Autopsy Round 19, 2025: Positives and Negatives vs Richmond

[navi_]

These mid season draft guys are all turning out to be not up to it. Probably expected really, a second chance for guys who didn't make the original cut

Cully - one paced, gone
Maric - his kicking was his strength but that has turned to shit this year, and I have no idea of his actual role in the team
Hutch - again one paced and putrid disposal
McCarthy - too early to judge.

Disagree. Maric, Hutch and McCarthy all have traits that translate to afl level.

Awful take - and if it were me, would delete the post out of embarrassment.

 

[jdisc]

Its why we should have rested players in that Port game. We were never going to win it, we are shithouse, We should be prioritising home games over away games. A part of that should have been to rest Hewett, leave Ryan at home, leave Flynn at home as managed since his fitness sucks, give Hough a role in defense so he is ready for midfield the following week, play Gross in the WAFL and prepare him to play this week . Instead we just flew everyone over, ran themselves into the ground and then came back very far away from our best for the games that matter the most, our home games.

Its the way we are. We play and live day to day. No sembelence of a plan or strategy outside of "Go to bed Liam and let me know how you feel tomorrow" . The good clubs dont do such stupid things. Only us. I mean legit can you think of any other club in the AFL who has flown a player across the country to then rule them out with soreness? Its absurd

Alternatively the AFL could have fixtured the Port game in the early arvo and played Saints v Sydney in the evening. It would have had minimal disruption to all 4 teams involved.

I don't think enough attention has been given to how absurd the fixturing is this year, and I'm not just talking from a west coast perspective (although that midday game in Brisbane in March was quite strange).

The port performance was one of the few positives from this year so I'm not sure I completely agree. The Hewett soreness may not have been a factor in the lead up to that game and may have only occurred this week. The clubs you're referring to are playing finals and are planning around that, we know our season is over in 5 games.

 

[GoEaglesGoSGIO]

Alternatively the AFL could have fixtured the Port game in the early arvo and played Saints v Sydney in the evening. It would have had minimal disruption to all 4 teams involved.

I don't think enough attention has been given to how absurd the fixturing is this year, and I'm not just talking from a west coast perspective (although that midday game in Brisbane in March was quite strange).

The port performance was one of the few positives from this year so I'm not sure I completely agree. The Hewett soreness may not have been a factor in the lead up to that game and may have only occurred this week. The clubs you're referring to are playing finals and are planning around that, we know our season is over in 5 games.

The fixtures for so long for WCE have been a disgrace. The club just dont care mainly. Sunday at 4:10PM just speaks volumes to that. We are too weak to ask anything of the AFL. Just a cash cow only

 

[jdisc]

I'm not sure who's drop off is more extreme, Kelly's or Gaffs.

 

[ziad]

A positive or two, we didt have wonderwood commentating and how must St Kilda feel - our soft kill.

 

[ioppolo]

I'm not sure who's drop off is more extreme, Kelly's or Gaffs.

Gaff's. But his attitude never went to shjt. Still tried, still gave effort, accepted being dropped/made sub. No ill feeling towards Gaffy in the slightest.

Kelly makes me feel agitated.

 

[jdisc]

Gaff's. But his attitude never went to shjt. Still tried, still gave effort, accepted being dropped/made sub. No ill feeling towards Gaffy in the slightest.

Kelly makes me feel agitated.

True. His body was struggling but you could still see he gave a shit. Even his WAFL numbers were better than Kelly's are now.

 

[PremiershipNo4]

I was thinking about trying to put together a lowlights package of the games missed kicks, handballs at peoples feet, fumbles, poor decisions, backwards kick directly costing us goals, but it’s just depressing.
I miss the days when if a player ****ed up they would taken immediately from the ground and then given a firm dressing down by Mick Malthouse for a poor decision or skill execution.
When Maric kicked backwards with a lazy kick missing Harley and giving away a goal I wish this happened.
Probably 50 examples of poor skill execution, lazy defence, poor option taken.
There has to be a consequence for your actions if they are poor.

 

[DorothyG]

Awful take - and if it were me, would delete the post out of embarrassment.

Disagreement’s fair game, that I agree with, but no one should feel pressured to delete a post just because it’s unpopular or doesn’t align with your or someone elses sense of “embarrassment.”

Standing by an opinion or offering an alternative view (now we are just talking footy opinions here) can add more value to the discussion at hand than simply backing down and going with the flow.

Its good to challenging the current hive-mind meta.

Its my take, and I stand by it until proven otherwise

 

[InTheWings]

So many takeaways from it.


- I don't blame Petch at all, did what he could but i'd say that's probably curtains for him and his AFL career now. Should've been Newton in that role, at least we'd have gotten something out of it.

- The hail mary of Kelly being brought back (ahead of Cross mind you) after one good WAFL game didn't work. I get why we did it, the idea had merit if it all went well and suddenly he's found his mojo, but no bueno. The main thing now is i hope we don't double down on that mistake come team selection and give him yet another crack vs an actual midfield in Melbourne's.

- Hard to see which was worse out of our forward line or backline. Forwards probably get the nod here. We were exposed with Jobe, that's obvious but it's something we'd cop and what you expect. Jilliams not even getting a single look from anyone moving the ball forward was a disaster. Also subbing him off was wrong IMO. He needs to be in the Bailey Williams role, doing ruck chopoouts

The BIG dissappointments in the front half was Cripps, Owies and to a lesser extent Ryan. Ryan was average IMO. Take out his very lucky goal and his overall game was pretty poor. Cripps at least tried and did a couple good things, but really not enough. Owies was disgustingly bad. Back to the WAFL for you me old mate. What a silly trade that's turned out to be.




If Jiliams is dropped, Kelly is retained, Cripps/Owies is retained come Teams on Thursday, it's just going to make copping this game so so so much worse.

Agree with this.

 

[ziad]

Skill errors galore and poor decisions. This all points to a lack of confidence magnifying game day pressure exponentially.

Add to this Snakes comment that many of the kids dont yet know how to train for AFL and this shows in a lack of run later (fatigue makes cowards of us all), further impacts errors and the need to slowly develop some in the WAFL.

 

[Priddis Is Done]

The petch expirement ended 3 years ago

Chesser is on the scrapheap as well.

You all know it.

 

[Mighty Eagles]

This is the lowest ebb in the club's history by a country mile.

The poor list management up to 2022 is the main factor in where we are at atm. However, the lack of effort from some players is beyond unacceptable.

We know we've got plenty of picks in this years draft. I just hope we've done deals to secure some mature talent to assist the likes of Harley, Ginbey, Hewett, Shanahan, Gross & co. Forget diluting the compensation pick for Oz, we need experienced talent to support the young brigade and to become competitive in 2026.

 

[Mighty Eagles]

The petch expirement ended 3 years ago

Chesser is on the scrapheap as well.

You all know it.

110%

How Petch (and Jammo) got a two year deal in 2024 defies logic and speaks volumes about the clubs list management at the time.

 

[Mulldogg]

What does Maric have to do to get dropped? Used to have a lovely kick - now I cringe every time he’s about dispose of it. Get rid or try him up forward for a few games.

He’s absolutely soft as butter too. It’s why they’ve had to push him up the ground to more of a wing role.

His contest work as a defender was a mile off the level. Timid and doesn’t like body contact.

 

[Balls In]

The big negative is we are into the fourth year of our rebuild and continue to go backwards. Huge problems with probably at best only 10/15 players on our list being AFL standard. Astonishing that the league would even think about expanding while substandard teams like ours exist. I hope they saw our crowd leaving in droves at three quarter time.

Yet again on display was our lack of leg speed, no class ruckman, our forwards are lazy and rarely make second or third efforts, our defence leaks like a sieve and is unaccountable while our onballers (with the exception of Reid) are old, slow recycled players.

If Harley leaves we can pretty much declare our rebuild a failure. He is literally the only thing our playing group has to coalesce around. The people running our club certainly have NFI. What is even the point pumping young talent into a system as broken as ours and produces first rounders like Chesser after 4 years.

 

[Godfather32]

Disagree. Maric, Hutch and McCarthy all have traits that translate to afl level.

Awful take - and if it were me, would delete the post out of embarrassment.

Yeah nah, would agree with deleting the team out of embarrassment though

 

[GoEaglesGoSGIO]

I'm not sure who's drop off is more extreme, Kelly's or Gaffs.

huh? That’s not even close. Give Gaff some respect mate.

Kelly by a absolute insanely long way

 

[PepperTom32]

In McQualter's presser, he alluded to "finding people who want to do the work and build" and "find and create players that keep influencing the game". Followed by his comments on Kelly, who "had no influence on the game" but "tried really hard".

Going off these comments, I reckon he's fuming at Kelly's game but knows the "senior body" argument is keeping him in the team. That and his ridiculous contract extension. Give me 15 Gross possessions over 15 TK possessions any day. I know Gross will at least bring the energy and the mongrel.

 

[javaguice]

The frightening thing is it could get worse if we lose reid.

Imagine if he was suspended for the trip. Could have been even worse.

 

[javaguice]

He’s absolutely soft as butter too. It’s why they’ve had to push him up the ground to more of a wing role.

His contest work as a defender was a mile off the level. Timid and doesn’t like body contact.

I've liked his F50 entries in the past.... that's about it.

 

[Mop]

It's your opinions that are dog shit... The changes are a vast improvement than what was preceding.

Andrew Dillon is that you pal?

 

[Underdog]

Except by the time the umpire calls play on he is too far away to provide any pressure.

Sure, but we weren't applying pressure anyways and there will be times where the player will back away from the mark which stifles momentum and gives us precious seconds to setup.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

110%

How Petch (and Jammo) got a two year deal in 2024 defies logic and speaks volumes about the clubs list management at the time you can compile an encyclopedia of the laughable recruiting and contract decisions west coast has made over the past 5 years.

You could write an encyclopedia on west coasts appalling list management over the past 5 years.

The two constants are a) the aggressive blinkered determination with which they persist with home grown spuds well past the point its obvious they don't have what it takes and b) the almost religious belief that any player being kicked out the door of any other club in Australia = a recruiting coup.

The latter approach is the one which absolutely shits me to tears. After wasting years on Witherden/Langdon/SPS/Jermaine Jones/Hunt etc etc etc the fact that the club has loaded up and gone again with Flynn/Owies is just mind blowing. These guys are not 'good for young players', they are the walking embodiment of football mediocrity and a message to kids that you can get a game at west coast when no other team in the league thinks you're AFL standard.

And although he's played some good football this year, I would bet money that Graham will end up in the same category within 12 months. Pretty much every other player on the above list (except perhaps Langdon) played some decent games for west coast at one point or another but they all went nowhere. There's a reason no other teams wanted them.

 

[Gods_Son23]

- Looking at the data, I can't believe Owies kicked 33.13 last year. Must've been a lot of cheapies. For a permanent forward, he often looks like one of the worst set shots I've seen. He doesn't even get near it most of the time. More incompetent list management.