Autopsy Round 8, 2021: Hawks stretched by Eagles

[blockman155]

Still haven’t quite got the right balance in the team yet. With our game style at the moment we have 2-3 talls going at one long ball in and not enough around the contest to lock the ball in. It’s pretty much kick to pack and watch as they clear it with ease.

 

[hamohawk1]

Pretty much as expected.

Thought Hartigan did enough to stay in the team.

I know it was his 50th, but f*ck me Harry is as soft as butter.

 

[Gaston]

Jeez that was painful to watch.

Obviously we don't have the pieces RN but not keen on this damage mitigation style. Do wonder what's best for our future either 1) playing with more freedom and getting belted or 2) continue block it up and maybe run teams a bit closer on the scoreboard

Interesting to hear David Noble yesterday, said winning wasn't the message being driven to the players.
It was more about the process they have started, learn and develop with that process and the wins
will start to come.

Internally, I wonder what the message is at Hawthorn?

 

[VandoHawk]

Article on Hawthorn website titled 'Eagles too good for young Hawks'. I know we had some younger lads out there but I found it funny given we brought in Howe, Hartley & Wingard

 

[PT Bar None]

Hmmm.

Liked seeing Scrimmers in the middle in the last. That's the sort of s**t we need to be trying out this year. Something different than the smorgasboard of mushmouth style kicking.
We execute so many skills poorly. Even uncontested handpasses. So frustrating. Makes it impossible to get anything going.
I thought Wingard was creative and dangerous all day, but doesn't get used or we don't execute or we take a dumb option. You parachute his game into one of the top 8 teams, and suddenly his game is a massive problem. But in our team nothing happens.

I'm worried about Gunston.

Why were the umpires blue, Steve?

 

[View from the nosebleed]

Well, where to start.

Forward line, I want to keep Lewis, Jeka and Kosi together, but unless we can get some small blokes around them that'll tackle, then they'll be a liability as the ball just flies out. I feel for Jeka, got reards for hard leads at VDL level, gets burnt at AFL level. Works hard, but has just managed to get himself a start in the ones when we play 2 of our worst games.

Midfield, we just continue to get flogged on the spread, so often have 2-3 go in for the footy, leaving our opposition out of the contest unmanned. Add to that the disposal is worful and we seem quicker to look sideways or back rather than forward, and you can see why we are struggling.

Defence. Just constantly under the pump. Midfield getting towelled up doesn't help. Hartigan is ok one on one, but seems a poor reader of the footy so is more reactive than proactive. CJ has been shut down the last couple of week and we've lacked that zip, though Impey working his ass off to provide it.

JOM in hopefully next week, Moore out. Howe out, Brockman in.

See what happens.

 

[RoughysMullet]

Pretty much as expected.

Thought Hartigan did enough to stay in the team.

I know it was his 50th, but f*ck me Harry is as soft as butter.

Harry had a solid preseason and started the season really well but seems to have lost confidence and gone back downhill to the point where he has no effect on games...
thought this might be the year he cemented his spot but might have to think again..

 

[matey]

Our bottom 6 sucks at the moment. We will always be a bottom 4 team if the likes of Ollie, Howe, TOB and Morrison continue to get regular games.

Having said this still believe that we have a lot to work with and add in another group of good picks in this years draft things can change quickly. Go Hawks!

 

[Simon Crawshay]

First game I got to in person, geez it was dismal at the ground today- on field and off.
Highlights:

1. woman next to me spent the game playing mobile games and texting her daughter to look at realestate . org
2. WCE kid behind me stopped screaming a few times.... a few...
3. Worpel played a good game through the middle
4. Kozi tackles a lot
5. Hanrahan bobbed up at times and did alright

Couple of things of note I saw:

1. Jeka did a lot of leading, but was often cut off by other players drifting into leading spaces. Really felt for him as he looked pretty flat because of it
2. Our field vision coming out of D50 is horrendous. Hartigan and Frost don't need to be players to try and take the game on, they need to give the balls to others to do that. The issue is they have a knack for delivering it to them when they are being lined up by players from the other team. We need to not telegraph everything we are going to do 20 seconds before we do it. That could be the biggest thing that kills us.
3. Our kicks into f50 are painfully shallow. When we do go into 50 we hit targets on the arc more than anywhere else and when we don't mark it it gives them the easiest rebound.
4. Mitchell and Shiels have gone so far backwards it's crazy. Shiels needs to be left out of the team, and Titch needs to fix his up and under kicking.

Rough viewing for sure- hard to find much learnings from it either.

I like your observation about how we telegraph our decisions 20 seconds before we do it.

Watching the game on the telly it is really stark how long our players take to make their mind up to do the most predictable option possible (long kick down the boundary line, etc)

It is almost like the opposition knows what we are going to do before we do, zero unpredictability and very easy to set up defensive structures against.

Is it a case of over coaching or just players with low footy IQ?

Not sure, but it makes for painful viewing either way.

 

[Sixpence]

 

[rei154]

I like your observation about how we telegraph our decisions 20 seconds before we do it.

Watching the game on the telly it is really stark how long our players take to make their mind up to do the most predictable option possible (long kick down the boundary line, etc)

It is almost like the opposition knows what we are going to do before we do, zero unpredictability and very easy to set up defensive structures against.

Is it a case of over coaching or just players with low footy IQ?

Not sure, but it makes for painful viewing either way.

It's super frustrating to view. We seem to do it significantly more when coming out of defensive 50 too which makes us so limp if we aren't running it out into space.
I think it's a low footy iq if I'm honest. That's not meaning to say we don't see things quicker, we just are really bad at disguising what we're going to do. I think one of our best at disguising his kicks is Hardwick- he will angle his body towards the sideline and will use his head to indicate that he's kicking to that area. When he goes for the kick he waits until the last second of his ball drop to angle the ball into the corridor and away from the big pack that has formed (usually around our ruckmen).
We need more people who can do small things like this.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

It's super frustrating to view. We seem to do it significantly more when coming out of defensive 50 too which makes us so limp if we aren't running it out into space.
I think it's a low footy iq if I'm honest. That's not meaning to say we don't see things quicker, we just are really bad at disguising what we're going to do. I think one of our best at disguising his kicks is Hardwick- he will angle his body towards the sideline and will use his head to indicate that he's kicking to that area. When he goes for the kick he waits until the last second of his ball drop to angle the ball into the corridor and away from the big pack that has formed (usually around our ruckmen).
We need more people who can do small things like this.

Its not just that we are bad at disguising what we are going to do though, its the time we take to make the decision to do the thing that we subsequently badly disguise. A double edged sword of poor play.

Watching footy this year it is more and more obvious that if you want to score you need to transition from the back half quickly to not let teams get their defensive structures in place.

We won the possession count by 19 today yet lost the inside 50 count 35 to 63 which tells me our gameplan is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (to paraphrase the immortal bard)

 

[thehardway]

Delivery into our forward line was like groundhog day. Ball goes in with either an intercept mark or a spoil that is then swept away by WC at ground level. Repeat, repeat ..... also we just don't have any spread on the outside of contests. Compound this with constant skill errors and poor decision making and there we are. Can't fault the effort tbough.

 

[killerspud]

I think that we need to go back to the "you need to be able to kick to play for Hawthorn" recruiting regime. Also if you can't kick and you find yourself in the team you need to be in the game and you need to tackle and chase and do the one percenters like there's no tomorrow because once we get kids who can kick there is no tomorrow - hopefully some of those guys will turn into good Michael Osbourne types. But we need some genuine class from somewhere and if we have money to burn lets start raiding these clubs with salary cap issues and taking their Josh Gibson's and Jack Gunston's along with grabbing a slate of new young talent and building for another serious tilt. With all due respect the Hartigan's and Hartley's of this world don't have the level needed to get us there

 

[Off The Couch]

If I’m totally honest, I’m okay with losing if it means we are at the front of the queue come draft time

 

[Viddiot]

Positive!: We aren't North Melbourne!

Back from work,
Our forward line needs work, there is very little movement there, we seem to always have the ball coming in high with our forwards all in a bunch trying to come from 3 back...together. No one there to scoop up the loose ball, and defenders just go 'bloop' for a rushed behind. How does it look live, at the ground?

We look O.K. to me in general play but we are making heaps of clangers and turnovers...like an unusually large amount. Will trawl through the posts and see what everyone thinks later.
But one thing is obvious, our problem isn't just one or two selections or individuals. Our problem is team wide. We look like a very physically immature squad. I agree with those bemoaning our skills by foot, the drop off there is so big.

 

[CHUBBSS]

The game went as expected but I really enjoyed seeing frustrated/angry clarko again. Shows his still got the fire

Might be a bit of heat for us this week...

 

[Buttonsticher]

One thing I noticed that bugs the crap out of me (Theres more than one) is a player marks or receives the ball and every player ahead of them runs away from them, nobody runs toward the player with the ball. Except when in the far fwd 50 and then standing still seems to be a perceived advantage. Also I might have mentioned this before but kicking directly to the opposition activates my colon, please stop it. Loose by 30 goals but stop assisting the process.

 

[AlwaysHawks15]

Sadly, it's just not going to get any better. We are not even at the worst of our free fall.

The club smells. Playing a sh*t brand.

Wingard is a nowhere, people defending him must forget we paid like he was an All-Australian talent. Blerg.

Just finished watching it. Wingard looks like the realisation has hit were a long way off. Playing with little passion atm. Doesnt help we play a crap brand which does not play to his strengths at all. Too often were relying on him to make something happen but he cant do it by himself. Very frustrating.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Agree with everyone saying the game went as expected. A sub 40pt loss was completely on the cards when you knew Gunston and JOM were not out there.
We just don’t bat deep enough with class anywhere on the field, unlike the Eagles who could still put out a side with NicNat, Kelly, Gaff, Darling, Kennedy and Allen.

That being said, I thought we had our moments, and I liked that we were far more dangerous going forward than in recent weeks.

Inside 50 efficiency at 57% this week.
Against the Saints we were 29%, 44% against the Crows and 34% against the Demons.

In fact, this week is by far our best output forward of centre all year.

The silver lining is that I think we improve further when Gunston, Day and JOM return.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Sadly, it's just not going to get any better. We are not even at the worst of our free fall.

The club smells. Playing a sh*t brand.

Wingard is a nowhere, people defending him must forget we paid like he was an All-Australian talent. Blerg.

You’re not that same poster who creates a new account every so often just to post about how bad you think Chad is are you?

Rhetorical question, btw.

 

[Nastyfish]

We are terrible. Strap in the for the long haul. Very few bright spots today.

 

[Linda CRS]

Congratulations on today’s positives if you believe in them, if you have the guts to call it out we are at 2005 if not worse. That’s not a bad thing if you confront it but the bullshit message from Kennett and Reeves not referring to rebuild is boring.

 

[SA HAWK]

400 possessions for 35 inside 50’s and 8 goals is s**t football whatever way you slice and dice it.

 

[eldorado]

Excruciating, but probably not wholly unexpected.

Our ability to execute is rock bottom.

How much is confidence, and trust in teammates to be where you want, and how much is individual ability? Probably hard to say, but I tend to lean towards the former...18 guys on a field means individual duels are of less significance, and the ability of the 18 man organism is of much greater importance.

But our 18 man organism is horrible to watch ATM.