Pittonet gave us a bit especially early on…but yes, it may have cost us later in the game.
Only because of injuries, but that can happen for any position on the ground.
Fans seem oblivious to the risk of a single point of failure, which is the one ruck scenario, at least with Mids you have multiple points of failure so it's much easier to cover the loss of one.
If anything perhaps when we brought in Pitto we picked the wrong Sub, because we lost one HBF and it basically smashed our structure. Then we had a bunch of slower Mid types trying to become lockdown HBFs, or forcing mismatches on players like Rankine and Keays with slower heavier bodies, it's happened twice now, the Crows are making our MC look silly. The Crows almost scored at will despite a pretty equal battle between Weiters and Walker.
(btw., Williams best game for us I suspect, he tried to cover them all and never stopped working.)
On TDK solo, it's bizarre that fans want us to take TDK solo into a game against an opponent who has basically dominated him more than once, it's like they have no memory of the past.
Was BigH used in the centre at all yesterday, I don't recall seeing it?
(Perhaps BigH getting ironed out the week before put the wind up the MC, there is that risk again, a season impacting risk not just one game!)
I would have liked to see TDK go at it all day with OBrien. TDK and Pitto never really settled in to work him over. I personally Never want to see the two of them play together again, just my view.
It's untenable for these guys to go solo for a whole season and be right to go for the finals, they need to share the load at times with the target of being fresh and ready for finals.
It's as much about managing players through the season as it is about specific game day tactics.
Weitering will do better on Hogan than the more physical Walker and I'd expect TDK to do better vs Briggs who isnt at the same level as O'Brien. Toby Greene will be the main problem, played on our old mate Liam Stocker vs the Saints who did a decent job on him but he doesn't play too many average games and might be due for a big one..
Who's taking Toby, Williams or Newman are probably front runners, maybe someone like Cottrell could also give him some time. I think it was Newman / Cincotta last time we played them that shared the duty, they kept Green scoreless but he still had a heap of influence.
He plays with no confidence, like he is clinging on to his career by his fingernails.
If we had Martin and SoJ or Motlop in F50 Fantasia might be some use as the small forward, but he's not a player who can be roving while Durdin and Owies contest, it's just not going to work. We need Fantasia playing like Cottrell and he is miles off.
I said in the pre-game, I had to assume we had a lot of injuries because some players just weren't deserving / earning a spot. We've been clinging to a couple of blokes who just aren't delivering to AFL standards.
Fantasia is now a huge mistake, he might be useful on the track but on game day it's passed him by.
Ollie Hollands is struggling, the kid has got what it takes but he needs time away to regain some confidence.
Fans will jump on the selection of Pitto, but we would have been smashed if not for him today. TDK is having his best season but he's erratic and O'Brien is his bogey man. O'Brien showed today what the new ruck rule means, TDK can't jump over a bloke his size and as a result with O'Brien offering a stiff arm TDK can't get close to the ball. He tries to jump so high he lands off balance and then he is out of the ground contest. TDK would be better to surrender the tap and become a mid.
The commentary from Brown and King was spot on today, as many of us have been saying our MC needs to find a way for us to score some easy goals, at this rate we'll be run into the ground before the mid-season break.
You can't live on the razor's edge and expect never to be cut!
Walker has Weitering bluffed! Owies has too many brain fades!!
Walker, O'Brien and Keays have days out against us, they have the confidence now so it's likely they will always be a bogey side going forward.
Owies might have had a brain fade in the last but before that he was OK, our problem was the 3rd quarter when we burnt many opportunities. We've had 8 more shots at goal and lost by 2 pts, we should have been 3 or 4 goals up at 3/4 time not level, 3-7 to 5-1 with many of those 7 gettable.
Old Carlton came to visit - lowered our colours to a lesser team & relied on individual brilliance & too many passengers & bringing in Pitto only weakened TDK.
Personally I think Pitto was the better of the two today, TDK was soundly beaten again by O'Brien who seems to be TDK's bogeyman.
I think if we hadn't had Pitto we would have lost by a lot more.
For me this week's most interesting watch will be our F50 tactics, we've been a bit out of sorts this season, some of it is down to evolving opposition tactics, but a good chunk of it is players finding their mojo in a stable configuration. We need to get a few more goals from the extras, opposition look hell bent on stopping Charlie having a crack at another Coleman.
We are probably quite lucky BigH has been in hot form, I wonder if this week he'll get caught out in the ruck like he did last week? O'Brien is a much bigger / harder body to run into.
For me the domain of the mobile rucks is attack, and the home of the monolith ruck is defence, very few rucks can do both well, currently Gawn is perhaps an exception.
We saw last night why Gawn is an exception, it was basically Brisbane defeated Gawn.
The positioning around that stoppage was interesting with De Koning standing goal side rather than in a defensive position. I'd love to know whether that was part of a plan to convince Jackson to go for an attacking hitout.
The players often talk about rehearsing scenarios - was that one they'd planned?
Bit hard to tell, we saw early the stuff Jackson was doing and that was rehearsed because he went at it from the 1st, but as the game evolved TDK started to switch things up, probably good coaching by SpecialK perhaps.
The training will be in the techniques, not what to do where and when, the where and when call is more dynamic as it depends on the on-ball crew as a whole. A kid like TDK has already practised the techniques, he just needs reminders of the options he can call on, later they'll become second nature.
I would have played Pittonet: he has a good record against O'Brien; TdK doesn't. Ollie Hollands is pretty lucky. He hasn't been playing that well, even though he has contributed. Last week Sharpe killed him. Fantasia is also more than a little lucky. He did OK as sub, but otherwise hasn't done much. Corey Durdin as well, but he had 8 tackles last week. Walsh on the bench: is hat trying to tell us that he'll be a late out?
No Cincotta as sub? Amazing! He was much better than both Binns and Cowan against North.
It's a long season but we just had a bye, if not for that I would have also brought in Pitto as you suggest.
Corey Durdin did have a few tackles, but many barely impacted the opponents disposal.
That was Fantasia's best game so far, but still probably not a pass.
I wouldn't be surprised of a late change, but if Walsh is named I suspect he plays, perhaps another out though as I think a couple of others are lucky to retain spots.
Carroll might be a Monty for Sub, I'd start Walsh warm and want Carroll as the Sub just in case Walsh gets sore.
Last week despite bringing heaps of effort I thought Kennedy looked a bit out of place when he wasn't on the ball, maybe a bit of a reshuffle to come in the centre. I've noticed Kennedy, Hewett and Cerra seem to be waxing and waning a bit this season, Cerra can get away with it a bit because he has moments of silk, but I'm use to Kennedy and Hewett being 24x7 types.
We are looking more versatile this season, but I can't say we've clicked yet. I've mentioned it before, Voss / MC need to find a way to create a confidence boosting win, instead I feel we have a bit of a house of cards at the moment and we've been lucky so far. But I concede that can be good coaching, you can make your own luck.
Most of the time, we only had one of them available for extended periods of time.
True, my point was more about having the mobile ruck type available in F50, the tactic would not work with a Pitto type in F50 because he's just not agile enough to impact the footy away from his immediate zone.
For me the domain of the mobile rucks is attack, and the home of the monolith ruck is defence, very few rucks can do both well, currently Gawn is perhaps an exception.
The big thing out of this victory - is our boys stayed engaged in the contest. Even the final moments of the match where Crippa called TDK out of the ruck contest that threw Jackson into a tangent and made a big error. What a move by Crippa.
Whether that was pre-planned or not we'll never know, but you can only do it when you have ultra mobile type rucks like TDK or Jackson as they become an extra stoppage player in the zone.
FWIW, back when we had both Kreuzer and Hampson in F50 we would do a similar thing, because they were both mobile enough around stoppages, it left the opposition not knowing which ruck would contest and which ruck would rove, I never understood why we didn't implement it more. There are some old clips floating around of Kreuzer and Hampson roving to each other for goals. The 3rd man up stifled the tactic for a while, and now having to nominate reduces some of the impact, but it still works if you have the right options available.
