Autopsy vs Eagles - Round 19

[Snake_Baker]

Our W.A. brethren are the elite "out of state" supporters of the competition.

Unfortunately, there's no quick fix, but we are turning the corner.

 

[SMaturin]

My young fella was copping it at junior footy yesterday and will again at school on Monday. He's constantly being bagged by his class mates about North. I feel guilty for causing that.

He’s a shinboner, mate.

 

[Heaps of fun]

I’m about halfway through the second and Jetta is killing us. Don’t think that happens if Turner plays.

We let him gain 700m. Almost a kilometre of the best kicks in the game. Never gonna win if you let that happen.

 

[DuckYeah]

Top 5.

So, would need to finish bottom 4 BC fold coast will be given a priority pick.. hmmmm

 

[Snake_Baker]

My young fella was copping it at junior footy yesterday and will again at school on Monday. He's constantly being bagged by his class mates about North. I feel guilty for causing that.

You know how it is scotty. When you sign on for duty with us, you get a chip to go on each shoulder. Your boy will grow up having mental resilience in a planet filling up with snowflakes.

In the meantime, P.M. a postal address to me.

 

[DuckYeah]

My young fella was copping it at junior footy yesterday and will again at school on Monday. He's constantly being bagged by his class mates about North. I feel guilty for causing that.

Get him into BJJ ...

 

[shimaburnsgrieg]

Honestly, how do you keep kids interested in North in WA (and SA)? Barely competitive when we play here (two losses by 20 goals this year) and never had open training under Brad. Has been a dire decade for WA supporters.

It's just as hard here in Vic as well to maintain interest. 10 years of mediocrity, 2 months between Melbourne games - I take the kids to the VFL just so they can get some continuity in the blue and white stripes but that wont last long.

 

[SMaturin]

Simpson will frame that whiteboard for the pool room.

They manipulated the matchups beautifully all over the ground to expose our lack of outside run, often starting from kick-ins that led to coast to coast transition.

 

[Snake_Baker]

He’s a shinboner, mate.

Yep.

It's his rite of passage.

Soft utensils don't last with us & scotty's boy will be in for the long haul.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Simpson will frame that whiteboard for the pool room.

They manipulated the matchups beautifully all over the ground to expose our lack of outside run, often starting from kick-ins that led to coast to coast transition.

He literally WAS the difference, and I am not taking anything away from Rhyce, as he was sent in to a pistol duel armed with a super soaker.

 

[scottywiper]

We were never a sniff yesterday IMO. Successive interstate games, off two narrow defeats, with the lure of f inals snatched away, and after two months of intense footy at our worst venue, and with our mids struggling in recent weeks, it shaped as a perfect storm and so it was.
If there is one thing i have learnt about playing in Perth tho, it's just to expect the worst, even when we've looked a big chance there on paper we rarely fire a shot.

 

[sutcliffe's hotel]

My young fella was copping it at junior footy yesterday and will again at school on Monday. He's constantly being bagged by his class mates about North. I feel guilty for causing that.

Yeah that is crap. My Joey is now surrounded by bragging Lions, though mitigated partly by most kids in Qld not caring about AFL.

I think the recent family footy day at Arden St where he got to see heaps of kids his age all proudly wearing the blue and white helped. He loved meeting the players, who were all awesome on the day.

I just keep thinking of sharing premiership number 5 with him & hope that is soon for all our sakes.

 

[Snake_Baker]

We were never a sniff yesterday IMO. Successive interstate games, off two narrow defeats, with the lure of f inals snatched away, and after two months of intense footy at our worst venue, and with our mids struggling in recent weeks, it shaped as a perfect storm and so it was.
If there is one thing i have learnt about playing in Perth tho, it's just to expect the worst, even when we've looked a big chance there on paper we rarely fire a shot.

They kept the ball off us and out of the congestion we required to make it a contest.

The wide expanses of that ground and their outside leg speed, combined with our underdeveloped players, comtributed to provide the perfect storm.

However, don't lose faith Scotty, Zurhaar, LDU & Thomas excite me more every time I see them play. Thommo, Jacobs, McDonald, Daw, Turner & Vickers-Willis were missing.

Bailey Scott and Will Walker will both provide outside class and speed next year.

We're not that far off mate.

 

[tazaa]

I still think the eagles played at 70% of their capabilities and we we’re way off.
We were fumbly, we lacked composure, offered no pressure around the ball carrier and on the spread and after two weeks of consecutive travel we looked dead in the mud.

I just think an 8 goal loss was as appropriate and as predictable a loss as you could get this year.

 

[Tas]

So what does Shaw do in 2020?

I was desperately hoping we would perform well against WCE without Turner and Hrovat.

Mainly because we still had Daw, McDonald, Walker, EVW, Jacobs, Thommo not in the 22.

We have the makings of a good side. One where the smaller forwards could run though the midfield as well.

At the risk of repeating some of the commentary LDU, Ahern, Zurhaar, Simpkin, Thomas need to have about 4 sets of runners preseason.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Higgins reminds me a bit of Wells, not sure he copes well with niggles, he was injured most of the pre-season, came out flat as a pancake and outside of a handful of performances he has been struggling to have impact. He is getting his hands on the ball but he isn't really breaking the game open or having the impact he was last year. He is 31 now so we have to expect a decline, question is how much of a decline and how rapidly, he will be difficult to replace especially when we keep turning midfielders with promise into half back flankers.

We are far too reliant on the Goldstein -> Cunnington combination, it makes us predictable at stoppages and if the opposition has a decent matchup for Ben then we do not adjust to utilise other midfielders near enough, we need a wider spread of clearances.

For example, West Coast have
Naitanui 6.7
Shuey 6.5
Yeo 6.1
Sheed 5.6
Gaff 4.5
Hickey 4.4
Redden 4.0

We have
Cunnington 7.5
Anderson 4.0
Higgins 4.0
Simpkin 3.7
Goldstein 3.6
Ziebell 3.3
Dumont 2.0

Top 7 average is 37.8 vs 28.1 and their distribution is a lot more even, you can't really tag one of them to stop clearances because their ruckmen have a much greater impact, but they are drilled to go for the best option rather just down to one player over and over.

A huge issue we have is the tank. Time on ground averages for our midfield:
Cunnington 78.5%
Anderson 70.0%
Higgins 78.9%
Simpkin 76.0%
Goldstein 87.8%
Ziebell 85.7%
Dumont 88.0%

The first four are extremely low numbers and these are the guys we are heavily reliant on for clearances.

It isn't all doom n' gloom, Anderson has played 61 games, Dumont 78, Simpkin 52 plus guys that will be part of the future midfield (hopefully) in LDU 20 games (20 years old), Ahern 16 games (22 years old), Scott 4 games (19 years old), Thomas 16 games (19 years old).

We are still very thin on the second tier, by comparison Eagles have in their midfield group:
Masten 30 years old/211 games
Redden 28/205
Shuey 29/195
Gaff 27/191
Yeo 25/149
Hutchins 28/109
Sheed 24/96

We have similar age profile in terms of the team that played, Eagles 25y10m average, us 25y7m, eagles 112.5 games, us 101.8 games
Less than 50 games: Us 7, Eagles 8
50-99 games: Us 4, Eagles 3
100-149 games: Us 5, Eagles 2
150+ games: Us 6, Eagles 9

When you look at our most experienced players:
Thompson 33/237 (injured)
Goldstein 31/230
Higgins 31/216
Ziebell 28/206
Cunnington 28/205
Atley 26/194
Macmillan 27/153
Pittard 28/144
Tarrant 30/144
Wright 29/136 (MIA)
Polec 26/124
Brown 26/117
Williams 26/116
Tyson 26/110 (MIA)
Hall 28/109 (MIA)
McDonald 24/109 (injured)
Jacobs 27/90 (injured)

We just don't have the same calibre of players at the mature end of the list, how many of our mature players/leaders stood up or set the tone for the game or used their experience/leadership to steady the ship?

If everyone comes out on and executes and puts pressure on then we can beat anyone, there aren't many on that list above that i have faith in steadying the ship or imposing themselves in a manner that lifts players around them, that demand greater output from the younger/less experienced players.

We have too many players conditioned with low expectations for a decade and accepting of excused for not performing, Shaw or anyone else isn't going to be able to fix that overnight. Everyone who rocked up yesterday could have played better, could have gone in a lot harder and helped eachother, but we didn't and we have to address why we didn't because nothing is going to change in a meaningful way until we do. What was it, just 43 tackles, let them take almost a hundred marks because there was no pressure on players getting or disposing of the ball. Not going to beat Gold Coast let alone West Coast if you bring that kind of effort.

 

[scottywiper]

They kept the ball off us and out of the congestion we required to make it a contest.

The wide expanses of that ground and their outside legs peed, combined with our underdeveloped players, comtributed to provide the perfect storm.

However, don't lose faith Scotty, Zurhaar, LDU & Thomas excite me more every time I see them play. Thommo, Jacobs, McDonald, Daw, Turner & Vickers-Willis were missing.

Bailey Scott and Will Walker will both provide outside class and speed next year.

We're not that far off mate.

I think we're a hell of a long way off, to be honest. Our midfield needs a total overhaul, balance is way out. Our small forwards are a major issue... Other teams have three or four more dangerous than ours... And we are struggling for tall defenders. Not sure how long my life will be... But may not be long enough!!!!

 

[Snake_Baker]

I think we're a hell of a long way off, to be honest. Our midfield needs a total overhaul, balance is way out. Our small forwards are a major issue... Other teams have three or four more dangerous than ours... And we are struggling for tall defenders. Not sure how long my life will be... But may not be long enough!!!!

There's no doubt we need an injection of spread from the centre clearances, and outside run. However, the gap is not massive, it was just badly exposed yesterday.

West Coast basically beat us with 2-3 players yesterday, and their coaches magnificent utilisation of the advantage. Nothing more. Simpson typically identified a weakness in the match ups (typically Ahern's opponent, Rioli) or Jetta, and went outside and through them all through the match.

Jetta, Rioli (Ahern) and to a lesser extent Gaff (Dumont). Rioli had 10 score involvements, 2 goals and 3 goal assists. I doubt he'll ever have a picnic like that again.

Bailey Scott IS one of those outside players that we need to get in to the senior side, take that to the bank. We need to find 2 more.

 

[shintemaster]

At the risk of repeating some of the commentary LDU, Ahern, Zurhaar, Simpkin, Thomas need to have about 4 sets of runners preseason.

There's no real issue with the idea that 4 of our developing players (Simkin has the most games at just ticking over 50) need to do a heap of running. I have an issue with Healy talking about it as if this is news to anyone and some kind slashing commentary. The players would know, the coaches would know - because they'd be pushing to have completed 10 pre seasons between the lot of them. I do think we have an issue in that you take guys like Turner out and our competitiveness drops away a bit. We can't build a team that will win 15+ H&A games with too many negating players. We need to get some of our ball winning players to be two way players. I reckon of the above Zurhaar and Thomas play good two way football (fitness allowing), Simkin and LDU behind them and Ahern a mile off that side of it. We need more of them though, can't rely on intensity and physicality for an entire season and finals to cover up deficiencies - there have to be more games where we can cruise for 3/4 of it against the weaker teams.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Healy is a ******* moron. I'm sure he is going senile. Superlatives are just about the only thing he brings to commentary. He's an empty vessel.

 

[shintemaster]

Healy is a ******* moron. I'm sure he is going senile. Superlatives are just about the only thing he brings to commentary. He's an empty vessel.

How Healy can have the biggest ego in a commentary box boggles my mind. He'd walk into a room with Carey, Matthews and Clarkson and happily explain the game to them.

We are far too reliant on the Goldstein -> Cunnington combination, it makes us predictable at stoppages and if the opposition has a decent matchup for Ben then we do not adjust to utilise other midfielders near enough, we need a wider spread of clearances.

This is probably my biggest frustration with the last 3-4 weeks. I can't figure out if Cunnington in the same middle role is to let him work through tags (I'm meh on that as an idea personally) or they just don't think that the younger blokes around him are physically ready for full games in the middle and it will harm them more than help (less annoyed by this as an idea). Personally I would have like to see them really mix up his role more. Have him blocking for a few others, have him playing out of the forward line more. I'd rather see us developing more than him getting sat on. Maybe they figure he needs to work his way through it, but I'm not as convinced. I think he's getting sat on so heavily because he is the go to guy 80% of the time and it's going to be close to impossible to work through a tag under those circumstances.

I think we're a hell of a long way off, to be honest. Our midfield needs a total overhaul, balance is way out. Our small forwards are a major issue... Other teams have three or four more dangerous than ours... And we are struggling for tall defenders. Not sure how long my life will be... But may not be long enough!!!!

We could use a much faster dangerous small forward but I'm far from convinced this is the big issue many feel it is. When our midfield gets anywhere past break even over the last 2 months our forward line has been lethal. We need more two way runners that can dispose of the ball better and with a bit more toe - right in the middle. Still think Dumont for all his good work is on borrowed time in that current midfield mix. End of the day there will need to be some painful decisions, we have a few players that are good, solid AFL players but not what we need to make the most of our team. Even someone like Atley who has been our Mr Fixit somewhat this year - and has had a good year - ideally should be able to play some centre bounces to mix things up. I can't tell if all our guys don't have the ability to spend more time in their or our former hierarchy wasn't willing...

 

[Gasometer]

It's just as hard here in Vic as well to maintain interest. 10 years of mediocrity, 2 months between Melbourne games - I take the kids to the VFL just so they can get some continuity in the blue and white stripes but that wont last long.

I tell you it’s a grind living 2.5 hours one way away as well

Have been looking forward to this Friday’s game since March

But now it’s a cbf doldrums thinking of the effort to get there for a dead rubber

20 years of false hopes; this is now a longer drought than from 77 to 96. Never in my wildest dreams would I have predicted this in 1999.

The only thing that keeps me coming back is childhood love for the Club, and the highs of the Finals wins and Flags of days gone by.

 

[Nate1993]

We really needed a line breaking half forward, can't wait for Will Walker to be healthy

 

[ferball]

My young fella was copping it at junior footy yesterday and will again at school on Monday. He's constantly being bagged by his class mates about North. I feel guilty for causing that.

Its a perfect opportunity to teach him about internal fortitude. Easy to say i know but ... its how you deal with s**t like this as a kid that makes you as an adult.

Make sure you remind him the Eagles would be nothing without a North premiership player and captain showing them how to actually play good footy.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Having the good fortune of being a North supporter isn't a burden, it's a gift.

Let others eat all the vanilla ice cream they like.

 

[Hazey1977]

I was thinking the same thing watching Yesterday. I just don't think they're in that absolute top escheleon.

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