Autopsy Round 21, 2025: Positives and Negatives vs Melbourne

[HoneyBadger35]

Midfield bath was always to be expected in a post-Reid world. Pleasing to see who stepped up early, before the tires blew out and we were just jogging out the game.

Positives

• Hewett, Hall good in the first half. Faded as it went on, as per, but really good signs from both of them to step up into a massive void.
• Chesser - well done. Lock him into the side until the end of the year and, given where our list is at, I really don’t think we need to race to move him on. Could earn himself another year, if he plays like that he’ll earn himself more.
• McCarthy too good.
• Maric had two howler kick outs early but grew into the game massively and opened everything up with his kicking.
• McQualter - we were feeding Gawn in such a laughable way but the half time change to emphasise the switch worked really well. Had the game at a competitive state until the Cole miss opened the flood gates, but the ball movement post half time was a pleasing start.

Negatives

• Overpowered in the midfield but what else is new, especially without Harley covering their ass.
• Bailey non factor against Gawn around the ground destroyed the first half.
• Seriously hard to ask our 18/19 year old KPFs to consistently make space down the line and it led to some of the stalest ball movement before we opened things up
• Duggan’s skills, good early then horrendous as soon as a tiny amount of heat entered the chat
• AFL using the 11am game between two irrelevant sides to experiment with rule changes. I’m happy Gregg Swan has some stuff he wants to get done, but experimenting on live animals is cruel and unusual
• Wasting Hough as an in between tagger/mid. We know he’s a gun defender. So either leave him there or let him go chase the footy and try find 20+ touches. This is just wasting everyone’s time.
• Owies was better but still meh. Cripps was invisible until it was over. Ryan the best of the lot but very quiet. Just not getting anything from our senior forwards, leaving it all to the mids and junior talls to carry. It’s too much to ask.
• Bazzo poor game, happy he’s made it back and had a block of footy but I’d like to see Brock returned to the side especially against Adelaide’s three talls.

Sign Harley, keep exposing the young mids in his absence, get to the offseason without any major injuries. Thanks.

 

[NeedForTheReids]

Positives:
- There’s 3 more games to go in the year



Negatives:
- There’s still 3 more games to go in the year

 

[Cuzz09]

yeah most were ok early then faded.

How easily dees increased the lead its scary to think what Adelaide and WB will do.

 

[Cuzz09]

Let's get Chess to 20 in 2025 lol

 

[squashface]

-
Woke up at 4am London time for that

+
VPN & Kayo worked well, I thought that method didn’t work anymore for international AFL watching but it was fine.

 

[FKASC]

Did Archer get injured?

 

[Cuzz09]

I feel like McQualter will think Flynn is a similar match up to ROB than BBW and drop BBW but who knows

May as well just tandem Archer and Jack Williams v ROB I reckon and rest fwd in patches

 

[GoEaglesGoSGIO]

Feels like the positives and negatives are a weekly similarity at this point. Can copy and paste them every week in the last month of football

 

[Cuzz09]

Feels like the positives and negatives are a weekly similarity at this point. Can copy and paste them every week in the last month of football

yeah last 3 years really

it's so shit

 

[bzparkes]

Did Archer get injured?

Looked winded.

 

[Dark Sharks]

What a ****ing pathetic game of football that was.

Feel like I've really wasted my time this time. As opposed to all the other times where I've only half wasted it.

 

[FKASC]

Looked winded.

Hopefully only that

 

[Cuzz09]

What a ****ing pathetic game of football that was.

Feel like I've really wasted my time this time. As opposed to all the other times where I've only half wasted it.

Feel like the club has wasted opportunities too.

 

[Grumpyshades]

Don't pay the 'push in the back' all year, but pay it in this game. All against WC, all in front of melbourne's goals

yeah ok

 

[bzparkes]

What a ****ing pathetic game of football that was.

Feel like I've really wasted my time this time. As opposed to all the other times where I've only half wasted it.

It's all good, you can now watch our WAFL eagles, in all their splendour, to make up for it.

 

[rebel23]

Wonder what excuses mcqualter will have this time..

 

[DorothyG]

Copypasta from any other game this year

 

[Cuzz09]

It's all good, you can now watch our WAFL eagles, in all their splendour, to make up for it.

Yeah then a couple of weeks the ladies turn

 

[Scotland]

Typical WC game that spuds like Petty and Fritsch kick goals. Fritsch is a good player but has been so poor this year he was dropped. Happy to see Culley get a game and do OK (he had 13 touches and kicked 2, calm down commentators) but I don't want to hear about how we de-listed the next Ablett Jr all week.

Same faults as usual in how we actually play. What other team chips the ball around the back 50 to contests? Every week we manage to oscillate between 18 players and none of them free when we have the ball to 18 opponents all in space when we don't have the ball. It's like we train against a bowling machine set at 120 km/h then go out and think we can face the Windies quicks of the 80s and 90s with a stacked slips cordon.

Gawn wasn't as good as he could've been but we gave him every chance. Williams leads up, we kick it on his head. Williams plays from behind (why??) and we drop it in front. Seriously dumb football. A few times Williams wasn't within 50 metres of Gawn and we still kicked it to him. Whenever Gawn was up the line we looked so much better switching to the open side even if it is slow ball movement.

Was hoping during the 3rd quarter we could go in 30-40 down so there was a 'chance' of another choke. We don't have the weapons to put on a 7, 8, 9 goal quarter but just to get it back to 20 or so and make them fight it out would've been nice. When Duggan and Cole both turned goal opportunities into turnovers and goals at the other end and the umpires decided that every inside 50 from then on would be a free that ruined the game as any kind of contest or spectacle. Going into the last 10 goals down I'm surprised they only added 20 to it.

On the plus side I think Owies did something. Not much but more than last week's nothing. Worked up the ground and at least gave a leading option and took 4 marks. Would've been more if we stopped kicking it to Max Gawn

11

Max Gawn

Age

34

Ht

209cm

Wt

110kg

Pos.

Ruck

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.1

4star

K

7.4

3star

HB

6.7

4star

CL

2.8

4star

HO

35.3

5star

D

18.5

4star

K

11.5

4star

HB

7.0

4star

CL

3.5

4star

HO

29.2

5star

D

8.4

3star

K

3.6

2star

HB

4.8

4star

CL

1.0

3star

HO

15.6

5star

instead.

 

[isthiswhereitype]

Positives:

• Really pleased for Chesser. After the last few weeks of the wafl I didn't quite think he had a game like that in him but he's got to be played for the rest of the year now.
• Graham can come back in next week
• The eventual heat death of the universe.

Negatives:
- The next two weeks are going to be tough.

 

[Dark Sharks]

It's all good, you can now watch our WAFL eagles, in all their splendour, to make up for it.

I'm not sure I can mentally handle both teams B2B...

 

[Balls In]

This competition gets harder to stomach every week.

 

[Tugga27]

Wonder what excuses mcqualter will have this time..

We're an extremely young side might be one.

 

[ziad]

No forward pressure & mids outclassed - this sets up unpressured entry to D's 50 resulting in defenders getting belted. I think the defenders went into their shell rather that agressively attach the body and ball hence soft frees rather than sore D's bodies.

 

[Cuzz09]

Yeah I was hoping we'd fight it out and would've been reasonably content with a high 30s mid 40s margin but it got ugly fast and we didn't know what to do.