Autopsy West Coast 100 def Discombobulated Dogs 46 - Rd 18, 2018

[dogwatch]

Not as bad as it might have been on the scoreboard but a pretty dispiriting loss regardless.

Probably what we expected.

Got to do better next week.

 

[Yojimbo]

Lucky they kicked poorly thanks to the wind.

Not in the same team, Morris and Trengove.

 

[dogwatch]

Any word on Honeychurch's condition after the game?

 

[BRWB]

What has happened to Caleb Daniel? Once a beautiful kick. Worrying when young players appear to go backwards.

Game was a snorefest. WC much cleaner and better overhead. We are smashed aerially most weeks. Underrated issue IMO.

 

[Bulldog Brent]

Any word on Honeychurch's condition after the game?

Hospitalized for scans

 

[Mofra]

Schache increased his standing, played well for a developing tall in a team that gives it's forwards little chance.

Crozier reads it very well, knows when to peel off and help out.

Or bottom 6 players won't play much football next year I feel.
Bont, Libba, Williams, English, Suckling and West

 

[dogwatch]

Not sure whether to get fired up or just accept this as "one of those games" and move on.
Maybe the latter. They're young, we're decimated by injuries, it's late in the season, we were playing in Perth, blah, blah, blah.

For what it's worth here are some of my concerns:

• No discernible forward structure or method. Schache made it look half-dangerous in the first half but was almost unsighted in the second half. Nobody else gave a yelp, perhaps because no-one else was there long enough to work into a role.
• As BRWB said we were smashed in the air. I thought we had at least a couple of good intercept markers but I didn't see much of that. WCE had 15 CMs to our 4 CMs.
• I have real concerns about our coaching. I think Bevo is elite in man-management and team building. However I suspect he's back among the pack when it comes to tactics. That's OK but he'll need some wise tactical heads around him. And I don't think he has enough of that right now. In his defence he had a massive task today to get us up against a team eyeing off top spot when we have about half our best 22 out and nothing to play for. He still has a few brownie points in the cupboard after 2016.
• Lack of onfield leadership. Has already been discussed a lot but evident again today, especially when Macrae had a poor outing. Sorry but JJ and Hunter are not the answer. Wallis maybe.
• Young blokes are struggling. No surprise there. It's been a long season and they've done well. Today's very physical game won't have helped. They'll come back better players in 2019.
• Our defence was also smashed today. Adams, Trengove, Naughton and Cordy were not very good.

I could go on but that's enough for now.

I reckon we'll put in a more spirited showing next week at Ballarat.

 

[Mr. Walker]

What has happened to Caleb Daniel? Once a beautiful kick. Worrying when young players appear to go backwards.

Some one needs to tell Caleb that handballing to a teammate who is under immense pressure is not a skill that is prized in the AFL. I am sick of posters telling me what Caleb can potentially bring to this team, at the moment he brings nothing and has been doing so for weeks.

The Eagles played two ruckmen and still out ran us. Too many of our guys pick and choose when to go and never work hard enough over the whole game. Also the difference in skill was stark and embarrassing. Not being able to hit the target many most forward thrusts broke down.

Hayden Crozier - I like you but any chance you can actually get the ball to one of our guys? Gowers, any chance you can get the ball? I swear he thinks he is on a quota arrangement, do one thing for the quarter and then coast for the rest.

Thank God for Schache. The one positive from the game.

And Wallis was one of the better players.

 

[NBates]

• Lack of onfield leadership. Has already been discussed a lot but evident again today, especially when Macrae had a poor outing. Sorry but JJ and Hunter are not the answer. Wallis maybe

 

[revo333]

Amazing how much better the 2015 team that lost by 80 odd points at Subi is then the team we fielded today.

Kicking the first 2 goals quickly reflected the eagles attitude for the whole day, they were just doing enough and both teams were very bad by foot although it was very windy.

A shame that the promise that was shown a month ago is going to disappear by the end of the season.

 

[Monocle]

Any word on Honeychurch's condition after the game?

I do hope the lads OK.

I was watching nervous just always like to see a hand and foot move as they move off on the cart looked like his hand did move.

No one like to see that sort of injury and I wish him a speedy recovery.

 

[_M_16_]

I know people say we need better forwards, but to be truthful your forward line and defence is only as good as the midfield. Look at our 2015-2016 seasons where we were so defensively sound and strangled people. It was on the back of our midfield locking the ball inside 50, or not letting it go inside 50 heaps. Now that we have lost that ability, it shows when our defenders are getting exposed that we are overrated in that department when people crowed on about how awesome our defenders were back then. They were awesome because they had little pressure.

The same applies to our forwards, we have plenty of young talent to work with in the forward pocket. Boyd and Schache are young tall's, Gowers, Lipinski, Cordy have shown in past they can play a medium role, Greene is waiting to come through, Richards can play a smaller role. The only forward we need is a high pressure, skilled, goal sneak small. That being said, we do need our talls to start hardening up and using their body and clunking those contested marks. Boyd with his frame should be doing a Barry Hall on people, instead he drops so many simple marks, though does take the odd amazing contested grab in a pack. But we lack aerial presence inside 50 which hurts when we are kicking long into congestion.

The forward line puts up with us taking 1000 years to get the ball down the other end that we become caught up in space. How come the good teams seem to only have a couple of 1 on 1's in the forward 50 when they attack, yet we always seem to be competing with 20 people defending space? Just shows either our game style sets other teams up for that, or we take way to long to transition the ball. Not to mention some of the kicks inside 50 are atrocious.

The issue is our midfield. To slow, terrible by foot, don't kick enough goals between them (the better midfielders in the league push 15-25 individual goals year in and out), and we cannot hit a barn door from point blank if we sit them in front of it. All the hard work and grunt means little if you cannot make something out of it, hurt teams where it matters, turn it over heaps that you're caught flat footed when it goes back the other way with the other team swarming forward with numbers

This point from AFL website from the five talking points from the game segment sums it up well

2. Macrae can’t go it alone
Midfield metronome Jack Macrae was slightly off his best, nullified by close-checking Eagle Mark Hutchings. The Bulldogs sorely missed Macrae’s creative short kicking and clean clearance work, but it can’t all be left up to him. Luke Beveridge has plenty of hard-running ball-winners at his disposal, the likes of Lachie Hunter, Luke Dahlhaus and Toby McLean chief among them. However, it’s hard to pinpoint who can be relied upon to hit their target eight times out of ten. Injured superstar Marcus Bontempelli uses the ball as well as anyone, while Macrae is running at 74 per cent efficiency in 2018. However – as was on display against West Coast – the rest have some distance to go before the Bulldogs become a threat again.

I know we are excited about West and all. But from what I've seen and heard, he will be a good player, but he will be more of the same as what we have now. Will probably just win the contested ball better, another area we seemed to have lost our mojo.

We are a couple of top level damaging all round midfielders with a good boot short, and a ruckman that can at LEAST halve the hitouts vs the leagues better ruckman short from being competitive enough. Macrae, McLean, Bontempelli, are good players (not counting Libba atm cause he is injured) Macrae doesn't kick enough goals, Bontempelli isn't consistent, McLeans kicks can have its off days. That's half a midfield that doesn't exactly scare people on paper.

 

[Freshwater]

Positives were being more competitive in the second half.
It was slippery which makes for poor skills.
Mitch Wallis for Vice Captain to Bontempellis captaincy next year.

 

[BRWB]

Tom Boyd - zero marks...again. Poor bastard doesn't look like marking it. 13 hitouts against a back up ruck doesn't suggest rucking is his go either.

 

[Leon]

Anyone else looking forward to this season being over?

 

[Mr. Walker]

Tom Boyd - zero marks...again. Poor bastard doesn't look like marking it. 13 hitouts against a back up ruck doesn't suggest rucking is his go either.

Did Boyd spend anytime Forward? I thought playing Roughead would mean Boyd could spend some time forward but if he did there was zero presence.

 

[go you pups]

Skills and fumbles were horrendous

Gave so many easy goals to West Coast on a platter

We would've belted this mob not too long ago with the soft outside game they put up expecting to only score from turnovers. West Coast really disappointed me today having had a big win against a massive bogey team at a bogey ground for them. They'll get shown up come finals time playing like that.

Honeychurch unlucky to get KOd, nothing in it, poor bounce of the ball did both him and Hurn in, however, he just has no vision or nous in possession of the ball. That run down on McGovern then completely stuffing the kick up just sums him up.

Smith obviously out of his depth too which has been repeated as nauseam by this board, Crozier too as a defender imo is way out if his depth as a ball carrier as I've repeatedly said in the match day thread. Play him forward or don't at all, doesn't create anything for us in that role he's deputising for Suckling in.

I can handle awareness problems from the likes of Lynch and Williams getting done holding the ball because they take the game on and make things happen more times than not when it comes off, the awareness will come in time for them and we cannot let them go back into their shells and become crabs. What absolutely shits me is slow ball movement, no intention to pull the trigger, take the game on and hit a tall target in our forward half, cheap sideways crabbing leading to opposition numbers going behind the ball leading us to find it hard to find an option inside 50 or an opportunity to bring it to ground just absolutely shits me. Hunter in particular needs to stamp it out of his game and play more direct. I've criticised Dahl in the past for this too but haven't noticed it much from him last few weeks, aside from the Geelong game maybe he hasn't had as much of the footy for it to be noticeable.

Players who play long, fast and direct and can be relied upon to do so

Bont
Macrae
Libba
Suckling

Players who have the potential to do so and be very good at it
Williams
Lynch
Richards
(These first 3 are obvious)
McLean (I think he can, but is just playing accumulator at the moment)
Gowers (needs to clean disposal up)
Dunkley (has been a barometer for us at times up forward, hope he can have the same instincts in midfield)

Players who have in the past but have form issues that prevents then from doing so to regularly be relied upon
Hunter
Dahl
Daniel
JJ (only did it with any conviction against Hawthorn this year)

With hitting the draft I absolutely want a creative small forward who can score and assist/set them up and just have general forward craft, we really need this type of player. Midfield class is needed too, but we have a number who are out injured, not in form like Daniel, Dale etc or are just starting their careers but show promise, so we may not need it as much as we think should everyone stay fit and have continuity. Smart forwards over midfield for me currently.

Coaching and fitness staff restructure just has to happen.

 

[DognBones]

Not sure whether to get fired up or just accept this as "one of those games" and move on.
Maybe the latter. They're young, we're decimated by injuries, it's late in the season, we were playing in Perth, blah, blah, blah.

For what it's worth here are some of my concerns:

• No discernible forward structure or method. Schache made it look half-dangerous in the first half but was almost unsighted in the second half. Nobody else gave a yelp, perhaps because no-one else was there long enough to work into a role.
• As BRWB said we were smashed in the air. I thought we had at least a couple of good intercept markers but I didn't see much of that. WCE had 15 CMs to our 4 CMs.
• I have real concerns about our coaching. I think Bevo is elite in man-management and team building. However I suspect he's back among the pack when it comes to tactics. That's OK but he'll need some wise tactical heads around him. And I don't think he has enough of that right now. In his defence he had a massive task today to get us up against a team eyeing off top spot when we have about half our best 22 out and nothing to play for. He still has a few brownie points in the cupboard after 2016.
• Lack of onfield leadership. Has already been discussed a lot but evident again today, especially when Macrae had a poor outing. Sorry but JJ and Hunter are not the answer. Wallis maybe.
• Young blokes are struggling. No surprise there. It's been a long season and they've done well. Today's very physical game won't have helped. They'll come back better players in 2019.
• Our defence was also smashed today. Adams, Trengove, Naughton and Cordy were not very good.

I could go on but that's enough for now.

I reckon we'll put in a more spirited showing next week at Ballarat.

I very much like your 3rd dot point. I have never made a negative comment about Bev since his arrival but there are some recurring patterns of our game that are really worrying. So many times our defenders and midfielders get the ball and see no options in the forward line, this results in many sideways kicks and slow forward entries. We are often 'killed' by players left alone on wings when the ball is pushed out wide from centre clearances. Why is Boyd constantly trying to outreach opponents from behind at throwins? He doesn't have a leap and should be positioning in front as much as possible. The main question is do the players have a clear understanding of what the game plan is? Of course we can raise the issues of player inexperience and injuries but the problems have been evident for a long time even when more mature players were available.

 

[Mantis Toboggan]

When so many players are so bad, you have to look at the bigger picture.

We saw some things in that game that simply should not happen. Caleb Daniel manning up their ruckman inside the goal square. Mitch Honeychurch receiving a long bomb at full forward. It comes from nobody having a fixed position.

You want flexibility, but we are witnessing absolute chaos.

How are midfields supposed to build an understanding with forwards when they’re never kicking to the same person twice?

We have Morris back, Schache forward, everyone else just plays wherever they want.

Surely when everything is going wrong, structure is the first thing that must be addressed.

 

[NBates]

2 men without their dog at Ballarat next week I fear

 

[VogonProsthetnic]

Why can’t the forwards just hold their positions? You didn’t see Geelong forwards miles behind the ball when the game was there to be won last night.

I reckon we have been bombing it straight to Hurn and McGovern continuously for the last 6 years at least. Why do we keep doing it?

 

[dogwatch]

When so many players are so bad, you have to look at the bigger picture.

We saw some things in that game that simply should not happen. Caleb Daniel manning up their ruckman inside the goal square. Mitch Honeychurch receiving a long bomb at full forward. It comes from nobody having a fixed position.

You want flexibility, but we are witnessing absolute chaos.

How are midfields supposed to build an understanding with forwards when they’re never kicking to the same person twice?

We have Morris back, Schache forward, everyone else just plays wherever they want.

Surely when everything is going wrong, structure is the first thing that must be addressed.

We've seen Daniel on a huge gorilla in the last line of defence a couple of times this season. I agree it's because of the chaos.

I just wanted to point out that it's not an intended match up (surely not!) It's almost certainly because Daniel is just doing what anyone in the team should do - he sees the unmarked player deep in the forward line and runs to pick him up. Dog only knows where that player's real opponent is. We should be thankful that Daniel at least has the nous to go and stand beside the gorilla. It was enough to put off the player with the ball today so the pass didn't come in.

 

[dogwatch]

Hospitalized for scans

The match report had Bev saying "The early indication is he will be OK."

Which is more positive than his comments were about Webb during the week.

 

[footyfan000001]

Anyone else looking forward to this season being over?

Yes. Sick of being blown away by good teams away from home. Seriously over it.

 

[footyfan000001]

I wonder if the starting positions rule will actually help our forward line...