Autopsy Round 20, 2025: Positives and Negatives vs Fremantle

[TOA.]

For the record Williams averages 2.7 ground balls gets this year. Flynn 3.3 …. Where is the magical speed Williams has? He is always 2 seconds late at kicks into the forward line, doesn’t chase when the ball hits the ground in there and can’t draw a football to get a possessions..no other club will have him on a list.

Its quite obvious William has speed and his draft testing showed that. But yeah he isnt perfect. They are both poor and barely AFL standard but think i marginally prefer Williams.

The only thing worse than having one non-AFL standard ruck in your team is having two.

 

[Hook461123]

After what was a promising middle of the season the last few weeks have been very disappointing.
I am really just looking for moments that show we can be a competitive football club again but I'm not seeing much atm.

It feels like the run and gun handball game style we were trying to implement has dropped off the last few rounds. Whether opposition teams know what we are trying to do it and are zoning off to stop the handball receive or we've lost a bit of our run and dare, I'm unsure.
We seem to have resorted to a lot of long kicks and trying to win stoppages (not our strength) rather than running in waves with the ball carrier.
4 games left to show some signs and provide some optimism to the players and fans heading into the pre-season.
They need to show some resolve and fight each game out. I hope we don't just capitulate without Harley there to try and lift us.

 

[Goroyals22]

Tacticians of BigFooty WC board, how are we consistently poor at getting the ball out of our defensive 50 and at the same time opposition teams walk the ball out of our forward 50? What is it that we are doing that make both these things possible?

Centre clearances and soft turnovers (oh we love those) are a different beast. When you are up against Darcy/Jackson (sometimes both), Serong, Brayshaw, Young etc. in the middle with a young midfield cobbled together from whoever is available you are going to lose clearances that lead to quality inside 50s. Same with turnovers, even we look good when the ball is turned over and every defender is forward of the play. We've had a bunch of good passages this year where a final skill error at the end cost us and 3 kicks later it's a shot for goal at the other end. That's footy.

It's the slow kick ins I can't get my head around. If you can hit a 55m dart to a player at pace well done to you but when it's 3 or 4 slow 30-40m kicks and uncontested marks and suddenly the ball is on centre wing what are we doing? And why can't we do it at the other end? We did the same thing under Simmo for years. Even when we were good, we relied on the back 6 being awesome instead of pressuring the ball up the ground. I know coaches these days love to talk about game plans and structures etc. but what are we actually trying to do? I get conceding short wide kicks and making teams kick long from the pockets, and I get trying to hem teams into the front half or towards one side of the ground. I don't get conceding territory to centre wing. Watching our kick ins, we weren't running hard to space and the Freo players were pretty stationary which isn't taxing on them at all. How come we can't manage to at least get out of the 50 and then go long down the line to a contest?

Have a look at Rioli from Richmond’s last two weeks and his run down tackles on Hough and Sidebottom. Who in our forward line has the pace to do that? Actually scratch that.

Who in our forward line would even bother to chase someone at full speed in our forward line. ?? There is no one. Champions not ready but he should be playing just for tackle pressure, forget kicking goals, newton also should be an inclusion this week….

 

[Goroyals22]

Its quite obvious William has speed and his draft testing showed that. But yeah he isnt perfect. They are both poor and barely AFL standard but think i marginally prefer Williams.

The only thing worse than having one non-AFL standard ruck in your team is having two.

So he’s a tall Petch.

 

[Scotland]

Have a look at Rioli from Richmond’s last two weeks and his run down tackles on Hough and Sidebottom. Who in our forward line has the pace to do that? Actually scratch that.

Who in our forward line would even bother to chase someone at full speed in our forward line. ?? There is no one. Champions not ready but he should be playing just for tackle pressure, forget kicking goals, newton also should be an inclusion this week….

Don't disagree but what does that have to do with what I said...?

Anyone can go and stand next to an opponent for a kick in. I can do that and I am older than every player in the AFL. Likewise I can run 10 metres away from someone standing next to me. Doesn't require elite speed or endurance to do this. Sure I would probably lose a 1 on 1 to Isiah Dudley but he's gonna outmark me 100 times out of 100 I'm 5 metres away.

What we do is structure, effort or both. We are either executing something that doesn't work, or not executing something properly.

 

[Mighty Eagles]

I feel our views about Owies are understated.





#JJ.

 

[Bacchus]

Owies will come good I think - shit year to be a WCE fwrd, and playing both him and Cripps probably doesn't make sense. 33 goals in 2024 and 27 in 2023 says he's AFL quality.

No, Owies is not a good player.

Fumbles, holds up attacking moves and can’t kick goals when he does get the ball.

We were sold a pup with him, no better than Langdon, the sooner he is off the list the better.

 

[Bacchus]

I know its unhelpful but its hard not to lament and be disappointed in the fact this is what we are putting out after being down the bottom for 4 years. The lack of a young midfield core, for a side with so many top picks, is quite simply unacceptable. It was hard to listen to Simmo talk about our lack of midfielders when he was one of the main engineer of this complete mess.

I can’t listen to Simpson, the poor fellow seems completely self deluded.

 

[FKASC]

I can’t listen to Simpson, the poor fellow seems completely self deluded.

I’m sure he realises where he went wrong but he’s been offered a job to commentate and he’s not exactly going to admit wrongdoing mid-game.

It certainly dampens the experience watching games with him and Pavlich commentating though

 

[Grahame]

I’m sure he realises where he went wrong but he’s been offered a job to commentate and he’s not exactly going to admit wrongdoing mid-game.

It certainly dampens the experience watching games with him and Pavlich commentating though

I’ve found Simmo’s commentary at least a balance to Pav’s open bias. And his analysis (360 with Horse) is interesting and insightful.

All up I find him a refreshing change to the usual vAFL media. He’s pretty honest - he’s got no problems admitting his mistakes - and obviously has a good sense of humour.

And he won us the same number of flags as StK has won (but in 128 years).

But the haters gonna hate. (Sadly for them.) Move on.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Simmo pointing out Pav's open bias to his face during the derby was quite good, especially with the ridiculous free kick count in the first half.

 

[Couchpotato]

Simmo pointing out Pav's open bias to his face during the derby was quite good, especially with the ridiculous free kick count in the first half.

Yep really enjoyed this. Something along the lines of:

Simmo: "19-7 free kick count is interesting"
Pav: "Yes but I think it's been fairly reasonable, hadn't noticed the umps too much"
Simmo: "I've certainly noticed it a bit..."
Pav: silence

 

[Scotland]

I feel a bit sorry for Owies. If he was a band 4 free agent like Jack Graham

17

Jack Graham

Age

27

Ht

181cm

Wt

85kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.7

4star

K

8.0

3star

HB

6.8

4star

M

2.1

2star

T

6.3

5star

CL

1.8

4star

D

11.8

3star

K

5.3

2star

HB

6.5

4star

M

2.8

3star

T

4.2

5star

CL

1.2

4star

D

14.0

4star

K

6.0

3star

HB

8.0

5star

M

1.8

2star

T

7.0

5star

CL

3.2

5star

no one would care about him. Being inexplicably part of the Baker trade he gets more scrutiny than he should. Also our forward line is pretty awful and he's not helping that.

 

[KERRPOW]

I feel a bit sorry for Owies. If he was a band 4 free agent like Jack Graham no one would care about him. Being inexplicably part of the Baker trade he gets more scrutiny than he should. Also our forward line is pretty awful and he's not helping that.

Nah, if graham was regularly getting sub 5 possesion games hed be getting shitcanned too.

 

[BSD]

Yep really enjoyed this. Something along the lines of:

Simmo: "19-7 free kick count is interesting"
Pav: "Yes but I think it's been fairly reasonable, hadn't noticed the umps too much"
Simmo: "I've certainly noticed it a bit..."
Pav: silence

Pavlich is a Tosser, Fox/7 should sack that oxygen thief.

 

[Scotland]

Everyone except Pav noticed the umpiring.

Not that we were being massively screwed by the lopsided count early, but they were certainly whistle happy. I think it finished 26-25 in the end. That's a lot.

 

[FKASC]

should chuck Owies on-ball can’t be any worse than rotting forward

 

[BSD]

Everyone except Pav noticed the umpiring.

Not that we were being massively screwed by the lopsided count early, but they were certainly whistle happy. I think it finished 26-25 in the end. That's a lot.

The umps always practice equalization in the last qtr when the count is too lopsided