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Review Showdown 59

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To lose 3 games by under a kick this year is concerning in that I don't want it becoming a trend.

The best teams win the close matches.

They didn't lose this because of a lack of effort - they lost it because of a lack of application in the final minute. Sweet moronically hacking the ball forward into space as opposed to keeping the ball close in congestion, despite having Ollie and Drew - two of the biggest plodders in the centre square chasing the ball. Ollie of course doesn't get to it first, stupidly gives away the free. Then Bergman foolishly handballs instead of taking the tackle and forcing a ball up, Butters the same except he kicked it into space.

4 experienced players making boneheaded decisions when it was truly there to be won is extremely concerning no matter how you want to slice the rest of the game up.

On a positive note, great to see Whitlock, Berry and Moraes key parts of the fourth quarter comeback.

I truly believe this team is better than its record, but when you look at the actions of the vets last night late on, maybe I'm wrong about that.
The best teams that win those close ones also had to lose them at some point. We were shit in close ones for years then became good at them in 2023/24. Just hope Carr teaches them the right way and they learn.
 
I thought it was a great game except that we stupidly lost the game late. The game was played on the Cows terms and there wasn't a lot of flashy play by us but we looked very good from defence.

Great to play four quarters.
Great to not get a lot of ball forward but still compete and be efficient.
We could've kicked on early in the third but we kicked a lot of points. They ascended as our intensity dropped slightly but enough for the Cows to punish us. Sweet and Evans were culprits.

If Butters and the Hornet aren't firing, we struggle a bit. I'd love another talented mid in there.
When Sweet is down, we struggle.

The backline looked really good but it was one of those games where it was tight the ball coming in to the backline was not clean. Ditto the other way, the Cows backline cleaned up a lot.

We had a fair whack of guys not doing a lot like Marshall, Wehr, Mackinlay, Richards, Visentini, Moraes.

Their goals were more chaotic or off mistakes by us.
A lot of our goals were champagne football.
When they really upped the pressure, we could've go with them.

In the end, we went as close as could be and very unlucky to not win and still have huge amounts of improving to do.

THE GOOD

Aliir was magnificent.
The entire backline was exceptional. Aliir, Bergman, Byrne-Jones, Lai, Jones all excellent defensively.
Butters was good albeit a bit off target.
The Hornet was good but only got 20 touches
Wines good enough.
Mitch dominating on the lead.
Whitlock and Berry bobbing up late.
We played four quarters.
Wehr most metres gained on the wing
Berry taking too much on.

THE AVERAGE

No B grader stepping up apart from defence. Burgoyne, Farrell types.
Drew average as usual.
Sweet good and bad stuff. He just can't maintain intensity for four quarters.
Struggling with crumbing goals.
Mistakes were costly.

THE UGLY

We seemed to be beaten in GBGs
Mitch's kicking for goal is now officially a concern.
Sweet not killing the ball with that last centre bounce. Lost the game for us.
Marshall was hideous in defence. When they went to his man, Murray he kicked two goals.
Wehr getting outwinged by Cook and all of his kicking metres coming straight back.
Richards, Mackinlay, Wehr without class.
Giving it to Peatling after the Berry goal with 40 seconds left in the game.
Is it just me or it is impossible for Wines to stretch for the ball at all? He seems to struggle to extend for the ball hence that missed kick with the ball on the deck at the end of the game. Terrible play.

PLAY OF THE DAY

Marshall in defence kicks out, finds Jones in the pocket who kicks perfectly to Bergman who finds Drew. Drew kicks badly to a streaming Butters who halves the contest and takes possession to find Hornet who kicks to Whitlock on the boundary who lowers his eyes to find Durdin who marks and goals.
 
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To lose 3 games by under a kick this year is concerning in that I don't want it becoming a trend.
This is what bothers me when others are talking about it being good for our drafting prospects.
 
I thought it was a great game except that we stupidly lost the game late. The game was played on the Cows terms and there wasn't a lot of flashy play by us but we looked very good from defence.

Great to play four quarters.
Great to not get a lot of ball forward but still compete and be efficient.
We could've kicked on early in the third but we kicked a lot of points. They ascended as our intensity dropped slightly but enough for the Cows to punish us. Sweet and Evans were culprits.

If Butters and the Hornet aren't firing, we struggle a bit. I'd love another talented mid in there.
When Sweet is down, we struggle.

The backline looked really good but it was one of those games where it was tight the ball coming in to the backline was not clean. Ditto the other way, the Cows backline cleaned up a lot.

We had a fair whack of guys not doing a lot like Marshall, Wehr, Mackinlay, Richards, Visentini, Moraes.

Their goals were more chaotic or off mistakes by us.
A lot of our goals were champagne football.
When they really upped the pressure, we could've go with them.

In the end, we went as close as could be and very unlucky to not win and still have huge amounts of improving to do.

THE GOOD

Aliir was magnificent.
The entire backline was exceptional. Aliir, Bergman, Byrne-Jones, Lai, Jones all excellent defensively.
Butters was good albeit a bit off target.
The Hornet was good but only got 20 touches
Wines good enough.
Mitch dominating on the lead.
Whitlock and Berry bobbing up late.
We played four quarters.
Wehr most metres gained on the wing
Berry taking too much on.

THE AVERAGE

No B grader stepping up apart from defence. Burgoyne, Farrell types.
Drew average as usual.
Sweet good and bad stuff. He just can't maintain intensity for four quarters.
Struggling with crumbing goals.
Mistakes were costly.

THE UGLY

We seemed to be beaten in GBGs
Mitch's kicking for goal is now officially a concern.
Sweet not killing the ball with that last centre bounce. Lost the game for us.
Marshall was hideous in defence. When they went to his man, Murray he kicked two goals.
Wehr getting outwinged by Cook and all of his kicking metres coming straight back.
Richards, Mackinlay, Wehr without class.
Giving it to Peatling after the Berry goal with 40 seconds left in the game.

PLAY OF THE DAY

Marshall in defence kicks out, finds Jones in the pocket who kicks perfectly to Bergman who finds Drew. Drew kicks badly to a streaming Butters who halves the contest and takes possession to find Hornet who kicks to Whitlock on the boundary who lowers his eyes to find Durdin who marks and goals.
Do we a have a specialist goal kicking coach yet? although i don't think we should panic about MG missing goals just yet, what concerns me is kicking the crucial goal under pressure to ice a game.
 
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I'm trying to stay positive and upbeat about our future, yeah i hate losing especially to those flogs but at the same time this is what Carr has inherited from selfish Ken.
I like that we now play for the club and supporters, not a selfish coach trying to save his job year after year.
If we had won by a few points can be like papering over the cracks sometimes, at least now the coaching panel will be forced to examine crucial moments in that game where we got it wrong, especially the last minute and train to not let it happen again.

The team looks united and happy, they have stuck it out in these close games, last year they would have lost that game by more as soon as the pressure was applied to them
I’m pretty sure that Josh wouldn’t have just seen it as ‘job done’ if we had won by those few points.
 
Results this year don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, we just need to see improvement and ability to execute our gameplan under immense pressure. We lost the game when their pressure rating was 248 in the third quarter and they kicked 5 goals on us. If we can manage to execute under pressure then we will comfortably win games like these.
 
I wish he was average. He was rated as our second worst player on the ground behind Moraes.
I don't think he was that bad but somewhere in between.

He dropped that mark in the middle that resulted in the Pedlar goal which we would've probably scored.
He also ran from centre clearance and kicked poorly into the F50.
 

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That last 40 seconds was a microcosm of what Carr said about the last quarter against St Kilda - we went for the quick kill instead of sticking to the game and grinding it out. Then we lost our shape at that last play. Durdin's copped some flak for not sticking that last tackle but he tackled like a maniac all night. Who was on Cook for that last kick? How does he get on his own like that? How many set shots on goal did Georgie miss again? As Rick said, you can pick moments anywhere in a 1 point loss.

We had 356 disposals to their 339, so we found plenty of ball. After the first quarter their pressure rating was over 200 for most of the last 3 quarters. That's finals intensity but we stuck with them. Yes it was a messy game, pressure does that.

We won hitouts, centre clearances and stoppage clearances, our top 4 mids had 100 disposals between them. Our midfield didn't go missing, we just didn't execute the game plan well enough across the ground at critical times and let them get on top.

We lost contested possessions 150 to 143 but we were 21 above our season average - they were 13 above theirs.

We took 103 marks to their 78, we took 12 marks inside 50 against a defence that normally smothers us to their 8. We took 16 contested marks to 10.

This year was always going to be about improvement and bedding down a gameplan that can win anywhere. We know the list needs work, after all it's full of list cloggers and has no depth according to some. But we are improving and the game plan is robust. We've played 3 of the top 4 teams in the past 3 weeks - had 2 losses less than 1 goal and a 30 point win (that should have been 60).

Looking forward to continued development.

I don’t know Ford, I think statistics can be somewhat misleading at times. A lot of our possessions, particularly in the 1st half, were lateral kicks across our back half. I don’t mind the patient buildup if it leads to some fast flowing ball movement, but it looked overly static last night. We managed to get a few chains going in the last quarter when the Crows were beginning to fatigue, but it was a hard watch at times.

Needed a lot more run & carry from Farrell, Burgoyne, Richards, Moraes & Mackinlay who all struggled on the night. Wehr managed 528 metres gained, but he wasn’t particularly damaging & offers very little defensively.

The Inside 50s Crows 59 v Port 39 is a good indication of the Crows dominance for most of the contest. If it wasn’t for AAs heroics down back, the game would have been over much earlier.
 
Did anyone actually think we'd hold on? We were always going to do something dumb in the last 30 seconds to lose the unlosable with everything in our favour because that's what we do.

I looked at the clock thinking: “45 seconds is a lot of time…”

I hold celebration after the goal.
 
Hard to take a one point loss , at least we couldn’t blame the umps , with these ones we would’ve beaten the Hawks and the Saints at the very least .
I think JHF hurt his back early third quarter which diminished his influence .
Was impressed with Allir , Wines , Sweet , while Marshall was pretty invisible , Durdin , although he earned his spot with two goals also fumbled a bit in close , Berry missed some in close chances from being too left side dominant , Wehr was scratchy and didn’t do it right when he did get the ball .
Good tough game and in the main we played well with a good game plan , just lacked a little from our bottom end and young players.
Future looks reasonably bright if we bolster the list a little , if Butters stays I’d say back to the finals next year
 
I actually don't think tonight was a case of being mentally weak at all. We actually came back when challenged. Tonight was a lot of skill execution errors and giving them way too much latitude out the back of the contest. We set up one way and that was for us to win it on the inside and when we didn't they had too much free space. Their disposals were only mildly better than ours in the end when it counted. Both teams had some really poor execution
I agree, we are not mentally weak.
The boys play the entire game and don't go to sleep like they did under Hinkley.
However, a fair few of our players are stupid and have low football IQs.
 
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Why are most people on here so positive and not p!ssed off? I seriously don't understand it, I barely got any sleep.

One can be positive and pissed off. Reason v. Emotion.
 
Why are most people on here so positive and not p!ssed off? I seriously don't understand it, I barely got any sleep.
Yeah normally i wouldn't want to see daylight but I'm trying to keep things in perspective, Carr is still sorting out his game plan and getting the players on board, also retraining their brains from the soft aporoach of Stinkers.
Josh will be learning and taking note of which players stand up when it counts.
 
Couldn't beat them without 6 best 22 players off a 5 day break and 2 rotations down for 3 quarters. I wouldn't hold your breath. Their shit midfield seem to beat out overhyped mids everytime.
Stop talking shit Crom.
As usual you make things up to suit your pathetic narrative. Jog on you tosser.
 
Watched the last 2 minutes again (result didn't change), I think Sweet was the only one who thought punching the ball forward was the agreed play at the bounce.

The free to Rankine was soft, all players reaching up for a ball at head height, the contact was incidental.

Even the Durdin tackle wasn't bad, he hung on for dear life but Milera flung it out and Wehr was in no man's land kind of heading in but not helping and left Cook too much room and he kicks one with the outside of the right boot that floats through.
 

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