to kill the contest rather than win it, and the opposition has the exact opposite goal to attack as they have nothing to lose.
Sure you can tough it out for the last 2-3 minutes but not for 12 which was almost half of the last quarter. We had the momentum and we meekly handed it back to them. Even Nicks now must know the tactic was wrong and I'd bet anything he'll never do that again.

 

[Mr MysteryGuest]

The game finished an hour ago and I'm still baffled how we won when only 5 or 6 of our players played well and Nicks tried his hardest to lose

Must be

View attachment 2310795

lots of players who had mediocre to bad games, but still won crucial moments when they came.

 

[jimvic]

I was 100% guessing that was going to be a ‘Pedlar on Stewart’-type move from Maffew

But alas, I was surprised. Credit where credit

I think this is right. Teams are scared of RT and when that happens you utilise that fear

I said during the game before Curtin is subbed off that you put him in the ruck to get into the action - doesnt need to win it but at least get involved

Some might be surprised how well he goes

at least he would be where the action is