Roast What Short Term Future do we have?

[Freo2012]

Alright, I probably shouldn't post this so soon after the game but it has been brewing in me the last week.

It was quite obvious to me last week we are not going to make top 2, this week I think top 4 is almost off the table as well – competition is too hot this year. I think we gave North Melb our top 4 position this week.

Where has our intensity gone and our ensuring we outnumber the opposition at the contest and to the ball (apart from skills, fitness and tenacity)?

So what is our short term future? I can think of 2 scenarios:

1. Ross and the coaching staff realise we cannot play the high intensity brand of footy for a whole season that we showed the end of last year and as a result of shorter pre-season are nursing the team through the first half with aim of “hitting it” full on after the bye. Problem is you have to win enough games to make top 4 to have a realistic chance of GF.

2. Ross has lost the team, and we have been worked out too readily and easily countered. I don’t believe either of these things are fully true. I believe we are having a premiership hangover without having a premiership – lets find a very good sports psyche, we desperately need him if this is the actual case. In this scenario we will probably see Pav, Macca and Sandi retire the end of this or next year without ultimate glory. Possibly even see Mundy depart this year, and worse still the less likely loss of Fyfe.

One thing is certain if you don’t take full advantage of opportunities you create you have lost that opportunity forever – you cannot get that opportunity back. Yyou can only try to create another, and yes I am referring to last years “stage fright” GF – we know who the main culprits were that wouldn’t stand up in the biggest game of their lives. Unfortunately there is no given 2nd chance to redeem – you have to earn it – we don’t seem to be that willing to earn the 2nd opportunity. Winners win, and approach every contest in that manner.

Certainly there are other alternatives to the above 2 scenarios – but realistically it is probably one or the other. What do you think?

 

[pokerspiv]

Our team is fine and we will have players back from injury and suspension soon enough.

We just need to stop the bonehead selection policy and the experiment of playing no forward line. It's clearly failed.

We would have won the last 2 games if our forward line had performed at an average AFL level.

 

[Moo]

Is that a reaction over there?

 

[refresh]

Our team is fine and we will have players back from injury and suspension soon enough.

We just need to stop the bonehead selection policy and the experiment of playing no forward line. It's clearly failed.

We would have won the last 2 games if our forward line had performed at an average AFL level.

All very well but who do you suggest we play in the forward from available?

 

[hoss]

Alright, I probably shouldn't post this so soon after the game but it has been brewing in me the last week.

It was quite obvious to me last week we are not going to make top 2, this week I think top 4 is almost off the table as well – competition is too hot this year. I think we gave North Melb our top 4 position this week.
Where has our intensity gone and our ensuring we outnumber the opposition at the contest and to the ball (apart from skills, fitness and tenacity)?

So what is our short term future? I can think of 2 scenarios:

1. Ross and the coaching staff realise we cannot play the high intensity brand of footy for a whole season that we showed the end of last year and as a result of shorter pre-season are nursing the team through the first half with aim of “hitting it” full on after the bye. Problem is you have to win enough games to make top 4 to have a realistic chance of GF.

2. Ross has lost the team, and we have been worked out too readily and easily countered. I don’t believe either of these things are fully true. I believe we are having a premiership hangover without having a premiership – lets find a very good sports psyche, we desperately need him if this is the actual case. In this scenario we will probably see Pav, Macca and Sandi retire the end of this or next year without ultimate glory. Possibly even see Mundy depart this year, and worse still the less likely loss of Fyfe.

One thing is certain if you don’t take full advantage of opportunities you create you have lost that opportunity forever – you cannot get that opportunity back. Yyou can only try to create another, and yes I am referring to last years “stage fright” GF – we know who the main culprits were that wouldn’t stand up in the biggest game of their lives. Unfortunately there is no given 2nd chance to redeem – you have to earn it – we don’t seem to be that willing to earn the 2nd opportunity. Winners win, and approach every contest in that manner.

Certainly there are other alternatives to the above 2 scenarios – but realistically it is probably one or the other. What do you think?

Aren't you a little ray of sunshine.

 

[pokerspiv]

All very well but who do you suggest we play in the forward from available?

Someone else.

 

[Moo]

Someone else.

We need to recruit this guy Someone Else.

Every time we bombed the ball into the 3 on Pav contest everyone near me was yelling Someone Else needs to step up and kick a few goals.

In: Someone Else
Out: News coverage of the Royals down under

 

[mightymouse75]

Is he related to some @$%t?
He is the Chinese guy at my work getting blamed for every thing. Havnt met yet but always hear about him.

 

[god of purple]

Hate to seem pessimistic here but I really don't think we can win this year's premiership from here. Hawthorn and Geelong look like the teams to beat at the moment, and in my opinion, we need to be playing these teams at Patersons stadium to have any chance of beating them, so I think we need to finish top 2 to make the Grand final. Top 2 teams do not give up games such as the last 2 games we have played, they are just too costly. At 3-3, we could probably only afford to lose two more games tops, and even that may not be enough to make top 2. Besides, it doesn't matter how good we are, if we can't beat Hawthorn at the G, we can't win it anyway. I know it's early days but we just don't seem to have the class that Hawthorn and Geelong have, and we definitely don't have the forward line at the moment.

Hawthorn and Geelong are masters at rejuvenating their list with fresh talent, whilst we are clinging onto the hopes with our current ageing list. Its time we tried to follow suit. Better to start building for the future instead of falling in a heap like St. Kilda did. I think our list is coming up to its use by date pretty soon…

 

[pokerspiv]

Besides, it doesn't matter how good we are, if we can't beat Hawthorn at the G, we can't win it anyway.

Well that's not strictly true. We could have Geelong beat them for us, then beat Geelong. That very nearly happened last year, Hawthorn only won their prelim by 5 points last year, and only hit the front about 2/3rds through the final quarter.

 

[Schauermann]

Our team is fine and we will have players back from injury and suspension soon enough.

Soon enough means two weeks ago....

 

[Simmofreo]

Look guys im really really disappointed too and think it will be very hard from here to make top 2. Probably even Top 4. I can't see Geelong or hawks losing any games apart from against each other. Port won't drop many and Sydney are about to get Franklin, Tippet and Goodes all back in the same team. Then you have North, Collingwood, Essendon all knocking on the door.

However if you want to feel better open up the fixture and look from the bye onwards. I know we are sitting pretty bad right now but we have a massive chance to get players back/in and come screaming home last half of the season (aka 2006) and I would rather hit the finals with momentum than stumble into top four and get knocked out in straight sets.

Add Ballas, Barlow, Sylvia, Simpson, Morra, kep/Bradley, Apeness, Walters and we have a much different team

 

[go_the_dockers]

If we can fix up our forward entries, which are appalling then we have a chance.

I wonder if we are just missing Ballas, Walters and an in form Mayne.

 

[Schauermann]

If we can fix up our forward entries, which are appalling then we have a chance.

I wonder if we are just missing Ballas, Walters and an in form Mayne.

That forward line problems are really annoying because we got a nice amount of midfield goals this season. With a working forward line he would have our extra goals...

 

[Taylor]

I think we will be fine. If we had these selection dramas and form issues at the end of the year we would be in trouble.

 

[slicedndiced]

Is that a reaction over there?

Post of the Week.

Box of chocolates on the way.

Is he related to some @$%t?
He is the Chinese guy at my work getting blamed for every thing. Havnt met yet but always hear about him.

As if the Geraldton KKK has a Chinaman working there.

 

[Rob]

Holy crap, overreaction much?

OK, we lost a game at home to a middle of the road side. We nearly did that this time last year against Richmond. I don't think our form is much worse now, if at all, than it was then. We've got 3 tough games coming up. How about we wait and see what happens before coming to any rash conclusions.

 

[Harry Reems]

We had Pav, Griff, Sandi, McPharlin and Kepler out for most of last year and did ok. This year the loss of Barlow and Walters has killed us. Half the team are out of form and we don't have the depth to replace them. Lot's of players have gone backwards this year and are just not worthy of playing in the seniors until they improve.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[freoextra]

We had Pav, Griff, Sandi, McPharlin and Kepler out for most of last year and did ok. This year the loss of Barlow and Walters has killed us. Half the team are out of form and we don't have the depth to replace them. Lot's of players have gone backwards this year and are just not worthy of playing in the seniors until they improve.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You are right about the fact that we had as many significant outs last year. So what is the difference this year (because I for one think we have more depth than ever before).

Last year we were able to keep Mundy, Fyfe and Barlow (apart from suspension) together for the majority of the year, that helped. So perhaps Barlow coming back may make more of a difference than some think. When all three are playing it means we keep a real presence on the ball (with two of them) and the other one usually plays a significant role in the forward line. When these three are up and running our role players appear to be function better.

Or perhaps it is simply as you stated that a good number of players are just sadly out of form.

Overall (not just this game) the only real players that seem to be improving are Hilly and D Pearce. The stars are maintaining their performance but a number of players look to have gone backwards.

 

[Admiral Byng]

My thoughts, now that I'm sober...

We were very static going forward. It started off with the old "bomb it long to Pav" ploy, but by the last quarter we were bombing it long going from half-back to the wings and centre: and then losing the ball on the ground. Where has our hard running and neat kicking to a target gone? In the second half the pattern seemed to be: player standing on the mark, no good leads to kick to, umpire says play-on, long kick to a contest, North win the ball or force a stoppage. We aren't as good as we think we are right now in the contested ball situation, we took very few contested marks. We need to develop a shortish possession game to work the ball forward with purpose.

Seems like our whole game plan revolves around suffocating the opposition going forward, winning the turnover and hitting them on the fast break. But when the tables are turned and we're denied fast breaks we don't seem to have a reliable, methodical way of moving the ball forward into scoring range. We need a slow plan.

 

[caterina]

In the cold light of day, apart from the 100 ways a loss is bad, in one way I am glad we lost.
If we had scraped home by a few points we'd be sitting in the top 4 and people would be quite content that we are a top 4 team that dodged a bullet, rather than confronting the reality that we are off top 4 pace.
Where we finish depends on some things under our control and many more things outside our control. We don't deserve to be anywhere near the top 4 how we are playing, I'd rather concentrate on that.

 

[BenBenTheDegen]

I, like many others are worried about our up and coming players who just look way undercooked. I just had a look over our list.

Top Tier:
Hayden Ballantyne, Nathan Fyfe, Michael Walters, Ryan Crowley, David Mundy, Luke McPharlin, Michael Barlow, Matthew Pavlich, Aaron Sandilands, Michael Johnson

Second Tier:
Zac Dawson, Danyle Pearce, Matt de Boer, Jonathon Griffin, Tendai Mzungu, Chris Mayne, Zac Clarke, Stephen Hill, Paul Duffield, Clancee Pearce

Third Tier: (developing, underperforming, yet to be proven)
Anthony Morabito, Colin Sylvia, Garrick Ibbotson, Nick Suban, Tom Sheridan, Josh Simpson, Hayden Crozier, Scott Gumbleton, Matthew Taberner, Tanner Smith, Max Duffy, Alex Pearce, Kepler Bradley, Lachie Neale, Brady Grey, Cameron Sutcliffe, Lee Spurr, Michael Apeness, Alex Silvagni, Jack Hannath

Who from that third tier can you see moving up the ranks? Morabito, Sylvia are the obvious picks but they have to prove themselves yet. Neale maybe after yesterday's performance, but he's incomparable to top tier midfielders at the moment. Kepler and Gumbleton won't stop getting injured.

 

[hoss]

We can't challenge for the flag because we can't beat Hawthorn at the 'G'.

Just like the Kangas can't beat us at Subi. Oh just wait .....

Put ourselves in a top 4 position and anything can happen on any day ie the opposition flat, key players go down, injuries early in the game stuffing up the rotations, torrential rain, someone plays a blinder out of nowhere etc etc.

We have definite class to come back into this side ie Ballas, Mora, possibly Sylvia and perhaps even Walters come finals. Add to that a natural football like Barlow and people like Mayney finding some form and we're a chance yet. I won't write us off yet for the top 4 or 8.

 

[slicedndiced]

I, like many others are worried about our up and coming players who just look way undercooked. I just had a look over our list.

Top Tier:
Hayden Ballantyne, Nathan Fyfe, Michael Walters, Ryan Crowley, David Mundy, Luke McPharlin, Michael Barlow, Matthew Pavlich, Aaron Sandilands, Michael Johnson

Second Tier:
Zac Dawson, Danyle Pearce, Matt de Boer, Jonathon Griffin, Tendai Mzungu, Chris Mayne, Zac Clarke, Stephen Hill, Paul Duffield, Clancee Pearce

Third Tier: (developing, underperforming, yet to be proven)
Anthony Morabito, Colin Sylvia, Garrick Ibbotson, Nick Suban, Tom Sheridan, Josh Simpson, Hayden Crozier, Scott Gumbleton, Matthew Taberner, Tanner Smith, Max Duffy, Alex Pearce, Kepler Bradley, Lachie Neale, Brady Grey, Cameron Sutcliffe, Lee Spurr, Michael Apeness, Alex Silvagni, Jack Hannath

Who from that third tier can you see moving up the ranks? Morabito, Sylvia are the obvious picks but they have to prove themselves yet. Neale maybe after yesterday's performance, but he's incomparable to top tier midfielders at the moment. Kepler and Gumbleton won't stop getting injured.

Oh my.

 

[Kram]

Was it just me or did we just keep bombing it long into the forward 50? Strange tactic.. May as well have played Hannath.