AFL Autopsy Round 1, 2019: Flogging from GWS

[Mootsy]

Let’s look at this differently, we tried and failed miseragbly.

 

[Haychh]

Let’s look at this differently, we tried and failed miseragbly.

 

[gillon]

I shouldn't even be shocked about the media making a big deal out of Parish being omitted - like he would have changed anything about the game.

 

[Phat Toni]

I shouldn't even be shocked about the media making a big deal out of Parish being omitted - like he would have changed anything about the game.

don't disagree wouldn't have changed too much as far as the result went but I do like that Parish's effort is always there..... Imagine if he played it would have meant that Saad actually had somebody else trying and contributing!! that would have been something.

 

[ant555]

Did not read all of this but some things are a bit knee jerk. Now yes we where bloody horrible. I was there to see the piss poor performance first hand.
Fist up.

Marking . We are a very poor side when it come to marking. Wasted chances inside 50 bad enough but we took virtually zero marks from kicks coming out of defence which put us under huge pressure. Not being able to take a grab and control the game meant that the defence was always under pressure from repeat entries.

Team defence . Now I saw someone mentioning sack Rutten and give us a game plan that suites our list Sure lets do that and keep being a bunch of front runners with no defence that finishes mid table or worse every year. The defence on Sunday was under 12 stuff. Pathetic. Zack Merritt standing around. Zaharakis dead set not standing within 10 meters of anyone for most of the game. Dave Myers being so slow he could not get into the game . Razza not chasing . This has to be corrected. Players simply have to figure it out. It is not that hard. If Pendlebury can change his game then anyone can. WE have too many me players who need to get their heads out of their arse. We finished last year with good pressure and decent defence. All that has changed this year was to add some slide in the zone so we can press sides to the boundary before they get easy possession into the forward line. Sunday was worse than the flimsy s**t we dealt up early last year.

Turn overs and fumbles what can I say. If you keep giving it back on a platter then you are going to pay.

We where even enough in most stats but the pressure and effort was not there. We are also s**t truck slow in the midfield at times. Heppell and Myers can not be on the ground in the midfield at the same time.

Anyway what can I say. Everything I questioned before the game still has questions on it.

 

[baz_machine]

Ant, are these problems fixable or terminal?

You have been going on about the lack of team defense for what seems like seven years.

Honestly until they drop serial repeat offenders like zahrarakis (and not be brought back), I don't see it ever changing.

Unfortunately I know what the answer will be.

 

[Lore]

Did not read all of this but some things are a bit knee jerk. Now yes we where bloody horrible. I was there to see the piss poor performance first hand.
Fist up.

Marking . We are a very poor side when it come to marking. Wasted chances inside 50 bad enough but we took virtually zero marks from kicks coming out of defence which put us under huge pressure. Not being able to take a grab and control the game meant that the defence was always under pressure from repeat entries.

Team defence . Now I saw someone mentioning sack Rutten and give us a game plan that suites our list Sure lets do that and keep being a bunch of front runners with no defence that finishes mid table or worse every year. The defence on Sunday was under 12 stuff. Pathetic. Zack Merritt standing around. Zaharakis dead set not standing within 10 meters of anyone for most of the game. Dave Myers being so slow he could not get into the game . Razza not chasing . This has to be corrected. Players simply have to figure it out. It is not that hard. If Pendlebury can change his game then anyone can. WE have too many me players who need to get their heads out of their arse. We finished last year with good pressure and decent defence. All that has changed this year was to add some slide in the zone so we can press sides to the boundary before they get easy possession into the forward line. Sunday was worse than the flimsy s**t we dealt up early last year.

Turn overs and fumbles what can I say. If you keep giving it back on a platter then you are going to pay.

We where even enough in most stats but the pressure and effort was not there. We are also s**t truck slow in the midfield at times. Heppell and Myers can not be on the ground in the midfield at the same time.

Anyway what can I say. Everything I questioned before the game still has questions on it.

Jeez you're keen, actually went there to see that dished up. Hard to disagree with that assessment though.

Heppell had two possessions inside the centre square all game, both in the last quarter, looks to be playing more wing and defence (Goddard role?), while Myers is billed as a 'defender' in articles on the Essendon website, though I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. His heat map looks like an inside mid.

 

[ant555]

Ant, are these problems fixable or terminal?

You have been going on about the lack of team defense for what seems like seven years.

Honestly until they drop serial repeat offenders like zahrarakis (and not be brought back), I don't see it ever changing.

Unfortunately I know what the answer will be.

Not sure how we fix the marking issue short term but it really hurts us. I am sure it was the reason we went Hooker forward but he is better in the back half.
As for team defence they just have to weed out the offenders. BJ was not given a contract because he could not defend despite the fact he could still play at a decent level. I suppose we will see. Parish gets left out because he is also a repeat offender in the poor defence stakes so I would like to see some heads roll in a few weeks if some do not tow the line.
We simply need to keep working the list. That is all we can do. Players have to get on board with the defence as every team that has made a GF in the last 15 years had some form of decent defensive structure that was not simply man on man.
We are not as bad as the weekend but we do need a few in our leadership group to lead the way. The plus side is I saw some good efforts from the young blokes in the VFL last year as far as attempting to grasp what is needed to play good team footy even if it did not always come off. It may take 2 years or it may take another build.

 

[sameolds33]

Not sure how we fix the marking issue short term but it really hurts us. I am sure it was the reason we went Hooker forward but he is better in the back half.
As for team defence they just have to weed out the offenders. BJ was not given a contract because he could not defend despite the fact he could still play at a decent level. I suppose we will see. Parish gets left out because he is also a repeat offender in the poor defence stakes so I would like to see some heads roll in a few weeks if some do not tow the line.
We simply need to keep working the list. That is all we can do. Players have to get on board with the defence as every team that has made a GF in the last 15 years had some form of decent defensive structure that was not simply man on man.
We are not as bad as the weekend but we do need a few in our leadership group to lead the way. The plus side is I saw some good efforts from the young blokes in the VFL last year as far as attempting to grasp what is needed to play good team footy even if it did not always come off. It may take 2 years or it may take another build.

yep

 

[Nifft]

I'd prefer not to see Zaharakis or Myers play any more in the firsts. I've always disliked Zaharakis' attitude, his body language and his efforts are very sub-par. That sort of attitude rubs off onto the younger guys, and if they see the older guys taking a half-arsed attitude then they eventually follow suit.

 

[DapperJong]

I'd prefer not to see Zaharakis or Myers play any more in the firsts. I've always disliked Zaharakis' attitude, his body language and his efforts are very sub-par. That sort of attitude rubs off onto the younger guys, and if they see the older guys taking a half-arsed attitude then they eventually follow suit.

He cares more about his footy card poses.

 

[carloss]

We surrendered. Plus how many times did GWS take the ball out of a contest, realise there was no pressure and simply took their time with the ball.

 

[Haychh]

I'm so sick of seeing us getting rushed kicks out of defense to contests while watching the opposition walk it out of the backline. The only time we seem to get a clear kick out is when Saad tucks it under his arm and clears a line.

 

[blitzer]

I'm so sick of seeing us getting rushed kicks out of defense to contests while watching the opposition walk it out of the backline. The only time we seem to get a clear kick out is when Saad tucks it under his arm and clears a line.

One thing that drives me up the wall is McKenna doing short kicks from the kick-ins. He should be under instructions to run 20 metres and then kick it 50. McKenna's short kicks where he weights them carefully travel too slowly through the air and are a high risk for interception. Even if he pulls off 50% of them, well the ones that work give us a little advantage and the ones that fail cost us a goal. That's not a high percentage play.

 

[Haychh]

One thing that drives me up the wall is McKenna doing short kicks from the kick-ins. He should be under instructions to run 20 metres and then kick it 50. McKenna's short kicks where he weights them carefully travel too slowly through the air and are a high risk for interception. Even if he pulls off 50% of them, well the ones that work give us a little advantage and the ones that fail cost us a goal. That's not a high percentage play.

The one to Keefe was inexcusable to allow a 200cm bloke on one good leg to lope in front and take an easy mark 20 metres out directly in front should never happen at any level of football

 

[TheFrenchCut]

Wasn't our biggest issue, but this encapsulates the general problem with our inconsistency at stoppages.

You could possibly make an argument about a free kick to Myers if you like, but at this centre bounce we should have been able to at least get the ball clear to an outside receiver - instead we continually fumble under opposition pressure and comically almost concede an inside 50.

[IMG='width:483px;']https://media.giphy.com/media/QMJNdMDc9g5kZliii1/giphy.gif[/IMG]

The one good thing about the above is we don't let GWS get away when they eventually come into possession of the ball.

But seconds later, this is how we follow up at the next stoppage. Look at all the time Whifield - yeah that guy who's usually pretty good at this footyball caper - has to move freely and dispose of the ball under virtually no pressure (partly because of a great block from of all people, Cameron).

 

[Shanghaistu]

I'd prefer not to see Zaharakis or Myers play any more in the firsts. I've always disliked Zaharakis' attitude, his body language and his efforts are very sub-par. That sort of attitude rubs off onto the younger guys, and if they see the older guys taking a half-arsed attitude then they eventually follow suit.

Is this why BJ got into him after the ANZAC game last year? Would make sense. At the time BJ looked like the ‘uptight bad guy’ but there’s two sides to every story...

 

[owen87]

But seconds later, this is how we follow up at the next stoppage. Look at all the time Whifield - yeah that guy who's usually pretty good at this footyball caper - has to move freely and dispose of the ball under virtually no pressure (partly because of a great block from of all people, Cameron).

Also amusingly, the only EFC player that bothers to actually go after Whitfield at any point is Bellchambers. After realising that every single other Essendon player is so busy following their man / guarding space that the guy who actually has the ball (and is generally pretty good at using it) is just waltzing through a neat little open corridor.

 

[Bombermania]

The thing that pissed me off with Zaka was him going on social media before the game stating how proud he was for again to be wearing the jumper yet he goes and dishes that effort up. I know he wasn't alone is that effort but I sometimes wonder if these guys really want to be successful.

 

[Bombermania]

Also amusingly, the only EFC player that bothers to actually go after Whitfield at any point is Bellchambers. After realising that every single other Essendon player is so busy following their man / guarding space that the guy who actually has the ball (and is generally pretty good at using it) is just waltzing through a neat little open corridor.

That has been feature of the gameplan for years, the number of times players seem more focused on guarding space is part of the reason why we don't see players leading to the kicker, there was one example when someone had the ball on the wing and Walla had his back turned running towards goal instead of offering a lead and this is why the really defensive teams are able to shut Essendon down because no one looks to break the silly little team rule.

 

[yaco55]

Francis has got off lightly - Failing to curb a non-entity in Keefe set us on the path to destruction.

 

[yaco55]

Well that's a relief. Thanks Crowy.

It's only a relief for those who embarrassed themselves by believing figures that Blind Freddie could see were wrong.

 

[yaco55]

All teams round one disposal efficiency is down but as our game style/plan relies on fast ball movement and high disposal efficiency, this I believe was the main reason for the poor result. Adelaide Crows have a similar game style and not surprising they also got beat. Not as bad as ours but they were playing at home. Those teams that have a game plan of scoring from turnovers/stoppages then a low disposal efficiency would suit them. As the year continues and match conditioning improves the disposal efficiency, I am sure Essendon along with Adelaide, will start winning games.
Some point to Neeld leaving Essendon as the reason why we improved in the second half last year, this may still have been the case, but I am sure as we became more match conditioned and our efficiency improved this in turn suited our game which I am sure will be the same this year. Question is can we get enough wins early in the year to get us to the finals.

You nailed it with your post - EXECUTION was the biggest issue on Sunday - Sick of the nuffies in the media banging on about effort.

 

[yaco55]

Good post by Ants and it's pleasing to see he has acknowledged our weakness in aerial contests, especially in the defensive 50 - My concern is nomatter how effective is your team defence, you need to be skilled when in possession or eventually the team defence breaks down - If only Whitfield was available.

 

[DERO]

Has anyone gone with "it was the loss we had to have " yet? If so, I'll run with that.