Failure must not ever be tolerated.
Essendon have done us a huge favour and highlighted are short comings early enough in the season for us to do something about them.
These failings will come as no surprise to most of you are they are the same ones that have been bugging us, although there are a few new ones thrown in.
Cop this lot:
To analyse this game, only look at it until half time - everything after that is effectively junk time (although Rodan was positive)
Our matchups were shockers from the start. I know I did firstly nominate Hall to run with Hird but I also thought he was meant to run with him everywhere, not just in the defensive half. As I made it out, noone picked him up in the middle and this is why we were killed there. (Along with Blumfield et al doing as they pleased) Nonetheless, the Hall punt didn't work and we probably should have gone with Torney from the start. As long as we learn from that one.
Fiora on Barnard was immediately obvious as being bad - honestly PB is probably twice as wide as Fiora and always was going to be too strong. AK was a more obvious selection.
Bowden should have been told to get into the thick of it instead of doing God knows what.
We still have too many flashy, flanking types and not enough grunts in the middle. We were thrashed in this aspect by Collingwood last week - what hope were we to have against Essendon? We have got to get players who can win the ball in tight and tough. Campbell just can't hack it here.
I really want to see the likes of Poyas and Coughlan brought on in this regard. Both are about 6'2" and are about 90+ kgs. Big enough not to get pushed around like we have been in the last two weeks.
What the hell is Rory Hilton doing? He has a bit more beef about him than the likes of King, Tiva, Fiora and Bowden but seems to want to play as a flashy outside type. He should be an inside grunt. This too applies to Rogers.
Get in and get the hard ball or f*** off!
What I noticed last week against Collingwood is even though we apparently are more beefed up
we nonetheless appeared much smaller (in terms of muscle mass) than the Pies. This too was evident tonight when we see the likes of Mercuri just push his way past without us even troubling him.
This comes back to my favourite gripe - get some more big-bodied grunts in there and less feather weighted fairies.
Our skills under pressure were abysmal. This seemed to be as a consequence though of an inferior workrate. Did you notice how we seemed to have no time at all while Essendon had space galore?
I watched the patterns of play to work out why this was so.
When the ball was in a stop play situation, Essendon packed numbers tight around the ball. Once it became apparent that they at least had a better than even chance of winning the ball, they all scattered in every direction, running into the ample space. We did not work hard enough running with them in this regard. Therefore they were able to push the ball away with comparative ease.
If we - on the rare occasions - actually won possession of the ball, the Bombers kept the numbers tight, denying us any free space to move the ball.
When this happened, we didn't have enough players moving in to help the ball carrier or moving out to provide options (those that did were covered by Essendon players who were doing what we should have been). As a result, we were forced to often head to the refuge of the boundary.
Ever watch the Kangaroos play football? What would they do in that situation?
They would crash and bash there way out of it. They player with the ball belts it as far forward as he can and they have numbers run hard to force a contest where the ball lands. They are so good at this that they win the ball again more often than not.
This is ironic, as it is the style of play that Pagan copied of Tom Hafey. We should be looking at the Kangaroos to see how we should be improving ourselves.
Essendon have done us a huge favour and highlighted are short comings early enough in the season for us to do something about them.
These failings will come as no surprise to most of you are they are the same ones that have been bugging us, although there are a few new ones thrown in.
Cop this lot:
To analyse this game, only look at it until half time - everything after that is effectively junk time (although Rodan was positive)
Our matchups were shockers from the start. I know I did firstly nominate Hall to run with Hird but I also thought he was meant to run with him everywhere, not just in the defensive half. As I made it out, noone picked him up in the middle and this is why we were killed there. (Along with Blumfield et al doing as they pleased) Nonetheless, the Hall punt didn't work and we probably should have gone with Torney from the start. As long as we learn from that one.
Fiora on Barnard was immediately obvious as being bad - honestly PB is probably twice as wide as Fiora and always was going to be too strong. AK was a more obvious selection.
Bowden should have been told to get into the thick of it instead of doing God knows what.
We still have too many flashy, flanking types and not enough grunts in the middle. We were thrashed in this aspect by Collingwood last week - what hope were we to have against Essendon? We have got to get players who can win the ball in tight and tough. Campbell just can't hack it here.
I really want to see the likes of Poyas and Coughlan brought on in this regard. Both are about 6'2" and are about 90+ kgs. Big enough not to get pushed around like we have been in the last two weeks.
What the hell is Rory Hilton doing? He has a bit more beef about him than the likes of King, Tiva, Fiora and Bowden but seems to want to play as a flashy outside type. He should be an inside grunt. This too applies to Rogers.
Get in and get the hard ball or f*** off!
What I noticed last week against Collingwood is even though we apparently are more beefed up
we nonetheless appeared much smaller (in terms of muscle mass) than the Pies. This too was evident tonight when we see the likes of Mercuri just push his way past without us even troubling him.This comes back to my favourite gripe - get some more big-bodied grunts in there and less feather weighted fairies.
Our skills under pressure were abysmal. This seemed to be as a consequence though of an inferior workrate. Did you notice how we seemed to have no time at all while Essendon had space galore?
I watched the patterns of play to work out why this was so.
When the ball was in a stop play situation, Essendon packed numbers tight around the ball. Once it became apparent that they at least had a better than even chance of winning the ball, they all scattered in every direction, running into the ample space. We did not work hard enough running with them in this regard. Therefore they were able to push the ball away with comparative ease.
If we - on the rare occasions - actually won possession of the ball, the Bombers kept the numbers tight, denying us any free space to move the ball.
When this happened, we didn't have enough players moving in to help the ball carrier or moving out to provide options (those that did were covered by Essendon players who were doing what we should have been). As a result, we were forced to often head to the refuge of the boundary.
Ever watch the Kangaroos play football? What would they do in that situation?
They would crash and bash there way out of it. They player with the ball belts it as far forward as he can and they have numbers run hard to force a contest where the ball lands. They are so good at this that they win the ball again more often than not.
This is ironic, as it is the style of play that Pagan copied of Tom Hafey. We should be looking at the Kangaroos to see how we should be improving ourselves.
