Review Round 2, 2016 - Brisbane Lions vs North Melbourne

[RU_]

Would you like me not to be?

Some are a little touchy and doom and gloom after the loss. Thanks for the kind words mate.

 

[Bucking Beads]

Compare our draw - Eagles - Cats both away and then six day turn arounds with the Western Bulldogs who get 7 straight games at Etihad. It beggers belief.

Our draw only gets tougher the more you look at it. All I can ask for is we are competitive and win the ones we should win. Hopefully we can jag a few other wins as well.

 

[Toffee Lion]

Unfortunately we don't have the luxury of playing teams who share the same home ground and are able to stay home for 7 weeks.

It didn't stop us being one of the greatest sides of all time though, no excuses from me.

 

[cmt26]

our ball use and handling is absolutely horrific. So many turnovers by players under no pressure at all. Harris Andrews skills were terrible. Dan Merrett was petulant & embarrassing. It's all good being vocal and physical, but do it without giving away free kicks directly in front of the goals.
Our mids & defenders in the press are constantly left exposed by their turnovers. hence why west coast walked into an open goal 8 times last week.
Our mature players we should be relying on to perform and help us win games are horrificly inconsistent - see Rich.
Bewick had a good game, great, would be nice for him to do it for a few weeks in a row. Bookmark it, he will have less than 10 touches next week.
Mayes is gone at the end of the year and I can't blame him. Can't develop in a team that turns it over this much.

We are 3-4 years away from finals & I would be astounded if any of the following players are still on our list at that time.
(Claye Beams, Bell, Lester, Harwood, Merrett, Bewick, West, Paine, Janson, Clayton, Evans, Watts, Beasley, McGuiness)

 

[cmt26]

I think we have some pain this year but I think the pieces are there. I really like both Paps and Gardner but disposal and lack of a true position (tweener) seem like really limiting factors to their respective careers.

I would hope that Paparone would use Wil Schofield from the Eagles as a good example of the type of player that he should aim to become.

 

[POBT]

Not sure Merrett plays his best when he's worried about directing teammates. First job is to beat his opponent, which he failed to do on several occasions. He'll be a more effective leader when he can do his job every week.

The other bloke who was a bit disappointing for me was Christensen. Not sure his fitness is where it needs to be to play high half forward / midfield. The difference between his energy levels and that of Zorko and Taylor was significant.

 

[HowYouDoin]

Rockliff might as well not be out there. Seriously, i hope for his sake that his lackluster form is due to the lack of pre season games - because he is spudding it up just as much as hardwood.

 

[Hollow Knight]

I was bitterly disappointed yesterday, especially listening to all the misses early in the 2nd quarter. Today though I'm pretty happy with the effort and I love the run and gun game plan. We have obviously improved since last year. Roos pumped us twice last year and this year we are feeling the burn of one that got away!!!! Hopefully this attack doesn't stop and we see a win soon!!!!!!!

Yeah, "man, we really blew that!" disappointment is much more preferable to "sigh... we were never a chance" disappointment anyday.

 

[Mooch]

Glimpses of the fast ball movement, that will become more frequent. Encouragingly liked one through the middle ending with lewy behind at the start of the first quarter.

When he took that mark I was thinking that I would be way more confident if he were on an impossible angle with 3 defenders in the way. My lack of faith in that instance turned out to be justified

Compare our draw - Eagles - Cats both away and then six day turn arounds with the Western Bulldogs who get 7 straight games at Etihad. It beggers belief.

Our draw this year is absolutely terrible. What happened to equalisation and giving the teams that finish at the bottom a bit of a ride the following year?

 

[Greggy85]

I think people are being unduly harsh on Merrett. Defending against fast moving ball with the opposition flooding through (from turnover) is nigh impossible. He provides a big body, great pace, and still, despite age, a pretty good spoil.
He's got mongrel in him, puts fear in the opposition - but the flip-side is, his disposal is sometimes ordinary.

To borrow from LBJ (I think), I'd rather him inside our tent pissing out than the vice-versa.

 

[Len S]

There's this guy who sits near me by himself who always records stats in his Record (Champion Data no good apparently) and listens to radio commentary on his head phones (on 20 second delay?). Anyway, every week he seems to give up taking stats when the game finally gets away from us. He's kind of like a Joffa in reverse and a pretty good and honest barometer of how we're going. Tonight he gave up about 10 minutes into the third quarter which I think was about right. If we'd been able to get some scoreboard pressure going from our chances before that who knows how it might have gone but we didn't and the game was basically cooked at half time.
It's a change and kind of nice to have actual stuff like poor last effort skills to complain about and not just be completely speechless and exasperated by the game.
I got to the game very early due to my sone being in the pre-game clinic thing which was a complete waste of time but we did get the chance to see a few guys taking shots at goal an hour and a half or so before the game, close up. The one that struck me was Lester. That guy holds the ball over his left leg and then kicks with his right. He looks like a 12 year old trying to learn to kick with his opposite foot. As he runs in he self-corrects which works sometimes but not more than half from what I saw. How did he get this far in AFL with a kick like that?

Complete lack of onfield leadership. Rockcliffe again playing unfit, indefensible ...clueless decision making.Merrett, Rich, and senior cohort not worth a cracker in tbe first half when it counted . Mayes, Lester, Harwood and co. are keeping bona fide talent worth a chance out.When Gardiner had to leave the field in the last quarter, and North had the free, there was ample time to arrange match ups to cover.What happened..Merrett did f.all, Andrew stood by himself in the square, and Hanley was left to compete against the marking forward. Symptomatic of the total lack of individual initiative and leadership. The lack of direction onfield is by far the worst of any side.Basically we have half a team.People who selec ted Bewick in their best were watching from under a bar in Bourke.Players like Bewick, Mayes Harwood and Lester wouldnt get a game in any p

Coopers Pale Ale CJ.

Our team balance is out of whack, our coaching staff is a mess.

Leppa is a senior coach, was a the defensive coach at Richmond, not the midfield coach or the senior assistant, the backline coach.

Francis was a teacher, could not cut it and became a car salesman, talks absolute shit.

Woewodin, how did he survive the cut???

Then we go with Murray Davis and Mitch Hahn, complete unknown quantities, I am sure Garry O'Donnell is just picking up the easy cash, been in it long enough to know how to survive when not achieving.

I reckon Craig Lambert will be sitting back and saying how the **** can we turn this around with these jokers running the show.

Great good sense, and passion !

 

[carnthemlions]

I think people are being unduly harsh on Merrett. Defending against fast moving ball with the opposition flooding through (from turnover) is nigh impossible. He provides a big body, great pace, and still, despite age, a pretty good spoil.
He's got mongrel in him, puts fear in the opposition - but the flip-side is, his disposal is sometimes ordinary.

To borrow from LBJ (I think), I'd rather him inside our tent pissing out than the vice-versa.

He always takes about 5 games to get up to speed anyway.

 

[SizeMatters]

You could see why Bastinac was pushed out of the inside role at the Roos. Was pushed off the ball way to easily by Cunnington, Swallow and Ziebell a few too many times yesterday. He looks okay so far with ball in hand and his pace isn't as bad as he makes it out to be.. he's no Simon Black in that regard. Going to struggle against Selwood, Dangerfield and Caddy next week. Might be a bit rusty playing a position he hasn't played for a few years. Hopefully he works hard on his inside game. Really want to see how he goes with a fully fit Lions midfield and I think we will get to see the best of him by then with a few more games under his belt.

 

[Nunez]

This thread has made for great reading. Wish i could have been there or at least watched, but makes me happy to hear the effort was there.

Rich getting tagged out is a shame, but i can't help but wonder how effective tagging Rich will be when we have a fully fit Rock, Beams and Robbo running through the middle. Take Rich out, and Beams will tear you to pieces. Tag Beams out, Rich will kick 2-4 goals on a good day.

I really can't wait for our mids to finally get to play fully fit and as a team. Will go a long way mid season onwards I am sure.

 

[Squizz89]

Long, long time reader, first time poster.

It's unfortunate we couldn't capitalise in that second quarter when we were on top but I guess bad kicking is bad football.

I like the new run and gun approach the only worry I have is as we all know with Brisbane weather, we get the humidity now and the dew in winter which means the ball will always be slippery and therefore may always be mistakes.

I'd like to see us keep taking the game on however it was clear yesterday we were always looking for 'one more handball' when in reality it was better for either that player to take on the responsibility to run themselves or drive it deep in 50, especially now we have some targets. Hopefully once we get a bit more in sync with the plan we may do this and will therefore allow the defence more time to get back in transition defence.

Other than that loving the look of actually having a forward line that looks dangerous when we go in.

 

[Toffee Lion]

Long, long time reader, first time poster.

It's unfortunate we couldn't capitalise in that second quarter when we were on top but I guess bad kicking is bad football.

I like the new run and gun approach the only worry I have is as we all know with Brisbane weather, we get the humidity now and the dew in winter which means the ball will always be slippery and therefore may always be mistakes.

I'd like to see us keep taking the game on however it was clear yesterday we were always looking for 'one more handball' when in reality it was better for either that player to take on the responsibility to run themselves or drive it deep in 50, especially now we have some targets. Hopefully once we get a bit more in sync with the plan we may do this and will therefore allow the defence more time to get back in transition defence.

Other than that loving the look of actually having a forward line that looks dangerous when we go in.

Great first post mate, hope to see more in the future.

 

[AFLQLD]

Long, long time reader, first time poster.

It's unfortunate we couldn't capitalise in that second quarter when we were on top but I guess bad kicking is bad football.

I like the new run and gun approach the only worry I have is as we all know with Brisbane weather, we get the humidity now and the dew in winter which means the ball will always be slippery and therefore may always be mistakes.

I'd like to see us keep taking the game on however it was clear yesterday we were always looking for 'one more handball' when in reality it was better for either that player to take on the responsibility to run themselves or drive it deep in 50, especially now we have some targets. Hopefully once we get a bit more in sync with the plan we may do this and will therefore allow the defence more time to get back in transition defence.

Other than that loving the look of actually having a forward line that looks dangerous when we go in.

Nice first post. Welcome.

 

[charles202]

Watched the replay that goal kicking doesn't get any prettier. I think that we could get away with less hand balls by running better angles and stretching the defenders out

 

[3KZ is Football]

our ball use and handling is absolutely horrific. So many turnovers by players under no pressure at all. Harris Andrews skills were terrible. Dan Merrett was petulant & embarrassing. It's all good being vocal and physical, but do it without giving away free kicks directly in front of the goals.
Our mids & defenders in the press are constantly left exposed by their turnovers. hence why west coast walked into an open goal 8 times last week.
Our mature players we should be relying on to perform and help us win games are horrificly inconsistent - see Rich.
Bewick had a good game, great, would be nice for him to do it for a few weeks in a row. Bookmark it, he will have less than 10 touches next week.
Mayes is gone at the end of the year and I can't blame him. Can't develop in a team that turns it over this much.

We are 3-4 years away from finals & I would be astounded if any of the following players are still on our list at that time.
(Claye Beams, Bell, Lester, Harwood, Merrett, Bewick, West, Paine, Janson, Clayton, Evans, Watts, Beasley, McGuiness)

A very good summary, but optimistic about out return to finals. Another two or three years like this and you will find some of our senior players also doing a Redden and trying to find success elsewhere. Unless we break the current cycle, Brisbane are going to be stuck as a youth development club for the rest of the competition. Players will continue to arrive, look around for a bit and then realise the club lacks direction, leadership and a coherent story to tell. Then they will be off to try their luck elsewhere.

 

[lionshine]

We got smashed on the inside of the contest in that game. We really missed Robinson. I can't wait for DBeams to return. Schache and Andrews are guns.

 

[Len S]

This thread has made for great reading. Wish i could have been there or at least watched, but makes me happy to hear the effort was there.

Rich getting tagged out is a shame, but i can't help but wonder how effective tagging Rich will be when we have a fully fit Rock, Beams and Robbo running through the middle. Take Rich out, and Beams will tear you to pieces. Tag Beams out, Rich will kick 2-4 goals on a good day.

I really can't wait for our mids to finally get to play fully fit and as a team. Will go a long way mid season onwards I am sure.

If Rich continues in the usual vein ...good one week,poor the next,and Rockcliffe continues to delude himself tnat he can play on one leg and unfit, you won't have the pleasure.

 

[Nunez]

If Rich continues in the usual vein ...good one week,poor the next,and Rockcliffe continues to delude himself tnat he can play on one leg and unfit, you won't have the pleasure.

Lol dude, you're deluded, not Rocky. If anything, the medical staff should be blamed if rocky was underdone to thethe point of playing.

You should try being positive, it won't kill you.

 

[a mayes ing]

Feel a bit sorry for NM. One of the oldest lists in the competition, if not the oldest, and they only beat us by 30 something points, when if we had kicked straight we could have taken the win. They won't win a premiership with that list of theirs, WC and Hawks will crucify them.

Havent watched the 2nd half, but our defense is really shaky atm. Our midfield as well, they just refuse to win the contested ball, its incredible that after so many years we still can't get close. Also reckon Rich has some physcological problem with tags as he just stops being the player he used to be. Mayes needs to go, something not right there.
On the positive, l like the fast run and gun approach, if we had kicked straight we cold have won. Still think Freeman should have been in tonight tho.

 

[lioninthesand]

As i mentioned i am usually fairly pessemistic after a loss like this, but some of the 'absolute doom and gloom' posting, which i fully respect as a valid opinion (not having a dip), has caught me off gaurd a little. Young team againts a very good team, making huge blunders and being found out defensively, but i left generally positive again - just need to settle into the season, we will compete next week againts the cats and beat some teams - mark my words.

If this fixture was a gym routine, after the first two rounds we are benching 120kgs, once we go back to 70kgs againts some lower teams the lifting will feel a lot easier, maybe this fire pit we have been tossed into early will serve us well over the journey.

Preying injuries dont creul us but already looks like the toll is mounting.

 

[Gadzorks]

One report i read today said Merrett was in hospital last weekend with gastro. If that is true i forgive him the frees against last night. Would have been way under done and only included because of our desperate need in the back line.
Can anyone confirm?