No Oppo Supporters The Melt Thread

[westy1]

one word sums it up for me
Complacency
can be fixed ,its not the end of the world

 

[Sweetback]

You'd think that. But we have a bad record in these games.

We won two and lost one for Sunday away games last year at the same time.

 

[imperial_oz]

Bit too level headed and analytical for the melt thread I reckon

Card him for not acting appropriately in a melt thread

 

[Righteo]

Card him for not acting appropriately in a melt thread

I was sorely tempted but ultimately as a follow optimist I felt some compassion

 

[Admiral Byng]

We won two and lost one for Sunday away games last year at the same time.

It's an extra hour early because of DLS. I looked at the start time, and my gut reaction was we'll lose this.

 

[Borry]

I've done this for the past 5 years intensively. What's a really good alternative Winter hobby?

I love Freo and will still follow them fervently.

But up here in Darwin Im finding the NRL and A League more fun to follow.

With the AFL you have to put up with whiney and obnoxious Victorians, South Australians and locals who just want to start arguments and even fights all the time you mention the team you support.

With NRL there's a lot of light hearted banter with the Queenslanders and NSWelshmen thays quite enjoyable and more sensible discussion. And are quite fun too with AFL discussion.

As I said Freo will still be passionately followed by me, but some people especially certain southerners in this town can go and get ****ed with their drunken insular shit with regards to Aussie rules.

 

[Purple Giant]

I had my meltdown during the game from the third tier.

I went to the game by myself, and Bulldog fans sat all around me, so I wasn't able to meltdown; which is probably good.

I must say the Bulldogs fans are very good compared to other teams. They spent the second half debating whether Tom Boyd should go back to the VFL to work on his skills. That was until he kicked a goal and did some good things.

We certainly can't play any worse than that next week.

 

[Sweetback]

It's an extra hour early because of DLS. I looked at the start time, and my gut reaction was we'll lose this.

I can't buy that an extra hour of daylight savings on top of the two hours time difference would make that much of a difference to a side that's slept in Melbourne for two nights. Even if their body clocks thought it was 10am, they train in WA earlier than that.

 

[Unique Name]

Would love to know how Ross was behind closed doors after the game. He said he struggled with his new 'coaching from a distance' ethos after the Mt Barker game and we won that one!

 

[MadDocker]

We certainly can't play any worse than that next week.

Why oh why would you issue them this challenge?

I hope they don't prove you wrong.

 

[Sweetback]

I went to the game by myself, and Bulldog fans sat all around me, so I wasn't able to meltdown; which is probably good.

I must say the Bulldogs fans are very good compared to other teams. They spent the second half debating whether Tom Boyd should go back to the VFL to work on his skills. That was until he kicked a goal and did some good things.

We certainly can't play any worse than that next week.

They're certainly not the worse fans. I live in the West of Melbourne so have a soft spot for the doggies. I'm even going to follow Footscray in the VFL. At the height of my despair today I had a bitchy thought about how many people in the crowd made the most of the free tickets. Even then it seemed a bit thin.

 

[Purple Giant]

Why oh why would you issue them this challenge?

I hope they don't prove you wrong.

Trust me it's not a challenge. We were terrible, and can only be better.

 

[The Anchorite]

Dunno why people at potting the forwards and the usual scapegoats, this rot started from the head. Our mids got smashed in contested ball, including our new captain. No Sandi and they were chasing tail all day.

 

[Purple Giant]

They're certainly not the worse fans. I live in the West of Melbourne so have a soft spot for the doggies. I'm even going to follow Footscray in the VFL. At the height of my despair today I had a bitchy thought about how many people in the crowd made the most of the free tickets. Even then it seemed a bit thin.

I used my free ticket, but I thought that it was strange when I saw all these feral Collingwood fans bragging about getting free tickets. The stadium still felt very empty in spots, (as you mentioned) level three was pretty packed though.

 

[pavslovechild]

As an aside, if the Bulldogs don't get another 10 thousand members based on the commentary team today, then they didn't do their job.

 

[Freo95]

Well it looks like we will be on the bottom of the ladder after round 1.

 

[Sweetback]

I used my free ticket, but I thought that it was strange when I saw all these feral Collingwood fans bragging about getting free tickets. The stadium still felt very empty in spots, level three was pretty packed though.

Yep, no shortage of Freo fans.

 

[Dirty_banchez]

Honestly as far as games go this was one of the worst games I have ever seen Freo play. Never in my life have I seen so many players make so many fundamental skill errors. The skill errors were committed by everyone, not just the usual suspects but everyone.

Whilst this is a great opportunity to banish the usual suspects to Peel for footy rehab, the real blame should be pointed straight at the coaches. For whatever reason the players were not mentally switched on from the first bounce. This is clearly a preparation issue and I refuse to believe the entire team did not prepare as instructed.

Today's game is what happens when you have a failure at the coaching level, and the playing level.

 

[Dirty_banchez]

Well it looks like we will be on the bottom of the ladder after round 1.

Time to tank for Seton.

 

[Moist Biscuit]

Today really showed how reliant we are on Sandi.

 

[wayToGo_]

Not sure how I feel about today's performance:

a) That would have to be the biggest !*$*! @#(! !*@*#! !#* !#*! %!%@ !*$*! @#(! !*@*#!. I have no idea what we were doing out there but !#* !#*! %!%@ !*$*! @#(! !*@*#! !#* !#*! %!%@ !*$*! @#(! !!#* !#*! %! *@*#! %@ !*$*! !#* !#*! @#(! %!%@ !*$*! Next week we had better @#(! !*@#(! !#*! @%@ !*$*! *#! !#* %! !*@*#! !#* or else I am going to !#*! %!%@ !*$*! @#(! !*@*# someone. Our midfielders need to have a !#*! %!%@ !*$*! @#(! !*@*#! !#* !#*! %!%@ look at themselves over the next fortnight or *@*#! !#* !#*! %!%@ !*$*! otherwise %!%@ !*$*! @#(! !*@*#! !#* !

b) Meh, it's round 1.

c) So the positives from today were... um... um... get back to you.

d) All of the above.

 

[Noobrifle]

It's kind of pointless trying to blame individual players when the biggest issue seems to be the game plan itself. Our transition football and spread is terrible, and we lack the ability to work together to create space, leads or run the ball.

The contrast between when we had the ball to when the bulldogs had the ball was incredible. We were 10-15 metres off our players, chasing but ineffectively applying pressure throughout much of the game. Yet when we had the ball, our players were tightly manned up and constantly under pressure. That isn't about turnovers killing us, it's structural.

Players are so afraid of making a mistake and not playing to the system that they become virtually paralysed; unable to take the game on or play creatively. Instead they stop, pause for an eternity trying to wait for an option to magically appear out of thin air, then chip a slow loopy kick backwards. Our skillful, fast and agile players such as Hill, Pearce and Walters did nothing all game, and seemed to have the energy sapped from them.

Yes our skills were awful, but it is as much the fault of poor positioning and structure than the kicker themselves. The team clearly lacks confidence as to how they are moving the ball. It's 90% slow chip kicks along the wings. The optimist in me would like to hope that the struggles were due to us trying to adapt to a new game plan. The pessimist (nay dockers fan), in me sees the same struggles we've been trying to overcome in the past 18 months.

The entire team appears to have no confidence in themselves, each other or the game plan at the moment. As much as everyone loves to harp on about the poor quality of our fringe players and our lack of playing youth, it was our so called A-graders who let us down today. Fyfe, Mundy, Pavlich, Hill, Walters are the guys that win our lose us games, not Clancee, Mzungu or Suban.

That being said, the lack of playing youth is symbolic of our malaise; we refuse to change our game plan and system to adapt to where the game is heading. Perhaps we're waiting for all the spark and creativity to be drummed out of the younger players as they're moulded to the system, ala Crozier, Sutcliffe, Mayne etc.

Still, the biggest worry is the fitness and form of Fyfe, who almost single-handedly beast moded us to across the line last year.

 

[scon]

Knocked the top off a 38 year old bottle of bombo with lunch,after the game.
Luverly drop.
We'll be back.

 

[meima]

d) All of the above.

You forget our top 8 performance stats

 

[Caldera]

The manner of the loss is what hurts for me. It's accepted that we need a better gameplan, but today I didn't see anything that gave optimism on that front. The dogs absolutely owned the corridor - it's not like our turnovers came from attempting a run and gun approach to the game. We looked stagnant, forced to kick wide where it was inevitably coughed up. Frustrating as hell.