Preview Round 6 vs Port Adelaide

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Grogg

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"Anytime a side gets put under the blowtorch a bit, we tend to respond and we tend to react; it's just pride, you want to bounce back and represent your team well," Hinkley told SEN SA Breakfast.

"They're a high-quality team, they haven’t had the start they would have wanted, but I'm sure Brad and the boys over there are working towards trying to turn that around very quickly; we just don't want them to do that this Friday night at Adelaide Oval.

"Our responsibility is to turn up and play the same style of football that we've played, I think, reasonably consistently for the first five weeks of the seas
Eerily reminiscent of a North presser right before a shock loss.
 
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Credit where credit is due. I'm on the sack Scott bandwagon, but he has 100% identified the issue here being centre bounce setup.

And I'm glad that he has acknowledged it and is willing to adapt to something that's clearly not working.
The issue with the centre bounces is that we don't have people in there with both pace and tackling intensity. We get first hands often enough, but when we get it, we get caught. When the opposition gets it, they get out into space we can't get it back.
- Cunnington is a bull, but very very slow and can't put pressure on anyone he can't reach.
- LDU has great burst pace for an inside mid, but his defensive game/application and second efforts are very poor.
- Ziebel is currently Cunnington without the good bits.
- Higgins is not defending.
- Polec is only half-hearted defending
- Dumont is only ok defending and not quick.
- Anderson is great, but we only have one of him. No surprise we look a whole lot better when he is there.

Ironically, this is after a big investment into our midfield and we have supposedly the best mid-depth ever with patent weaknesses at both ends.
This is not going to be fixed with any clever new positioning around the ball. The problem is the cattle on the park.

Zurharr into the ruck it is...
 
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Eerily reminiscent of a North presser right before a shock loss.
Check the Port board, they seem to know all too well when they go in favourites they generally lose.

They'd have to play worse than Adelaide for us to win this.
 
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The issue with the centre bounces is that we don't have people in there with both pace and tackling intensity. We get first hands often enough, but when we get it, we get caught. When the opposition gets it, they get out into space we can't get it back.
- Cunnington is a bull, but very very slow and can't put pressure on anyone he can't reach.
- LDU has great burst pace for an inside mid, but his defensive game/application and second efforts are very poor.
- Ziebel is currently Cunnington without the good bits.
- Higgins is not defending.
- Polec is only half-hearted defending
- Dumont is only ok defending and not quick.
- Anderson is great, but we only have one of him. No surprise we look a whole lot better when he is there.

Ironically, this is after a big investment into our midfield and we have supposedly the best mid-depth ever with patent weaknesses at both ends.
This is not going to be fixed with any clever new positioning around the ball. The problem is the cattle on the park.

Zurharr into the ruck it is...
I'm talking explicitly about positioning. I went through every centre bounce and stoppage in the Essendon game, and our mids weren't in a position to tackle even if they were quicker and had more intensity - it is a coached phenomenon and I think it's a cop out to say that it's because of a lack of pace and hunger to tackle.

Hunger doesn't mean a thing if you've been instructed to sit 5m off the pack or to maneuver goalside before the tap is even decided.

We've had much better centre bounce tackle numbers with a far slower midfield. That's because our boys were actually in position to affect the contest.
 
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I don't think it's clutching. We've seen the same players do so much better - last year against Hawks, Richmond, Sydney and so many other games, so they can't have all become rubbish so quickly.
Maybe, just maybe they played above themselves in the early part of last year - caught a few teams off guard? Just a thought.

Then if you add the withdrawal of Daw, Jacobs, W80 then we are now at our natural level.

Add in some poor coaching and poor preparation for the season and we are where we are.
 
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Just on Atley, i still remember watching his TAC cup highlights thinking this kids got a bit of Chris Judd about him in the way he could shrug a tackle and burst away from a stoppage.

Then he met Scotts
Welcome to the flanks, Shaun!

Seriously, we've even seen it this year: he does his best in the packs. He has never been allowed to just hunt the ****ing footy, because we've always had Cunnington and Swallow, or Cunnington and Ziebell, or Cunnington and Anderson, and we're afraid that it'll mess with our balance.

As a result, one of the few players that came to us who is genuinely quick AND competent on the inside has been shipped off to lockdown and occasional running defender.
 
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"We had a really good session during the week, it's our first seven-day break in a while so we got an opportunity to put some quality work into the players, and physically they're in better condition," Scott told reporters on Thursday. ......... it’s round 6 what did they do in their 6 months off ??
 

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Welcome to the flanks, Shaun!

Seriously, we've even seen it this year: he does his best in the packs. He has never been allowed to just hunt the ****ing footy, because we've always had Cunnington and Swallow, or Cunnington and Ziebell, or Cunnington and Anderson, and we're afraid that it'll mess with our balance.

As a result, one of the few players that came to us who is genuinely quick AND competent on the inside has been shipped off to lockdown and occasional running defender.
Other than hitting BbB on that lead, he cant kick over a jam tin and couldnt hit a big red ****in barn! His skills are a liability! Yep, quick as lightning and can win the ball, but he trips over his own feet! Just our luck!
 
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Other than hitting BbB on that lead, he cant kick over a jam tin and couldnt hit a big red ****in barn! His skills are a liability! Yep, quick as lightning and can win the ball, but he trips over his own feet! Just our luck!
I distinctly remember him kicking a goal from 50m in one of his early games at Subi. I remember thinking how great it was seeing no. 18 kick a long bomb from 50.
 
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Makes me sick watching Collingwood carry out our same/similar game plan - it’s just so easy for them.

Why is this so damn hard for us.
Is it the same? Lot fewer backwards handball and headless chooks. Also Collingwood seem to have two distinct options chip it around, and move it fast. We must have the least uncontested marks in the league.
 
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