Autopsy You get what you deserve - vs GWS review thread

[Macca19]

And for all the talk about Hayes playing well against Briggs last time, he lost the hitouts 31 to 12 and we lost the clearances 40-32 in that game

 

[Harlott]

Burton seems really confused when he talks

Like a bloke who came from a culture where things made sense, and thrown in to a culture were everything is upside down, and can't quite work out why

It’s because he doesn’t really believe what’s coming out of his mouth.

 

[Powerade 08]

And for all the talk about Hayes playing well against Briggs last time, he lost the hitouts 31 to 12 and we lost the clearances 40-32 in that game

Lycett had 8 hitouts (Briggs 7) and 2 i50s in the first quarter. Got injured halfway through the second.

 

[JimmyBC]

Lycett doesn't even jump he just plods under, stats just don't tell the story complete flat footed shite.

 

[Peninsula Boy]

And for all the talk about Hayes playing well against Briggs last time, he lost the hitouts 31 to 12 and we lost the clearances 40-32 in that game

He was still not bad.

 

[Handyandy]

He was still not bad.

Well we won the game and didn’t get slaughtered in ‘scores from stoppages’
-42 v Brisbane & -31 v gws with the reanimated corpse of Lycett.
He is a great old warhorse but playing him so injured & sadly out of form cost us a shot at a gf & has possibly cost Lycett his career
He was dragged ten minutes into the first qtr in both finals & set the tone for both games early.
We are dead last in the afl for hit outs & third to last for hitouts to advantage yet 2nd in centre clearances.
So our mids are used to roving to a losing ruckman but the ruckman has to give them something.
I think we set up too defensively for Brisbane so went more attacking for gws hoping for something from Lycett & wines but not a murmur from the pair

 

[ctpower]

I dont thinks it to do with the ruck. We played Teakle, who couldnt get near the ball in the ruck and we essentially broke even in clearances in each game.

Our mids were flat footed and unprepared for the challenge. Then like against the Dogs two years ago, panic set in and made it worse

I agree we looked unprepared AGAIN.
How many times has that happend now. It’s really unforgivable on the whole coaching group.

I’ve also always thought that we are not hard enough and are not good enough defensively all over the ground. Something that has also been going on for a number of years.

 

[_VXV]

Spoke with someone involved with gws today, he was on their bench during the 3rd. Said they were coming off exhausted and thought they’d lost it. We can’t even take advantage of that!

 

[Expat power]

wasn't that Wines? Burton comes out pre showdowns and says we hate them and then we proceed to embarrass ourselves. So, similarly moronic.

Nope Burton did it on Rooch & Kimbo SEN, a few hours later Kane and Healy had Ollie on their show as a fox ambassador and they threw in ”Hey Ryan Burton was just on SEN today talking about Oppenheimer being your theme” he was like a dear stuck in the headlights, tried to diffuse it, did the best he could.

 

[El_Scorcho]

And for all the talk about Hayes playing well against Briggs last time, he lost the hitouts 31 to 12 and we lost the clearances 40-32 in that game

Okay and what happened when we brought Lycett back in? Was it 29-10 clearances down at one stage? Briggs has become an elite ruckman this year and has lowered the colours of plenty of good quality rucks.

Hayes has his limitations but Lycett put in 2 of the most dogshit finals performances you'll ever see over the last 2 weeks and we got absolutely annihilated at the stoppages. I'm not sure how it could be argued that Lycett was the better choice. Brisbane had their highest scores from stoppages all season, more than against North or West Coast.

Lycett may have been carrying injuries, but the decision to play him when there was an able bodied ruckman in better form is just classic Hinkley wheeling his favourites back out.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Lycett had 8 hitouts (Briggs 7) and 2 i50s in the first quarter. Got injured halfway through the second.

And we were getting absolutely annihilated at the stoppages because Lycett doesn't seem to direct his hitouts anywhere in particular and has zero chemistry with the rest of our stoppage units.

 

[sobrave]

Spoke with someone involved with gws today, he was on their bench during the 3rd. Said they were coming off exhausted and thought they’d lost it. We can’t even take advantage of that!

1 goal 9 lol

Kicking goals is scary

 

[Peninsula Boy]

There are a lot of moving parts to this loss.
I am just going to go with the CBA.

1. Ruck - Lycett was poor and doesn't connect well with our elite midfield and usually gets progressively worse as the game goes on. It wouldn't surprise me if the young midfield just don't like playing with him. Hayes just offers more to our midfield. Here's hoping Sweet can give our elite midfield some easy ball.

2. Midfield - our elite midfield can be smashed by a strong, accountable, hard-working midfields. It's just the facts, Jack. I don't know if people remember but our midfield got creamed by the Crows twice who only have Jordan Dawson

12

Jordan Dawson

Age

27

Ht

191cm

Wt

91kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

17.0

4star

K

11.4

4star

HB

5.7

4star

M

4.8

5star

T

2.8

4star

CL

0.6

3star

D

15.7

4star

K

10.9

4star

HB

4.9

3star

M

2.9

3star

T

2.0

3star

CL

0.4

3star

D

11.8

3star

K

7.8

3star

HB

4.0

3star

M

5.0

5star

T

3.0

5star

CL

0.6

3star

as an AA type calibre player. They have a very good ruckmen in O'Reilly and then Dawson, Laird and freaking Crouch.

Enter GWS who are strong, accountable, hard-working and also highly skilled. We held on for the first quarter and went blow for blow but it wasn't looking good and then they hit the nitrous as we hit the brakes and it was close to game over.

 

[Peninsula Boy]

Okay and what happened when we brought Lycett back in? Was it 29-10 clearances down at one stage? Briggs has become an elite ruckman this year and has lowered the colours of plenty of good quality rucks.

Hayes has his limitations but Lycett put in 2 of the most dogshit finals performances you'll ever see over the last 2 weeks and we got absolutely annihilated at the stoppages. I'm not sure how it could be argued that Lycett was the better choice. Brisbane had their highest scores from stoppages all season, more than against North or West Coast.

Lycett may have been carrying injuries, but the decision to play him when there was an able bodied ruckman in better form is just classic Hinkley wheeling his favourites back out.

Totally agree.

And the thing is the players who got to play injured also happen to be Ken's favourites.

A guy like Dylan Williams who is also injured doesn't get a gig but a overly hobbled for the freaking year Lycett who is poor in form and doesn't play well with our midfield is trundled out. The idea that we had to play injured players because the cupboard was bare is a joke and just another smattering of propaganda.

And playing McKenzie on Hogan the whole freaking game. Hogan danced on his grave all game and was the main impetus with Coniglio to smash us in the 2nd quarter.

It is very easy to see how poor our coaching is. They lean into the worst of their habits because they are not held accountable for winning in Finals.

 

[Macca19]

Okay and what happened when we brought Lycett back in? Was it 29-10 clearances down at one stage? Briggs has become an elite ruckman this year and has lowered the colours of plenty of good quality rucks.

Hayes has his limitations but Lycett put in 2 of the most dogshit finals performances you'll ever see over the last 2 weeks and we got absolutely annihilated at the stoppages. I'm not sure how it could be argued that Lycett was the better choice. Brisbane had their highest scores from stoppages all season, more than against North or West Coast.

Lycett may have been carrying injuries, but the decision to play him when there was an able bodied ruckman in better form is just classic Hinkley wheeling his favourites back out.

Im not saying Lycett was the better choice. Im saying we could have had peak Stynes alternating with peak Cox out there and it wouldnt have made any difference as the mids failed to turn up

 

[MrMeaner]

And we were getting absolutely annihilated at the stoppages because Lycett doesn't seem to direct his hitouts anywhere in particular and has zero chemistry with the rest of our stoppage units.

I assume he can’t train much during the week. But of course our coach doesn’t think that will affect his ability to work with the rest of the midfield unit. The result is that they look like they were just introduced that morning.

 

[TeeKray]

ELITE MIDFIELD

Lol. They are nothing of the sort.

 

[rogerjames]

I'll bite, as someone that's been accused of being a "happy clapper"

I'm certainly not a "keep Ken" person, i'd much rather have waited till end of season before re-signing him, and after the result, I would not have kept him on. But guess what, he's here now, and I don't think he's solely responsible for our failures - watching Matthew Lloyd on the Sunday Footy Show and he pointed out the blatantly obvious, our weakness last season was in ruck and key defence. That was exposed yet again in the two finals. We all know it. No coach is winning the flag with our current ruck and Key Defender situation.

So then the question becomes - is that on Ken Hinkley, or is that on Jason Cripps? We all love Cripps, and he's done a great job building our list, however he has a weak spot when it comes to Key position players and ruckman. I personally feel that this has had a bigger issue on our success over a long period of time than Ken.


Ken can only do with what tools he has. We have been forced to play injured players for the second half of the season due to a complete lack of depth. McKenzie ideally wouldn't have played due to his injury, but what was the next option? Lycett was horrible yet again, and then got injured. His alternative was Hayes with a bung shoulder. Everywhere you look, there was players carrying bad injuries. Our medical team has not had a great season, and I'd say a review needs to be done, particularly considering the concussion saga earlier.

Let's look at the list.

Defence - We are really poor defensively, losing the most 1 on 1's in the competition. McKenzie, Aliir etc. lose nearly half their one on ones. The stats are clear on this. McKenzie is too undersized for many of the forwards he plays on, and he's lost a tonne of pace. He should be playing as a third tall. Aliir is great when allowed to play loose as an interceptor, but he loses as many one on ones as McKenzie.

Ruck - Lycett has been solid for us for a long time, but he's totally ineffective now apart from a patch of about 3 weeks. Hayes has his strengths and weaknesses, but realistically isn't the answer. Teakle simply not ready/may never be ready.

Forwards - Great promise shown by Lord, Georgy was injured and forgot how to kick before that, Charlie has spent the whole season on one leg - but let's be honest, even at his best is far from a big goal kicker - which leaves Marshall, who's also playing injured and totally lost his form at the end of the season. Finlayson with all the off field stuff going on has suffered as well. Horrible set shot accuracy throughout.

Midfield is the one and only tick, but it gets nullified when we get smashed in the ruck.

How can we honestly expect to win the premiership with this list in it's current form?


So in summary, I don't think any coach would have won us the premiership this season with the squad we have and the current condition of the players.

Would I have re-signed Ken? No.
Do I think he's the reason we haven't succeeded? No I don't think so. I don't think our list has ever been strong enough holistically. We've had great players throughout, but so does every other team. As an entire unit - the answer is no.
And most importantly, Do I think we can win a flag under Hinkley? Yes, if we can fix the obvious deficiencies in our list.

People want to blame someone, and Ken will cop it, and that's fine. But it's important to look a bit deeper beneath the surface rather than the very simplistic argument that "he's been here X years and we won 0,sack Ken"

All your points re team weaknesses are spot on. We have had these weaknesses for years. I believe the head coach sets the priorities re the type of players recruited coz his head is on the line. Under Kens tenure we have continually failed to use a decent draft pick on recruiting a young talented key position defender. We have recruited a lot of half back flanker types though.

Our inability to sucessfully address the ruck situation over the last 3 years (it was clear then that Lycett was going to be susceptible to injuries & Hayes was struggling to cover ground) has been damning. Imo Hayes lack of fitness is a disgrace. None of our rucks can take marks which is an essential skill for a ruckman to enable easy defensive transition & the occasional forward grab & goal.

Under Kens coaching we have continuously struggled with on field leadership. The current leadership group is a disgrace in terms of their on field performance & their obvious lack of any directing on the field. Compare with Toby Greene, Selwood, Gawn etc.

But to me the most depressing thing about Port under Ken is how our reserves have performed. Lack of development, continuous lack of will to win & lack of team cohesion have been evident in all the games I have seen over many years.

Imo Ken does not posess the attributes of a winner. I believe he is not smart enough to be a head coach which is an extremely difficult job. He also lacks decisiveness, a key attribute of a good coach. His failure to make game day moves, drop underperforming senior players & his continued appointment of Jonas & DBJ in the leadership group is clear evidence of this. Both have had very ordinary years. It is only in the last year, after our Collingwood & Crow debacles, & after Ken moved to the bench & Carr appeared to be take more responsibility, have we finally dropped players & made timely game day moves.

 

[rogerjames]

1 goal 9 lol

Kicking goals is scary

Some of those misses are due to players who seriously lack skills. McEntee is a perfect example of this. Should never have played either final, his form did not warrant selection.

 

[Handyandy]

ELITE MIDFIELD

Lol. They are nothing of the sort.

2nd in afl for centre clearances
Dead last for hitouts

 

[Peninsula Boy]

2nd in afl for centre clearances
Dead last for hitouts

When I get time, I am going to go through the black hole that was our ruck division this year.

 

[Handyandy]

Im not saying Lycett was the better choice. Im saying we could have had peak Stynes alternating with peak Cox out there and it wouldnt have made any difference as the mids failed to turn up

No, I place 90% of the blame on Lycett for our shocking clearance work in both finals. We lost the last 4 games he played.
You can see the midfield physically deflate when Lycett comes on. He got slaughtered.

 

[Handyandy]

It’s the second year in a row where our chances have been destroyed by gross mismanagement of our rucks & by persisting on playing old injured/ out of form favourites

 

[WillemDaDrew]

Spoke with someone involved with gws today, he was on their bench during the 3rd. Said they were coming off exhausted and thought they’d lost it. We can’t even take advantage of that!

I’m still lamenting after yet another finals exit.

I don’t know if I could even bring myself to watch another AFL game until next year.

 

[Doctor Feel]

Jed streaming forward under no pressure before kicking it high to GWS defenders