The day after....some perspective

[Snoop Dog]

Positives

Its clear to me that Sidebottom, Beams, Wellingham and most importantly Dale Thomas have shown some really good improvement. Obrien is in that bracket as well so its great to see that we are moving to 22 really good players. Yesterdays game for Reid will be important as well. Meddy has also bounced back well and looks like he will have a good year but he must lead and not go body on body all the time.

Negatives

Our big blokes - Fraser, Jolly, Cloke and ANthony are struggling.

I am a Cloke fan and can forgive last year for all the crap he went thru. And yes its only Rd 2 and in the first game he was ok and was in a structure that kicked 20 goals. Yesterday was very average. 6 marks for the day (3 cont) but didnt provide any lead up thru the middle. And all this against an opponent he should have belted.

Jolly - Clearly will get better but needs to. Am up here in Sydney so see a bit of him. I think he has played his 2 worst games in the last 6 yrs for us. Looks slow and is getting outmuscled.

Fraser - Important year for him and whilst I cant see both he and Cloke going if this continues I suspect will find himself in magoos shortly. Has been slightly better than Jolly in both games so wont be dropped.

Anthony - Very average. Not leading into space, not providing a contest at times and doing dumb stuff. His spot must be in danger.

What needs to happen

Give them another week. The first week was super and you have to back them in. In saying that I think all bar Jolly are a whisker away from being swapped with Dawes.

 

[Magnus the Magpie]

Perspective eh?

Well, my hangover is definitely now causing me more grief than our inept performance yesterday. Does that count?

btw - it's a bit unfair to lay it all on our tall forwards when we move the ball as poorly as we did yesterday. Until our players are given some license to take the ball down the centre - even at the inevitable cost of a turnover or two - we will struggle against sides with a disciplined zone. Melbourne, to their credit, locked us in very nicely yesterday. It seems that whenever we are really under the pump we revert to that safety-first, slow movement, round the boundary rubbish.

 

[HFF]

Definitely need some perspective.

Sure, it was terrible from our behalf. We simply "didn't turn up" and thought it would "just happen". Full credit to Melb though.

However, I've been listening to talkback and other supporters' "frustration", if you will, suggesting things like "Ball needs to be dropped because he is holding us back, ditto Lockyer", "Anthony/Cloke need to go to the VFL" etc.

Firstly, I honestly don't know what Jack/Cloke could have done yesterday when we were smacked at every clearance and moved the ball as poorly as we have ever done. Calls to drop Jack for Dawes are outrageous. This bloke is our FF and has kicked more goals to date than any other promising young key forward i.e. Tippett (who is hailed as a megastar) in less games too. Sure, he needs to lift but when you do not drop key players as easily as that. As funny as it sounds, he kicked more goals than any other "key-forward" on the ground yesterday lol.

We need to start using Trav better. At one stage, he had McDonald on him. In two consecutive contests, he beat him one-on-one for strength, kicked one goal from 50 and had the other taken away from due to the blood rule. My point here is, if teams want to play a "running defender" on Cloke, we need to push him to FF because he can exploit them for strength. On the flipside, we move him to CHF if he has a natural defender on him that may struggle to go with him on the long searching leads.

The midfield was the biggest concern. No intensity, no effort, no pressure, no tackles that stuck! Everyone needs to take the blame and heat. IMO, what we are suffering from at the moment, is our centre-square/stoppage set-ups. Last year, we didn't have a dominant ruckman and therefore setup more defensive and sharked opposition taps. Now, that we have a great tap ruckman, we operate more offensively at stoppages, however, the problem is, Jolly isn't winning them or if he is, they aren't going to our advantage and therefore, we are exposed the other way which happened all day yesterday. We need to start getting this right asap.

Heath Shaw needs to be singled out also in front of the entire group. Leadership group member now and talked up future captain, his efforts were atrocious. Played Petterd no respect, was far too loose and refused to go anywhere near him. Was worst-on-ground and he needs to really smarten up because all day he expected others to "do it for him". Was bitterly disappointing watching his efforts yesterday.

Lastly, the "full-press zone". Gee, this was ugly to watch. Worked brilliantly last week at times vs the Dogs but when you do not remain "accountable" and do not apply the correct pressure, it falls apart far too easily as it did yesterday. Too many times the Dees ran it out from deep in defence, to deep in attack without us touching it or being anywhere near it. In pressure situations when the game is in the balance, we need to revert to our "infamous" man-on-man footy. It is the most basic and easy way to stem the flow and gain control of the game again by beating direct opponents.

I have no doubt Mick will be seething and the boys will feel it all week. They will come out breathing fire vs the Saints as they will want to make amends for this piss-poor outing.

Major positive is "we stole 4 points" and the encouraging/desperate efforts in crucial moments/times of Rusty, Beams and Thomas IMO.

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

If someone had said to me prior to the season starting, will you take two wins from two games with one of those wins being by a point, I would have gladly said, yes please.

 

[Pie eyed]

2 down 20 to go, anyway we can get em.

 

[TradeDraft]

agree with DaleThomas13 as our Clearnce Work at Stoppages still Sucks

 

[you idiot sheehan]

I think we are over reacting a tad.

We had a very tough game the week before both mentally and physically, and no matter what anyone says, it clearly has an effect on your performance the next week.

We were clearly down and they were good. During the first half I was annoyed that we weren't playing well and not getting on top like we were supposed to. By three quarter time it was pretty obvious we were in one hell of a fight and I was quite prepared to take the 4 points any way they came. Let's not talk down Melbourne. We would have beaten many other sides by bigger margins yesterday. They simply didn't allow us to play our best, and because we were all down we couldn't get on top of them like we thought would eventually happen.

Look at the positives - a good dozen players were down but we willed ourselves to win in the end. It was three bursts; one early in the 2nd qtr, one late in the 3rd, and one late in the last qtr that won us the game. For the remainer 90% of the game they were clearly a better side than us.

It's only round 2 and we're 2-0. Let's take it. We've seen some of our best and some of our worst already and we're still 2-0. We'll see a lot less of our worst and a lot more of our best as the year progresses.

Certain players have to lift but how good are we going to be when they do. Lay off Ball for a start - I can't believe the criticism he's attracting. He was not our worst. The game I watched yesterday I saw him in and under the packs more often than not, and he got a couple of important clearances that resulted in goals at crucial moments. He's not flashy but that's not why we got him. I'm sure he'll lift. Same goes for Didak - he was down yesterday but not through lack of effort.

Who knows, I reckon the game yesterday could be used as a defining moment by the players as the year goes on. If Melbourne had played poorly and we'd still played the same, it would have been a 6-10 goal margin and it wouldn't have done us any good. It's an absolute wake up call that only 100% team efforts are going to get them anywhere this year. Bring on the Saints.

 

[rose jam]

In 2002, we were 1-3 after 4 rounds and just came off a shocking Friday night loss to a really poor Carlton side - probably the only good game Corey McKernan played for those fools.
So, we're 2-0 and just put that in the bank and move ahead.

Weren't we 3-5 last year?