Preview Round 2: Changes vs Hawks + pre-match discussion

[freo1997]

As I’ve always said big Darcy peaked when he was 18. He’s shown zero improvement since 2017. His fitness levels are not even WAFL standard, hes just not a natural athlete and gets lost sometimes during the play which shows low afl IQ. On top of that he’s injury proned.

Now we want him as a primary fwd and pinch hit in the ruck? Why on earth? He struggles to make the contest, gives no defensive pressure, average mark and terrible kick.

Three solutions.
1. Get meek ready.
2. I’d be grooming Oreilly in that ruck/fwd role for depth behind Lobb.
3. Most importantly draft a Mature aged ready to go Ruck in the mid season draft.

Lobb is too important to our fwd structure we can’t afford for him to go down rucking.

 

[eastfreo75]

Calm the truck down.

People calling for Darcy and Taberners head seems over the top. Take them out our structure fails.

In: Young Out: Duman

In: Mundy Out: Crowden

In: Serong Out: Banfield

 

[rgauci]

As I’ve always said big Darcy peaked when he was 18. He’s shown zero improvement since 2017. His fitness levels are not even WAFL standard, hes just not a natural athlete and gets lost sometimes during the play which shows low afl IQ. On top of that he’s injury proned.

Now we want him as a primary fwd and pinch hit in the ruck? Why on earth? He struggles to make the contest, gives no defensive pressure, average mark and terrible kick.

Three solutions.
1. Get meek ready.
2. I’d be grooming Oreilly in that ruck/fwd role for depth behind Lobb.
3. Most importantly draft a Mature aged ready to go Ruck in the mid season draft.

Lobb is too important to our fwd structure we can’t afford for him to go down rucking.

Lobb was reasonable as a forward, but his defensive pressure as a key forward isbelow average. If we had quick smalls it wouldn’t matter. But Banfield and Schulz don’t have great straight line pace. Only Sturt would be considered quick. We need another 1-2 very fast players to balance us up forwrD. Neither Fyfe / Walters are quick either.

 

[go_the_dockers]

If Brayshaw can not play more than 70 percent TOG then he should not play.

60% is no where near enough

 

[Spirit Level]

Have we ever had a more polarising player than Tabs?

 

[masai]

Have we ever had a more polarising player than Tabs?

The Prince.

 

[beelzebob]

Could have done with matera in that chaos forward line yesterday. He isn't afraid to bang it on the boot

On Pixel 3 using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[theGav56]

As this season is more that likely to only run for 1-4 matches I really hope we try to blood a new young guy every week

Mundy and Serong in for me and out go any two of Shultz , Crowden Banfield , Collier ,McCarthy

Hate to say it but to me Cerra looks better on the half back line at this stage of his career...It didnt do Dave Mundy any harm starting back there (does anyone know how many seasons before he moved into the midfield)
Keep Cerra there and move Aish to onball or take McCarthys wing

I agree with this, but as soon as Young comes in then there isn’t a position in the backline for Cerra, and we still have Hill, Wilson, Carter and perhaps Pina pending. I’d keep throwing the midfield challenge at him now, and focus on what our midfield in 2021 is going to look like.

 

[theGav56]

As I’ve always said big Darcy peaked when he was 18. He’s shown zero improvement since 2017. His fitness levels are not even WAFL standard, hes just not a natural athlete and gets lost sometimes during the play which shows low afl IQ. On top of that he’s injury proned.

Now we want him as a primary fwd and pinch hit in the ruck? Why on earth? He struggles to make the contest, gives no defensive pressure, average mark and terrible kick.

Three solutions.
1. Get meek ready.
2. I’d be grooming Oreilly in that ruck/fwd role for depth behind Lobb.
3. Most importantly draft a Mature aged ready to go Ruck in the mid season draft.

Lobb is too important to our fwd structure we can’t afford for him to go down rucking.

Without agreeing with your Darcy assessment, we should be doing your three solutions, and already are doing the first two aren’t we? Going to take some pretty daft recruiting to spot a mature ready to go ruck at the moment.

 

[apuchar]

O'Reilly had been playing back. I hope that got shelved.

 

[Puregold]

Mundy for duman. Mundy is integral. Fyfe played 9(% game time yesterday

sering for banfield

I’m in the minority but I thought Darcy competed well. He was good at bringing the ball to ground and followed up competitively. Needs to work on his taps a bit though.
Game was lost by our skill level. Tucker uncharacteristically bad, banfield, duman, Taberner a heap of poorly executed skills. cro attempted a few difficult kicks that just didn’t come off.

also need to work on our starts to games. If we don’t kick first goal we need to lock down as the opposition always gets a run on

crowden, colyer thin ice-

 

[dont bowl there]

I wouldn't be taking off any of my top 10 or so players until the quarter is under 4mins left, you can't afford them to be sitting on the bench waiting for a goal or a nearby stoppage. Players like Fyfe, Danger, Dusty, Bont etc should only be coming off with under 2mins left and then use the actual quarter time breaks as his rests.

 

[Dockeroo]

To be fair to Tucker he’s had a very disrupted pre season and so should be cut a bit of slack - thought he really lifted in the final quarter. What’s the story with Luke Valente? Along with a few others, he Must be skating on thin ice now, this season will be totally stuffed up and he’s out of contract. How far away from a game is he does anyone know?

 

[Johnny Dalmas]

As I’ve always said big Darcy peaked when he was 18. He’s shown zero improvement since 2017. His fitness levels are not even WAFL standard, hes just not a natural athlete and gets lost sometimes during the play which shows low afl IQ. On top of that he’s injury proned.

Now we want him as a primary fwd and pinch hit in the ruck? Why on earth? He struggles to make the contest, gives no defensive pressure, average mark and terrible kick.

Three solutions.
1. Get meek ready.
2. I’d be grooming Oreilly in that ruck/fwd role for depth behind Lobb.
3. Most importantly draft a Mature aged ready to go Ruck in the mid season draft.

Lobb is too important to our fwd structure we can’t afford for him to go down rucking.

My point was that _if_ you want to drop a tall for Dixon then you should drop Tabs before Darcy.
Darcy is a much better ruck (and Lobb needs ruck support) and based on actual forward line production, well, Tabs doesn't really add much to the bottom line.

 

[Cesoir]

2. I’d be grooming Oreilly in that ruck/fwd role for depth behind Lobb.

Dillon O'Reilly is barely WAFL level at this stage and is 193cm - there is no way he is a viable option for ruck / forward yet. Hugh Dixon at 196cm is a much better option, but I think we are dreaming if we think any of them will be better than a fit Darcy / Lobb combo. We all talk about giving kids a go, well Darcy is a kid in terms of ruckmen and will become a very good player, hopefully for us. The way people are calling for changes on here it seems we think winning games is more important than developing our youth for the future. If that's the case we should have kept Lyon!

Patience grasshopper

 

[wild side]

To be fair to Tucker he’s had a very disrupted pre season and so should be cut a bit of slack - thought he really lifted in the final quarter. What’s the story with Luke Valente? Along with a few others, he Must be skating on thin ice now, this season will be totally stuffed up and he’s out of contract. How far away from a game is he does anyone know?

Tucker is getting senior, a couple of his kicks were diabolical.
Valente has been in training photos, so he's got to be in consideration.
But I think the season will be suspended tomorrow, so we will have an extended break

 

[Cesoir]

Mundy for duman. Mundy is integral. Fyfe played 9(% game time yesterday

sering for banfield

I’m in the minority but I thought Darcy competed well. He was good at bringing the ball to ground and followed up competitively. Needs to work on his taps a bit though.
Game was lost by our skill level. Tucker uncharacteristically bad, banfield, duman, Taberner a heap of poorly executed skills. cro attempted a few difficult kicks that just didn’t come off.

also need to work on our starts to games. If we don’t kick first goal we need to lock down as the opposition always gets a run on

crowden, colyer thin ice-

Agree with all this, and I think the skill level was bought about by lack of composure under pressure, not lack of skill. I know people think we just need to train skills more and they will automatically improve, but that is not the case. Adam Cerra was picked up as one of the most highly skilled kids in his draft and at times he makes horrendous skill errors. Not because he is poorly skilled, but because he is under pressure - either real or perceived. I remember Cam Rayner saying if he could be leading out to any player in the draft it would be Adam Cerra. You do not unlearn those skills and they are not "coached out of you" as some have claimed. It is just a huge step up in pressure from U18 to AFL top level and some players take time to adapt.

If you listen to Longmuir's presser he said the players were afraid to make mistakes, which is why our ball movement was too slow. If we are going to implement anew, attacking game plan the players will make mistakes, take poor options and get beaten at times. The players will eventually "get it" and footy will become instinctive, then you will suddenly see skills improve.

However painful, this is part of the learning process.

 

[apuchar]

Doesn't have to be Darcy. If we are developing a ruckman we should give Meek an opportunity, as well. We need to consider the possibility that the game has passed a ruckman like Darcy and we may need a ruckman with greater mobility. Haven't seen enough of Meek to know if he is that. Both should be given the opportunity to press their claim to number 1 ruck.

 

[apuchar]

Agree with all this, and I think the skill level was bought about by lack of composure under pressure, not lack of skill. I know people think we just need to train skills more and they will automatically improve, but that is not the case. Adam Cerra was picked up as one of the most highly skilled kids in his draft and at times he makes horrendous skill errors. Not because he is poorly skilled, but because he is under pressure - either real or perceived. I remember Cam Rayner saying if he could be leading out to any player in the draft it would be Adam Cerra. You do not unlearn those skills and they are not "coached out of you" as some have claimed. It is just a huge step up in pressure from U18 to AFL top level and some players take time to adapt.

If you listen to Longmuir's presser he said the players were afraid to make mistakes, which is why our ball movement was too slow. If we are going to implement anew, attacking game plan the players will make mistakes, take poor options and get beaten at times. The players will eventually "get it" and footy will become instinctive, then you will suddenly see skills improve.

However painful, this is part of the learning process.

Most of our kicking errors weren't because we took a risky option and made a mistake. We missed open targets by 20 meters.

 

[Johnny Dalmas]

When it comes to kicking what is often called "poor skills" is really about poor ball retention.

Retaining the ball is a lot to do with structure & leading patterns ahead of the ball, poor decision-making in picking the wrong option, lack of intensity around the ball allowing too much oppo pressure.

All those issue are very fixable if they are prioritised.

 

[Cesoir]

Most of our kicking errors weren't because we took a risky option and made a mistake. We missed open targets by 20 meters.

I thought we spent the entire preseason practising skills? Don't take my word for it, listen to what the coach said about taking risks and playing instinctively.

 

[Cesoir]

When it comes to kicking what is often called "poor skills" is really about poor ball retention.

Retaining the ball is a lot to do with structure & leading patterns ahead of the ball, poor decision-making in picking the wrong option, lack of intensity around the ball allowing too much oppo pressure.

All those issue are very fixable if they are prioritised.

This guy gets it apuchar.

 

[Dale147]

It’s a massive concern that players not in the top 22 are not able to get game time.

 

[apuchar]

I thought we spent the entire preseason practising skills? Don't take my word for it, listen to what the coach said about taking risks and playing instinctively.

All I'm saying is that our missed targets weren't usually from taking risky options that didn't come off. It woulds be good if it was. We missed simple kicks, under no pressure to open players by miles.

 

[Spirit Level]

I liked that we seemed to turn into the corridor more to attack than we used to.

Yes it came unstuck at times but it will come with time