Review Round 5 = West Coast 103-76 Collingwood

[stormskye]

It’s the game plan. You can’t tackle when you allow over 120 uncontested marks for the game. 136 marks & only 13 were contested. Who wants to go to the footy & watch the opposite play kick to kick every week without our guys trying to get the footy off them. Does my head in.
we need to dump this poor excuse for a zone. Because it just allows other teams to play keepings off without pressure until they find an easy passage to goal.

Was the exact same story against bulldogs. Our setup is a joke. That’s coaching nothing less

 

[Finnishpie]

The trouble is,without Adams we don’t have much of a midfield at all.He’s our only real extractor.Needless to say we need more of that type.

I think Sier was meant to be that -- though it's almost 3 years since he's played his best, so I have little hope.

 

[jimmy35]

Agree. If we'd managed to move the ball better and our midfield broke even Moore would have been worth his weight whatever end of the field he was playing.

Agree. Peter McKenna up forward and Billy Picken down back would’ve had zero impact on the result. Have to fix the midfield woes.
Nonetheless at least there was commitment this week and pleasing to see a semblance of decent quality game style in that first quarter.
Right up against it losing Goo and Howey though unfortunately.

 

[Billys Back]

15 of our 23 with 1 or 0 tackles is appalling!

our tackling and manic pressure was once our strength. It's sad when you see stats like that.
The amount of missed tackles each week is concerning.

 

[Billys Back]

It’s the game plan. You can’t tackle when you allow over 120 uncontested marks for the game. 136 marks & only 13 were contested. Who wants to go to the footy & watch the opposite play kick to kick every week without our guys trying to get the footy off them. Does my head in.
we need to dump this poor excuse for a zone. Because it just allows other teams to play keepings off without pressure until they find an easy passage to goal.

yeah the Saints went man on man in the 2nd half against the eagles and changed the game. I'm surprised we didn't study the footage.

 

[Billys Back]

Easy to pick the first quarter out and say see it works. It only works because somehow Grundy kicked 2 goals in a quarter. What are the chances of that happening again. It was the way we were playing up the ground that mattered. Every chance that if Cox was playing he would have kicked two.

The next two quarter showed the reality, not the first. When WCE upped the midfield pressure in Q2&3 the entries in to the forward 50 returned to type and Moore didn’t touch it for 2 quarters. We go smashed in the back half and couldn’t transition to the forward half.

it would appear we are sticking with Moore as a forward. I think the only way that works is if Kelly comes in as a KPD as performs well. Don’t think that is likely given his injury history which has hampered his development.

I suspect we will stick with Moore forward for a while then conceded that his best position for the team at the moment at least is back. Not against Moore as a forward, just don’t think it is a luxury we can afford at the moment and not a solution to our short term problems.

Maybe not with Howe out.

 

[Billys Back]

Nobody was suggesting he keep playing while concussed, the question has to be why didn't our medical staff assess him after the hit? He clearly back on before the 20 min check and had a head hit, so what were the medical staff doing?

Grabbing his phone after being subbed out for concussion is extremely bad optics. If you are questioning this, tell me, have you ever seen a player subbed out for concussion with their phone before? Ever?

They did assess him. My understanding was that he wasn't concussed. The reason they had to take him off (after going back on) was because of some rule regarding particular facial injuries.

So now it's the doctors at the club copping it??

 

[Magnanimous]

At the ground, seeing Moore amongst the statues in our forwardline was stark. His energy and hard leading yielded a goal to him and took the opportunity for West Coast players to assist in the contest for both of Grundy’s clunks too (Moore himself contested one of them but it prevented an unnecessary outnumber).

The rest of our forwardline need to watch how he started that game and learn from it. I think he’d pair nicely with Cox as long as we make up for the lack of footspeed from selecting Mason by picking speedier, agile small forwards to complement. Neither Cal Brown or Thomas are that nor does it look like Josh Thomas

24

Josh Thomas

Age

32

Ht

178cm

Wt

78kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.4

4star

K

8.5

3star

HB

7.9

5star

M

3.1

3star

T

3.0

5star

G

0.9

4star

D

9.0

2star

K

3.0

1star

HB

6.0

3star

M

1.3

1star

T

2.0

3star

G

0.0

1star

D

17.4

5star

K

9.0

4star

HB

8.4

5star

M

3.0

3star

T

3.4

5star

G

0.0

1star

will get back to it.

Good call, maybe see Kelly come in as the fourth banana.

Have resting ruck, Moore, Mihocek, Kelly, McCreery and WHE/Ruscoe asstarting 6.
We seem more likely to be able to find another defender than a forward.






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[FAIRANDBALANCED]

They did assess him. My understanding was that he wasn't concussed. The reason they had to take him off (after going back on) was because of some rule regarding particular facial injuries.

So now it's the doctors at the club copping it??

Nope, he was pulled for delayed concussion. The fact we are all in the dark on this tells you the quality of our club doctors. How hard is it to put out the message he got pulled due to delayed concussion? All night we were told it was a facial injury.

You don't think they didn't say delayed concussion during the game because they incompetently put him back out there after a head knock without assessing him for 20 minutes, as they are mandated to?

 

[Billys Back]

This is a team bereft of confidence, lost on the field...and at times it looks comical. Our goal scoring issues are ‘chicken or egg’, the mids don’t clear the ball from stoppage with any structure and can’t kick so the forwards don’t know where to lead. When the mids do have the ball in hand and are looking for targets there aren’t any leads to hit. Our backs similarly, always a strong point are now also fumbling and making poor decisions. We need to get back to first principles, pressure pressure and more pressure. The rest will come, the confidence will build. Moore with donuts in the second and third quarters proves what I have been saying is right, no matter how good the forwards are as individuals, if you can’t kick the ball to them efficiently then it’s a waste of effort. Thomas and the rest of the forwards have been harshly criticised.

We had a good first quarter, and they stuck it out but West Coast had the cue in the rack in the fourth. We were soundly beaten.

With so many players being played out of position or being asked to do things they just can’t, it’s hard to lay blame on anybody but list management. Pendles and Sidey should no longer be the prime movers of the side, with that they should also not be leaders. Their performances don’t warrant that. A lot of their stats came in the last quarter, when the game was done. Not good enough.

We need each of Mihocek, Moore, Quaynor and Maynard. These guys just keep trying, and really I feel sorry for them carrying the rest of the team week in week out.

Grundy had a much better game tonight, hopefully that’s the end of his patchy form.

Degoey - I feel his injury may have come at a good time, I can’t help but think that his indifferent form is to do with the inevitable stress relating to his upcoming court case. He has been largely missing and rubbish.

Roughhead - was good tonight.

Keane - I like what I see, with his size he’ll figure out the 1v 1 body work aspect of football. What I liked most was what he did with ball in hand, he takes the game on and kicks and handballs pretty well. He’ll only learn the 1 v 1 against the best forwards so he needs some time in the 1’s.

Macrae - the one knock is zero tackles and pressure. Otherwise he’s exactly what we need, some IQ and skill in the middle. Loved his game, especially his work in traffic and quick hands. Puts a lot of our senior players to shame with his awareness and decision making.

Mccreery - has some serious pace and size. Love the confidence he plays, ignored an open Thomas who was closer to goal for a set shot. He went back and missed the goal. That was poor. He will learn to anticipate opposition ball movement better with time, and will then lay more tackles.

Crisp- should be played exclusively in the backline. He doesn’t have the vision or decision making to play in the middle. His skills were the stuff of nightmares tonight!

Daicos welcome to the big time, gym work doesn’t mean you’ll play more consistent football. We need to get him the ball more often, give him more wing time and manufacture some uncontested possessions for him.

Noble - for me is one of many players that are in the 22 because we have no options. Runs into trouble, does not go hard enough often enough. Should be one of the first dropped once some form is shown by appropriate players in the 2’s.

Brown is another who is not AFL premiership material at the moment. He tries to make things happen but he’s too slightly built and doesn’t have skills. He really should be honing those things in the vfl. I feel this form will destroy his confidence as an AFL footballer. He must be dropped.

Sier - playing him is the wrong message for the rest of the list. He should not play until he is the hardest working player on the list. Not one tackle to his name as an onballer!

Madgen was one of our better players in the last quarter, he made things happen. The rest of the game he was in my worsts. Slow, soft no real discernible skills. We have no choice but to play him.

Thomas - the boards whipping boy, again played well considering the team was in disarray. He goes when it’s his turn, and he was pretty clean in disposal I thought. Not our best, but far from our worst.

Mayne - was ok, not impactful... but plugged holes everywhere. Particularly With the injuries.

Cameron I’m not a fan of dropping players after one game, didn’t do much wrong. It’s tough to be a forward at the pies. I hope the dropping spurs Cox into action because I think he’s our number one option.

Greenwood -played his typical game post injury, messy! Another who should be finding form in the twos.

Noble gets such a bad wrap and I don't really understand why. To be honest, I never thought much of him, but watching him closely this year and I have actually changed my mind. Watching him during a game and he does alot of hard running while others are standing still.

Always seems to be the guy running to give our players with the ball options.

And you obviously missed his attack on the ball last night when he went in harder and put his body on the line winning the contest against an eagles opponent.

He has been so much better than Mayne, Thomas, Greenwood and others

 

[foreigner]

Fought it out well. Don’t think moving Moore back would have made much difference. Beaten by a better side.

Again, this is the issue. For the last 8 years, every time we play against the Eagles, they are the better side, a la Tigers, Cats, Hawks, GWS etc etc. Why can't we be the better side for f***ing once. We keep regressing when every other team improve.

When other teams have injuries they lift, someone stands up to pick up the mantle. All we do is make excuses every time.

 

[Magnanimous]

Noble gets such a bad wrap and I don't really understand why. To be honest, I never thought much of him, but watching him closely this year and I have actually changed my mind. Watching him during a game and he does alot of hard running while others are standing still.

Always seems to be the guy running to give our players with the ball options.

And you obviously missed his attack on the ball last night when he went in harder and put his body on the line winning the contest against an eagles opponent.

He has been so much better than Mayne, Thomas, Greenwood and others

Mayne runs hard to get back and chip in for others and be the link man too, you can’t question his endeavour or courage at all.
His awareness, decision making and disposal is what lets him down


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[Billys Back]

Nope, he was pulled for delayed concussion. The fact we are all in the dark on this tells you the quality of our club doctors. How hard is it to put out the message he got pulled due to delayed concussion? All night we were told it was a facial injury.

You don't think they didn't say delayed concussion during the game because they incompetently put him back out there after a head knock without assessing him for 20 minutes, as they are mandated to?

So does 'delayed concussion' mean that he satisfied the 20 minute test suggesting he was ok?
And then the medical staff were watching him on the ground and saw something in how he was moving as a sign that he does have concussion?
I don't understand how it works but I'm assuming they did their job.

For us not to know why he was off is not due to the staff not informing us, I would have thought the commentators would have been down there asking the question. Not sure we would hide why he was gone for the game.

 

[magpies42]

Noble gets such a bad wrap and I don't really understand why. To be honest, I never thought much of him, but watching him closely this year and I have actually changed my mind. Watching him during a game and he does alot of hard running while others are standing still.

Always seems to be the guy running to give our players with the ball options.

And you obviously missed his attack on the ball last night when he went in harder and put his body on the line winning the contest against an eagles opponent.

He has been so much better than Mayne, Thomas, Greenwood and others

No, I saw that contest also...I think in part he was making up for the previous two contests where he didn’t go hard enough. He does run, and works hard...but his tackles are broken too easily (1 for the night) and he doesn’t go hard enough often enough. In a must win game there is no excuse for that. I think you’re right though he’s in our 22, which is an indictment on our list management....or potentially like a number of others, the team needs to be humming for him to be his best.

 

[Rorzza]

I know Bucks mentioned this in his presser last night but Mihochek 2 goals and 5 behinds was terribly inaccurate. Love his game apart from that.

I see Mayne's disposal effeciency on AFL stats was 100%, does that include disposals straight to the opposition like the handball to Kelly (i think) that ended in a goal and Maynes second WC goal assist for the quarter. I hope the goal assists were not included in Maynes stats.

Moore really looked good forward last night, reward for effort.

 

[Billys Back]

Mayne runs hard to get back and chip in for others and be the link man too, you can’t question his endeavour or courage at all.
His awareness, decision making and disposal is what lets him down


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I don't question his courage and endeavour. But as one of our most experienced players, he shouldn't be costing us goals as he does. Decision making, awareness and disposal as you've pointed out are major issues. And he is slow. I'm comparing him with Noble, who I was defending who offers the same but with pace as well. Something we are severely lacking. And on top of that he has only played about 25 games.

 

[queensberryrules]

great heart shown by the boys, but was always going to happen. Just not good enough. Now with 5 serious injuries, we are cooked.

At least we're seeing some of the kids now, but that group of Mayne, Brown, madgen, Thomas is not the future... or the present.

Time for Reef, Tyler and Murphy... and maybe even Chugg and Wilson, to show us what theyve got

Great heart shown by the boys? Shirley?

There were signs early and late, but for 2 qtrs there was NO resistance especially in the midfield. Then cue in rack. Pies won i50 and lost the tackle count. Eagles were escorted by us goalward for half the game. Buckley has his flaws, I feel sorry for him now, his poor body language, perhaps even the internal struggles he is enduring. But he tried something.

Repeat - this WAS NOT a great effort.

 

[Billys Back]

No, I saw that contest also...I think in part he was making up for the previous two contests where he didn’t go hard enough. He does run, and works hard...but his tackles are broken too easily (1 for the night) and he doesn’t go hard enough often enough. In a must win game there is no excuse for that. I think you’re right though he’s in our 22, which is an indictment on our list management....or potentially like a number of others, the team needs to be humming for him to be his best.

Yeah I understand.

 

[Billys Back]

Great heart shown by the boys? Shirley?

There were signs early and late, but for 2 qtrs there was NO resistance especially in the midfield. Then cue in rack. Pies won i50 and lost the tackle count. Eagles were escorted by us goalward for half the game. Buckley has his flaws, I feel sorry for him now, his poor body language, perhaps even the internal struggles he is enduring. But he tried something.

Repeat - this WAS NOT a great effort.

When you have 2 of your best players gone early, it really is destabilising. Particularly when it is a bull in the midfield, and our most experienced defender.

 

[TheGreatGrundy]

How do you know he wasn't letting someone know that he was alright.

Surely anyone who needs to know can see from TV vision that he is alright. Every player that gets injured doesn't have to phone home and tell a significant other he is OK.

 

[kickitolachie]

Some lessons from last night.
1. Dropping Cox was a mistake. Moore was as effective as Cox up forward - no better, no worse, but we were weaker down back. I feel that the selectors succumbed to media pressure on this.

2. For the third time, a team has broken us down using a chip across the ground method to set up their attacks. The increase in confidence in their passing as the game wore on was one consequence among many of this, and ours fell as every pass was delivered under pressure. The rule changes mean that the "flood back as soon as the opposition gains possession" method is no longer viable (and it was always questionable). It is clear that every man must be covered in this environment.

3. More key players injured means that the season is done from a finals point of view. We could not afford any, and now we have 5. We delisted the depth that might have covered this (with good reason) and now we will suffer for it.

4. McCreary looks OK and so does McCrae. They both look like they will be regular players, and are early wins for the draft.

5. Recruiting for next year (and indeed in the mid year) will need to focus on cheap midfielders that other clubs deem surplus to requirements. Good ones have been about in previous years, but we have ignored them in favour of higher profile signings. Some very astute work will be required here.

6. Pendlebury does not have much time left, and Sidebottom has gone into decline very early. We have no replacements.

 

[loki04]

That first quarter was close to our best quarter of football for the year. We gave away two stupid goals but other than that, we looked very good.

Moore just needs time fwd to readjust also the ball movement and delivery last night killed him (ignored on so many good leads only for it to go to an outnumber), in saying that he kicked 3 should of had 4.

These moves aren't a 1 week fix, they Moore replacement needs time to find his feet back, Moore himself needs to gel and find his feet, the mids need to use him better.

At the end of the day how many Moore would of saved is debatable with how easily the wc mids were moving the ball and further kicking goals themselves.

 

[TheGreatGrundy]

Noble gets such a bad wrap and I don't really understand why. To be honest, I never thought much of him, but watching him closely this year and I have actually changed my mind. Watching him during a game and he does alot of hard running while others are standing still.

Always seems to be the guy running to give our players with the ball options.

And you obviously missed his attack on the ball last night when he went in harder and put his body on the line winning the contest against an eagles opponent.

He has been so much better than Mayne, Thomas, Greenwood and others

I also saw him not go hard against bigger players in two other contests. He is a lightweight player who tries and runs hard as you say, but he has obvious deficiencies.

 

[stormskye]

Moore just needs time fwd to readjust also the ball movement and delivery last night killed him (ignored on so many good leads only for it to go to an outnumber), in saying that he kicked 3 should of had 4.

These moves aren't a 1 week fix, they Moore replacement needs time to find his feet back, Moore himself needs to gel and find his feet, the mids need to use him better.

At the end of the day how many Moore would of saved is debatable with how easily the wc mids were moving the ball and further kicking goals themselves.

100%. We make changes, and after one single game people want Moore back and Keane dropped.. why? We were 1 win 3 losses with Moore playing defence, it makes no difference... we are losing games in the mid. think people wanting that for some strange reason think we are challenging... this is a long term approach, and needs time.
Seasons done, it’s time to mix it up

 

[loki04]

Moore kicking 3 goals foward

Negative Moore playing forward costing us 6/7 goals down back. Best CHB in the game leave him there and actually recruit talll forwards

With the way WC had such an easy time of it and un pressured disposals in q2 and q3, I dont think the outcome changes at all.

Leave Moore fwd, let him gel with that group get the mids to make better decisions and honour his leads and hit targets you will find he will kill it.

Our midfield is very poor and you won't win too many games with it.