AFL Autopsy RND 19: Beaten by the Crom

[MiguelM]

Guelfi?!

Absolutely. Hasn't been near it for a month.

Is not elite and that is our problem. Not enough elite players and too many passengers.

If they are not part of the next flag planning we need to make tough calls. For too long we keep b graders.

 

[MiguelM]

The amount of goals that bounced through was pretty inexcusable.

Yep, as I posted earlier not 1 player back deep enough IMO. Just 1 player could have stopped 4 goals.

Same happened last week against Dees.

 

[FootyGuru]

Yep, as I posted earlier not 1 player back deep enough IMO. Just 1 player could have stopped 4 goals.

Same happened last week against Dees.

You’re not seriously suggesting we plant someone on the goal line?

 

[JDavey]

Our loose was Kelly. It was supposed to be Langford, but crows manned him creating Kelly loose, that’s why I suspect he didn’t make it to the stoppage. To play on their extra. His positioning was bad, but Durham missing the footy with his boot didn’t help either.

I think your getting too caught up in the “goal keeper” theory, we gave up a lot worse goals than that one tonight.

My brother, Kelly started up at the contest. How could Langford possibly be the loose when he was 30 meters away from Kelly manned up on someone.

1 minute to go with under a goal lead and we're manned up 6:6 in defense like its a ****ing center bounce.
No loose, no flood.

Blink twice if you're being held hostage in the coaches box being forced to defend this. We can send help

 

[ant555]

You’re not seriously suggesting we plant someone on the goal line?

Would be nice if we could get out set up working well enough that we can sort it out .

 

[Nicholas61]

You’re not seriously suggesting we plant someone on the goal line?

I think he means players should be a little more savy in their positioning - ie knowing when to chase an opponent or when to stay back. Matt Scarlett was the ultimate at this. Most of our players just don't have the natural instinct for it.

 

[ant555]

I think he means players should be a little more savy in their positioning - ie knowing when to chase an opponent or when to stay back. Matt Scarlett was the ultimate at this. Most of our players just don't have the natural instinct for it.

We simply lack the instinct and swarm to the contest. Even when we can not make it.

 

[FootyGuru]

My brother, Kelly started up at the contest. How could Langford possibly be the loose when he was 30 meters away from Kelly manned up on someone.

1 minute to go with under a goal lead and we're manned up 6:6 in defense like its a ****ing center bounce.
No loose, no flood.

Blink twice if you're being held hostage in the coaches box being forced to defend this. We can send help

Our loose man was Kelly. Crows loose man was in stoppage. I suspect Langford got manned up and Kelly went looking for the extra crow, he found him at stoppage late but couldn’t make up ground. He then got found out of positin stuck between being loose man or manned up at stoppage.

This exactly shows why it isn’t easy to get a loose man or goal keeper. You need to give up something elsewhere.

The other argument is do you have a loose when your less than a goal ahead. Every coach is gonna draw a different line on how long you should protect a lead. I personally thought we tried to protect the lead too early.

 

[FootyGuru]

We simply lack the instinct and swarm to the contest. Even when we can not make it.

I think generally Scott’s philosophy is to win the ball at the contest with even or sometimes plus numbers at stoppage and defend from behind with ground position, rather than create from
The back and giving the opposition the ground position.

We tend to lose to sides who play the opposite way though like Geelong.

 

[ant555]

I think generally Scott’s philosophy is to win the ball at the contest with even or sometimes plus numbers at stoppage and defend from behind with ground position, rather than create from
The back and giving the opposition the ground position.

We tend to lose to sides who play the opposite way though like Geelong.

True. I am not a fan of it a lot but when you are mid range or worse at winning contested footy you have to try something I suppose. I think it exposes us because it can give opposition an extra number out of the back half at times. I still think we over cook the defensive effort to the point we just make dumb decisions around the contest and often look like a pack of dogs chasing a frisbee . We also all fly in the back half a lot.

 

[FootyGuru]

True. I am not a fan of it a lot but when you are mid range or worse at winning contested footy you have to try something I suppose. I think it exposes us because it can give opposition an extra number out of the back half at times.

I don’t think we are skillfull enough to play the other way. Really relies on capitalising on turnover and creating from the back half. Most our backs can’t kick or even handball the last 2 weeks

 

[supportyourteam]

Adelaide were cleaner with the ball and deserved the points. Great game to be at.

 

[ant555]

I don’t think we are skillfull enough to play the other way. Really relies on capitalising on turnover and creating from the back half. Most our backs can’t kick or even handball the last 2 weeks

That is true.

 

[Ess2025]

They were two defenders down, Dawson didn't play most of the last quarter.

When the pressure was down, we scored. I'm sure that will happen in finals.
Big tick for where we are going as a club.

At least we started the season well.
What are we lately ? 2 wins out of 7?

How'd some players look tonight?
Goldstein? Awful. Ok he's old he ain't around long.
Menzie? Young but limited footballer. Didn't look great but we have just given him another year. Why?
Gresham? Big money recruit, does a heap of running but seems selfish and another low IQ player. Aside from a snap at the end how much does he add? Maybe a decent floor player?

But I don't think that really illustrates where we are at.

Let's look at some of our key players, some players who we are sticking with and building this team around. Some high picks and extreme draft capital that's supposed to get you superstars.

Draper, dreadful footballing IQ, and hits the post from 10m out.
Not going anywhere though, he will be our ruckman. so he lowers the ceiling.

Wright our big KPF. Dropped for the week.
Can't mark and soft as butter.
Not going anywhere so the ceiling comes down again.

McGrath, our VC who can't kick and the amount of times he loses his man around a pack is shocking. Also a horrendous effort to pick up his man earlier in the match coming into the D50, resulting in a goal.
When coaches say they don't want games to look like tonight, show his ****ing tape.
A leader who ain't going anywhere and will be setting the standards for our team, bring that ceiling down.

Ridley.
We are playing him as a key position player, he was a game changing intercept player. He was spoken like one of our top best players, maybe one of the best in the league.
Now he can't win 1 on 1s and now with a chance to stop the surge and take an intercept mark or spoil the ball he pulls out of a critical contest to what, watch the ball spill. Fogarty goal.
That's a leader, a top liner, failing when we need him.
Maybe he isn't as good as we want? Or need.
Maybe that ceiling comes down again.

Stringer.
What is he offering? He can't run, he can't break tackles, sometimes he can barely kick.
Of course he can run into his own team mates space and bodies if it means he can get a feed, I mean the ball.
Throws out our structure and offers us sweet **** all aside from 2 out of the box performances a year that win is games and inflate our ladder position.

Cox, Perkins, Reid.
The trio. The future. One of the best drafts in a long time with the talent we have brought in. That's what this was spoken about by people at the club. Especially Dodoro.
Well Perkins is a shell of himself.
Cox is a man without a position (but had some good moments tonight after an awful showing last week)
Reid doesn't have a body to play AFL.
3 top 10 picks - Meet the toilet.


We want to win a flag.
At the moment our captain is one of our best players and is closer to 30.
Two of our promising youth we plucked from absolute obscurity (Martin, Durham) can you imagine where we would be without those miracles?

What part of this team is really building towards a sustainable consistent, finals brand with a group that can compete at the pointy end.
What is the brand? Aside from soft uncontested tripe?
What's the plan? What do we target? It's certainly not hard runners, or people that can perform basic skills like kicking a football (hello top 5 pick) or being able to handball (hello $1m a year KPD)

People can have faith in this build, but there is so many things wrong with this team with such a limited scope that that is a long long time away. Not 4 years, not 8 years.
A ****ing decade.

Who's the coach gonna be then?
Is he going to have a genius move like the current coach to swing Martin forward?
I don't know how you can top that genius.

I know folks have been pretty critical of Cox this year. Fair enough, he has had some shockers but, I put that in part down to what you say - he is without a position. Pretty hard for him to settle if he is in the wrong position. Oddly enough, he has drifted forward more recently and has bobbed up with a couple of goals here and there.

Going forward, I think we must persist with him. He has 50 games under his belt now and, hopefully, after another pre-season he will be much better. Ok, so I have a question for you: Would you give Stinger a spell and put Cox in his place? Maybe he is more suited to such a role? Stringer has talent, but the gap between his best and worst is large. He goes missing too often for mine. If he was more consistent, I might think differently about it.

 

[Cup_o_Jobe]

My very normal, non-knee jerk, long-time Essington sufferer response.

Out: Goldstein (spudded it up all day, looked a bit shot), McKay (needs a reset), Menzies (not AFL-quality), Kelly (spud, period), Perkins (needs form)

In: Bryan, Hayes, A.Davey, A.Roberts, B.Hobbs

Time for Brad to punish poor form, reward honest toil in the magoos, and focus on getting at least 2 decent crumbing smalls of AFL-quality next year. Presuming we get Kako in draft, still want one other whether through trade or otherwise.

 

[McRobie]

Someone needs to get Draper to to understand that being a zany guy with a mullet doesn’t make you elite.

 

[fairbump_playon]

Thought Draper was actually ok this week. But when he missed that simple chance you knew immediately how this game would end. Here we go again.

Langford too close to the man on the mark.

Caddy who will be a star was the one who had two pivotal moments

In the third dropped a chest mark that rebounded for the goal that broke out momentum. And in the last was overawed in space and lacked poise.

I liked a sense of more marking power around the ground. That’s improving.

Extremely concerned about centre bounce which seemed a strength at the start of the year. Serious problems at present.

Stringer .. is this the end of the career? Can’t see a real resurgence for him now.

Perkins had a chance to prove something by locking Keays down for 15 minutes. Failed with a real lack of smarts. Was lucky it wasn’t worse. There were several stoppages in the crows F50 where Keays lost him and got free on his left but didn’t get clean ball.

 

[southern_crusher]

It'll be another 20 years before this disgrace of a club wins a final

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

They had three men on the bench in the last qtr and we were the more experienced team and yet we concede the last three goals! Incredible. Biggest worry though was Crows 8 goal burst in the second when they still had Butts and Dawson available. I think using two talls as wingers just doesn’t work ..don’t care how many goals they get drifting down.

 

[Skipper_]

Out: Kelly, Laverde, Goldstein, Menzie
In: Roberts, Hayes, Hobbs, A Davey

 

[nipst@r]

Hard reality check.

At least no expectations for the rest of the year. Please, please don't completely waste another year and focus on development from here onwards.

Changes: byran for goldy, davey for mezies, hobbs for perkins. Roberts for guelfi or caldwell if injured.

Would then look to bring in hayes, byran as only ruck, tsatas and setterfield over the next few weeks.

Not sure fwd line works with Stringer, Langford and 2 talls.

Not sure draper will ever be the answer as even the good games he makes brain-dead decisions or skill errors that cost us goals. However Wright deserves a few games in the 2s before having byran ruck 1 out.

 

[nipst@r]

Too much blame on the players.

We are a club that allows sheedy to still be on the board and still pays dodo a wage for supposedly doing nothing. Haha.

Not sure why we we pay staff to do nothing or have board members who supposedly do nothing, that we can then gwt annoyed at paying players who do nothing.

Mediocrity is who we are. The dodo legacy lives on. Another year of proof that nothing will change until he is gone.

Incredibly symbolic and huge change of culture if we finally rid ourselves of sheedy, dodo and heppel.

Heppel not his fault but Scott and co talk about how much we owe him because of the drugs saga. Club needs to move on from that era and we still refuse to.

It's not local footy and about loyalty and lollipops. It's a ultra competeive ruthless elite sport. The club needs to grow up.

 

[nipst@r]

Absolutely. Hasn't been near it for a month.

Is not elite and that is our problem. Not enough elite players and too many passengers.

If they are not part of the next flag planning we need to make tough calls. For too long we keep b graders.

Dodo mentoring.

Of course he has good relationships with player managers. Not hard when we give players more money and years then they would get elsewhere. Menzies, weideman, heppel, setterfield.

 

[The Donners]

… but we were top until after roun 17!

 

[jdstorm]

Missed most of the game due to
Work dinner.

How’d the Caldwell at HB experiment go?

Id
Imagine the side
They picked yesterday would have struggled without him in the midfield with only Merrett, Durham and Sheil the notable mids on the list