Wizard Cup Grand Final 2003

[napsyd]

I watched the Wok GF again the other day.

We thrashed Collingwood. We practically did not lose a single position on the ground. Ladhams was devastating. McLeod was unstoppable. Our ruck combo may as well have been having a training run. Carey and Roo were underdone but generally had the better of their opponents. Bode ran amuck. Etc. etc.

We ran around the ground for our lap of honour after the match and the commentators pointed out how we were taking it all in our stride and we clearly had more to do in season 2003.

Round 1 we thrashed an underdone Freo and then Round 2 we were "upset" by the Saints. The alarm bells started to ring and really it was downhill from there.

I'm getting to the point promise...

In 2000 we started very poorly and it cost us any chance of finals footy. 2001 wasn't much better.

2002 saw us start very well and maintain the momentum well into the season. Injuries had more to do with our final demise than group ability or form.

But 2003? Well, we peaked at the bloody Wok!! Yeah, we had a reasonable run from Round 9 to Round 18 or so, but generally that was against bottom 8 teams and to me we never looked really convincing.

Will we do this again? Is there something in our pre season build up that we got wrong? Can a team sustain 30+ weeks of really top grade footy? Or was it simply bad luck, injuries and a drop off in form of a key few players that hurt us?

 

[understudy]

Originally posted by napsyd
I watched the Wok GF again the other day.

I watched the home and away game Collingwood v Adelaide last night - it was pretty much the same story! In reverse!

Turned our year, thanks!

 

[Mego Red]

Originally posted by napsyd
Round 2 we were "upset" by the Saints. The alarm bells started to ring and really it was downhill from there.

Sheesh - downhill from round two? That's a bit harsh. We were second at round 19. I rthink we were just more advanced at that stage than other sides, and our true position was about 4-6, which is where we finished. Port, Brisbane and Collingwood were clearly better sides that the rest of the comp, and we were one of the leading next level teams.

 

[napsyd]

Re: Re: Wizard Cup Grand Final 2003

Originally posted by Kristof
Sheesh - downhill from round two? That's a bit harsh. We were second at round 19. I rthink we were just more advanced at that stage than other sides, and our true position was about 4-6, which is where we finished. Port, Brisbane and Collingwood were clearly better sides that the rest of the comp, and we were one of the leading next level teams.

Yes, I can understand what you are saying, and there were some good signs like lots of wins on the road, a win in Perth etc.

But there were also many bad signs like going as close as possible to losing to the Doggies at Footy Park, and struggling against other bottom eight teams both at home and away. Plus our virtual inability to beat those better sides you mentioned.

I know the good teams pull off wins even when they aren't playing their best footy and that is fine, but to me we definitely reached our peak very early on and never lived up to that level again. The draw had as much to do with our ladder position at Round 19 as how we were performing at that time.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Our injuries in 2002 and 2003 were like chalk and cheese. If we had the sort of injury-free run in 2003 like we did in 2002 we would have finished higher.

Having said that I would have to agree with napsyd that we peaked too early. The best game that we played in the year was the wizard cup final. That tells me we peaked too early. I must say some of the coaching tactics led us to lose at least 2 games. Had we won those we would have been 2nd on the ladder behind Port.

I just hope we do things right in 2004.

 

[napsyd]

It was the form of many of the blokes that amazed me.

Ladhams, McLeod, Bode, Torney, Perrie, the list goes on. These guys were playing great football in March.

Why weren't any of them playing that way come September?

By the time the finals came along we were out of form both individually AND as a team.

Injury, the flu, some bizarre coaching. All these things had an influence I guess.

 

[MarksGirl-kbcrowgirl]

OMG............Every thread on this board is negative!!!!! Its really starting to give me the ****s!

come on 2004 so we have something decent to talk about!

k
xx

 

[ant]

Originally posted by MarksGirl-kbcrowgirl
OMG............Every thread on this board is negative!!!!! Its really starting to give me the ****s!

And I'm hardly even posting any more! Just wait til the new year rolls round and you get the pleasure of reading more of my thoughts on our prospects....

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by ant
And I'm hardly even posting any more! Just wait til the new year rolls round and you get the pleasure of reading more of my thoughts on our prospects....

I think your year long negativity has rubbed off on most of us

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Originally posted by napsyd
It was the form of many of the blokes that amazed me.

Ladhams, McLeod, Bode, Torney, Perrie, the list goes on. These guys were playing great football in March.

Why weren't any of them playing that way come September?

By the time the finals came along we were out of form both individually AND as a team.

Injury, the flu, some bizarre coaching. All these things had an influence I guess.

Good points.

No point firing on all cylinders in March, as it is damn difficult to keep that up all year. Better off using the wizzer games to get match practice & try out younger &/or fringe players, & trial new ideas/positions, etc.

Wasn't so much the amount of injuries we had, but the fact that it was mainly forwards. This mean we never really had the chance to settle down our forward line for a few consecutive games all year. This was really out of our control.

However, what was in our control was the form of most of our midfielders which went backwards. If we get back to having one of the more dominant midfields in the comp with Macca, Goody, Ladhams, Bode & Stinger getting back to their best, along with Reilly becoming a consistent performer, we will be around the mark.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by Kane McGoodwin
Good points.

No point firing on all cylinders in March, as it is damn difficult to keep that up all year. Better off using the wizzer games to get match practice & try out younger &/or fringe players, & trial new ideas/positions, etc.

Wasn't so much the amount of injuries we had, but the fact that it was mainly forwards. This mean we never really had the chance to settle down our forward line for a few consecutive games all year. This was really out of our control.

However, what was in our control was the form of most of our midfielders which went backwards. If we get back to having one of the more dominant midfields in the comp with Macca, Goody, Ladhams, Bode & Stinger getting back to their best, along with Reilly becoming a consistent performer, we will be around the mark.

Agree 100%.

Pre-season games should be used in exactly the same manner as you explained. As we have a tough draw in the first half of the year I would approach it a little bit differently. I would use first 2 games of the pre-season comp to play all the youngsters on out list along with a experienced player on each line to guide the youngsters. The last 2 games should be used as a fine tuning period where we play our stongest team so we can gel and start playing as a team. This should enable us to start of the season well and hopefully not run out of steam at the business end of the season.

Hopefully Welsh and Stevo can have injury free years and if they play to their potential we could have close to a 100 goal partnership there. What I would like us to do is play Carey at CHF full time and play Stevo as a FF. This will help ease the physical burden on Stevens and prolong his career a bit. Carey has already said that 2004 would most likely be his last year so we might as well drain as much as we can out of him.

Midfielders were definetly down this year. This is partly due to some of the stupid placing and rotations. However, some players better pull their fingers out otherwise it could be a lean year. Having said that I am pretty confident that McLeod, Goodwin, Bode and Stenglein will have good seasons. Johncock is the one I expect big things from in the midfield next year.

 

[macca23]

I'm planning to have my holidays on a pretty similar basis to last year so I'm hoping to get down and see some of the pre-season training after Christmas.

Some of you might remember from the training reports that I gave, that I was amazed how fierce the scratch matches were. We were going flat chat from early January onwards. I certainly wasn't surprised that we won the Wok because we were up and running at 100% before the Wok comp started.

Yeah, we won the Wok, and Neil Kerley probably uses it to cook those over the limit catches of yabbies in!!

Ayresy has to bring the team up more slowly this time. I hope that when I go to watch training this coming January that it's nowhere near as intense as it was this year - it was too intense.

Stick the Wok!! As already stated elsewhere, let's play the young boys in the first 2 pre-season games and use the last 2 for settling the team down for the season proper.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by macca23
Yeah, we won the Wok, and Neil Kerley probably uses it to cook those over the limit catches of yabbies in!!

GOLD

My exams are done and dusted so I have this week off before I start a project next week that will be pretty hectic (6 weeks, 7 days a week) so I am hoping to find some tome to get down to training one of these days. If i don't get around to it this week I think I won't be able to make it before late January to early February.

Trainings before Chrismas are not really "informative" as there are hardly any sctrach matches. However, it would give us a bit more idea about the players training for the rookie spots.

 

[naughty monkey]

People should remember why we were going flat chat throughout the preseason games. In the previous years we had used these games to try out the rookies and new draftees etc. Exactly as everyone is suggesting we do this year (and consequently lost most of them from memory). The problem was we went 1-3, 1-4? at the start of the H&A and were playing catch up for the rest of the year.

We also have a horror start to this year. Do we really want to repeat the same mistakes as a few years ago and lose matches because the core group was underdone?

Another thing to consider is that the Wizard Cup is back to a knockout format next year. If we lose the first round, will we end up playing matches at all the regional centres? Certainly do not want the associated travel and heat problems.

While I agree that the preseason matches are the perfect time to play the Hudsons, Kreugers, Parkers etc there does need to be a balance here.

I think the bigger problem is the player management throughout the year. Obviously injuries do play a major role but this was something that Port, and to a lesser extent Collingwood, did so much better than anyone else last year, particularly towards the end of the season. They only had that luxury because of the results achieved earlier in the year.

 

[Crow-mosone]

I'm really not sure what the point is here, certainly the peak of our year seemed to be in the preseason, but that had more to do with injuries and dose of luck than any other factor.

I think that injuries are the key to any teams prospects, and certainly the issue of 'whom' is of greater primacy still. In this era of tight list management how do you replace a prime mover mid year?
I think we let go some soft victories, but we still very nearly finished 2nd in a year of torrid inury problems.

Carey/Stevens/Welsh/Goodwin - **** me, if that's not the points we needed to finish 2nd - from there anything is possible.
It's not even the games they do play, it's the string, the momentum and consistency on the track and on the field.

A dose of luck and we have a very good year, as it was we ****ed a great opportunity away. Let's hope we work harder so that we can get 'luckier' when it counts.

Personally My Chris Tarrant voodoo doll is really taking a beating, but then the Alastair Lynch doll - oh the suffering that goes through!

 

[tribey]

Originally posted by Crow-mosone
Personally My Chris Tarrant voodoo doll is really taking a beating, but then the Alastair Lynch doll - oh the suffering that goes through!

They make them in lifesize leak-proof vinyl and vulcanised rubber latex these days?

 

[Crow-mosone]

Originally posted by dyertribe
They make them in lifesize leak-proof vinyl and vulcanised rubber latex these days?

a little too much technical knowledge on the subject...

 

[tribey]

Originally posted by Crow-mosone
a little too much technical knowledge on the subject...

Yes it's amazing the things one can learn if one enters the words "Crow-mosone after dark" into a Google search...

 

[Mego Red]

Originally posted by dyertribe
Yes it's amazing the things one can learn if one enters the words "Crow-mosone after dark" into a Google search...

You know, it's finally nice to see some romance on this board - reading you two is like the classic Maddie and David feuding from "Moonlighting", or early "When Harry met Sally" (though I don't think Meg Ryan would ever have resorted to 'vulcanized rubber' for a putdown).

Ah, the flirting ...

 

[tribey]

Originally posted by Kristof
You know, it's finally nice to see some romance on this board - reading you two is like the classic Maddie and David feuding from "Moonlighting", or early "When Harry met Sally" (though I don't think Meg Ryan would ever have resorted to 'vulcanized rubber' for a putdown).

Ah, the flirting ...

Sadly for him I'm very much taken... there's plenty of other fish in the sea though.

I'm sorry for leading you on Crow-mosone.

 

[Crow-mosone]

Originally posted by dyertribe
Sadly for him I'm very much taken... there's plenty of other fish in the sea though.

I'm sorry for leading you on Crow-mosone.

damn right you minx