AFL Toast RND 22: Win against Norf

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I'd put it closer to 6-7.

Kelly, Heppell, Guelfi, Phillips, Snelling, Laverde all not good enough going forward, and BZT is hit-or-miss. A few retirements hopefully in that group.
Agree with most except Guelfi and possibly Lav. Guelfi showed signs in the second half of what he's capable of at his best with multiple spoils. Equal second highest tackle count with 6 for the team today too. Feel when the team is performing well and there's pressure for spots, he's pushed to bring his manic defensive best week in week out.

BZT is having his first consistent year as an (almost) 25 yo KPD with our underperforming midfield allowing a lot of kicks to advantage for his direct opponents. If he improved as much as he did over the off season, I doubt he's hit his ceiling yet. How much better he gets, no one knows but unless he's asking for ridiculous $ or is determined to go back home, I want us to sign him.
 
One of the only blokes on the ground that busted a gut to chase and pressure. He has his limitations but there are worse issues than Kelly .
I dont disagree, but he has to be cleaner with the ball. Had a few costly fumbles and missed 3m handpasses that cost us scoring shots.

But considering how little forward pressure anyone else brought, i see what Scott is thinking - cause at least Jake's effort is unconditional. Guelfi or Snell goes before Kelly for me.
 
I'd put it closer to 6-7.

Kelly, Heppell, Guelfi, Phillips, Snelling, Laverde all not good enough going forward, and BZT is hit-or-miss. A few retirements hopefully in that group.
We've certainly got a lot of drafting ahead of us before there's enough quality across the ground to trouble the better sides.
 
A wins a win. We clearly don't have the depth to take the Norths appart without all of our best players. All in all to be expected this year - in Scott we must trust.
 

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I dont disagree, but he has to be cleaner with the ball. Had a few costly fumbles and missed 3m handpasses that cost us scoring shots.

But considering how little forward pressure anyone else brought, i see what Scott is thinking - cause at least Jake's effort is unconditional. Guelfi or Snell goes before Kelly for me.
It is the same issue isn't it. Blokes like Kelly and Geulfi and Snelling do the hard stuff and the team stuff but each have limitations but we have no one pushing up underneath that are an upgrade on those limitations while keeping the team standards. Have to say Kelly is generally better with the ball in hand than he was today but yes he is just an okay player who gives it all. Too bad Cox doesn't have the same attitude.
 
What an utterly contemptible, morally void club North Melbourne is.

This gutter trash club is so desperate for relevance that they allow that RACIST campaigner to stay in the coaches box.

Make no mistake, Clarkson should be run out of the game; so much so I think he’s half a chance to get decked (and rightfully so) if he goes anywhere in the ground without security.

As an indigenous man, he ******* sickens me. He SHOULD sicken any person. Utter filth.

Big tough guy who ran away scared because of the pressure - what a ******* hero.

Vile trash.

Weak dog.

Essendon are a fairly useless club, make no mistake. So the fact they now have a 10 win streak against any club should be an embarrassment.

But North are too gutter trash to feel embarrassed. They’ve lost 19 straight, offer nothing to the league, and still think they deserve their spot.

Leeches. Remove them and replace them with the inbound Tassie club, a club that can actually offer something. Pathetic trash.

jade you had this typed up pregame didn't you.
 
Our midfield got done by a bloke who can no longer run 9km and playing his last game.

Jobe would regularly dictate terms inside without being able to move in his twilight, not concerned by that given Cunnington is one of the OG clearance goats.

What should be of concern is Scott, Thomas, LDU and Simpkin absolutely murdering us on the spread away from the contest.

Pretty fortunate Nic Martin turned his 3 touches in the forward 50 into 3 goals.
 
still on the way home but my norf supporting mate pointed out that, while ben mckay is a great mark he suffers immensely with his kicking. both of these were displayed today.
 
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The plucky young upstart Essendon side have triumphed over the significantly more experienced North Melbourne football club.
 
As long as they have Ziebell in their backline the streak will continue. Please extend his contract.

Days since last Norf win versus Essington?


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I hate pointing out isolated errors after a win, and Perko and Guelf did step up later in the match, but in this case, when they were both going for the ball, they were literally competing for it against each other in what was going to be a 2 on 1.

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Only for Ziebell to pick it up for a goal on the other end.

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If it was a skill error, like a dud handball, or miskick, I wouldn't care as much. But this is inner-sanctum level stuff and deserves a stern talking to for the culture of the club.

And on a side-note, Zerk. Oh Zerk.

Not only did he leave his man in Larkey - stood around watching - and left the goal-line empty - he took absolutely ages to act, and just when you think he's going to move in to spoil the ball...

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... He opts to push instead (again).

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All in all, it's good to get the win, and the list showed a level of maturity to wrap it up in the end, but there's so much to learn from it.
 
The commentary must have been spectacularly favourable for Parish.

Standard junk performance with 3 or 4 good moments one of which, the assist to Martin, followed another i50 miss under no pressure.
 
  • Great to see we gave Baldwin a run and that while he didn't star or anything, he was certainly solid and that mix worked much better
  • Martin back on the wing is nice
  • Kelly being on a wing at times and forward is just eye-watering stuff
  • Hobbs' attack on the footy and desperation cannot be questioned. Just needs another preseason or two to get a bit stronger and get cleaner when disposing the footy while absorbing contact/under pressure. He is not at all alone in this of course
  • I do not understand the plan with Nik Cox and am not convinced there is one
 
My biggest positive takeaway's from todays game are as follows, please critique anything that I'm wrong about, these are just thoughts

  1. Nic Martin is likely our best player, tied with Zac Merrett. Today, he was generally accountable and dependable with consistently stunningly good passes by hand and foot to players inside 50, as well as in front of goals. Defies logic as to why he ever left the wing. I hope he sticks with the club into the future because he's so fundamentally important to our success.
  2. Kaine Baldwin coming in was a surprise to me but I sincerely think he has what it takes to be a good defender. Intercepted well, marked well, kicked well. Given some of our players, what more could we want in a young person just entering the system. He needs to keep his spot and I'll be shocked if he hasn't earned his spot for the rest (2 games) of the year).
  3. Elijah Tsatas with time in the middle was good. While he still looks a bit fresh (2 games into this career mind you) he's got all the makings of a genuine star, moreso if he gets some meat on his bones. Excited to see what he can do against GWS and the Magpies in the upcoming weeks. I don't buy all the doomerposting about his kicking, given what some people served up today (looking at norf mainly) he's fairly accurate... fairly being a key word. Realistically I think he slots in fine as a rotation player over the next season as he gains more game time. I also think that he could certainly be turned into a goal sneak in the future, it's mostly just hope but I think he's got a craftiness to his game that we need.
  4. Hepps didn't do the best for most of the day but his last quarter was important. I'm still not convinced that he deserves another season but if he continues to at least provide a good intercept mark in lieu of Jordan Ridley, I'm okay with it.
  5. There's been some deserved criticism thrown towards Matt Guelfi, but no one in our team really throws their body on the line, as Call Me Cake posted above, the incident where neither player went for the ball was frustrating, but Guelfi continued trying his hardest, chasing, smothering, doing all the 1% stuff that's hammered into juniors game plans as important. Only deserved criticism is that he hasn't been converting which I think is valid.
  6. Jye Menzie & Kyle Langford should work closely with Peter Wright over the offseason to work out the best structure for our forward line. While Menzie doesn't have elite speed I think he has a good small forward craft that we haven't seen since Alwyn Davey (or perhaps Kyle Reimers)
  7. Nick Bryan has some decent pace to him, I recall a semi decent chase on someone that appeared much faster than him, and he didn't give up. This is what we need to do. While I don't think today was his best game, I think he performed good in the first half.
  8. Even when he's tagged Zac still knows how to get into the game, it's good to see him doing his best despite the frustrations. Darcy Parish played a pretty good final half imo, worked hard and had a few defensive efforts (from memory). I'm still not sure if he deserves a big contract but I suppose those talks are coming to a head soon
My downsides/views on the opposition's performances
  1. Midfield doesn't chase the opposition out of the center enough and it's fairly frustrating that Harry Sheezel can get like 28 uncontested possessions as a first year player who's been identified already earlier in the season as a jet.
  2. Nick Cox needs a consistent spot in the side that isn't changed every week. Moving someone to different roles gives them no continuity and consistency to try and base each performance off, and will hurt his ability to play at his best moving forward.
  3. No one can hold a tackle (think of Nick Larky's last goal, had 2-3 players tackling him unsuccessfully), I recall from the previous game against them that George Wardlaw broke lots of tackles, that shouldn't happen (realistically) as a first year player.
  4. Our forward entries were s**t for the most part in the first half, hardly recall them being kicked to players advantage. We amass a pretty sizable amount of f50 entries generally but butchering kicks only makes it harder for 2MP & Kyle Langford to be successful.
  5. As I said, Ben Mckay's kicking is bad. His marking is fairly elite I'd say but his kick is almost a liability, is this someone the club wants to potentially waste a high pick on? I can't say I'm too convinced watching his performance today.
  6. I think games against North in the next few years will get harder and harder as LDU, Wardlaw & Sheezel get more game time, they all look to me like they'll be genuinely elite players. I'd love to see how they play together in 3-4 years time.
that's all I can think of now.

Good game, would be worth watching the replay imo, insofar as seeing just how good Nic Martin is.

As indifferent as I am towards North, I have a great respect for Ben Cunnington, he had a good career and while he wasn't the same player post cancer it was good to see him continue playing the game. Almost glad that his last game was against us... almost? i think i'm speaking too much anyway.

GO DONS!
 
I hate pointing out isolated errors after a win, and Perko and Guelf did step up later in the match, but in this case, when they were both going for the ball, they were literally competing for it against each other in what was going to be a 2 on 1.

View attachment 1772094

Only for Ziebell to pick it up for a goal on the other end.

View attachment 1772099

If it was a skill error, like a dud handball, or miskick, I wouldn't care as much. But this is inner-sanctum level stuff and deserves a stern talking to for the culture of the club.

And on a side-note, Zerk. Oh Zerk.

Not only did he leave his man in Larkey - stood around watching - and left the goal-line empty - he took absolutely ages to act, and just when you think he's going to move in to spoil the ball...

View attachment 1772100

... He opts to push instead (again).

View attachment 1772102

View attachment 1772109

All in all, it's good to get the win, and the list showed a level of maturity to wrap it up in the end, but there's so much to learn from it.
The Guelfi/Perkins comment is spot on. Both panicked and played selfish for a moment there.

But the Zerk part is a bit unfair imo. He's seen Redman & Martin are there to tackle and opted to cover the most likely passing lane Larkey would handball to. Martin and Redman needed to do a much better job and at least hold him up - he should never have been able to get through both.
 

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