Not to mention TDK has been a very dangerous addition to the forwardline, and he has been scoring his 1 to 2 goals a game (should have had 3 against the Pies, but missed one that was gettable).
I think we just need to tidy it up a bit, and be a bit smarter and we will be fine. No need to panic, its not a personell issue, its an execution problem.
Perfect summary, no need to become Cortes at the moment!
The good thing is these events are all easy fixes that have cost us games, as long as there is the will to fix them, and the fixes do not require some 3rd party to see it our way!
Martin and SOS being missed as alternatives allowing Charlie in particular to be double teamed..
True, but we still often have blokes open and fail to use them, but BigH better not complain about it after the dying minutes of last Friday, or maybe he was teaching them a lesson, "Don't do this!"
................. I think Pittonet getting his big frame in the packs might help our mids as the Dees have some strong bodies around the ball like we do and it will be a war of attrition given the short turn around with both teams having played tough games.
Agreed, I think the bigger problem for us it that the form lines are heading in the wrong directions, they are on the up and we are on the slide!
If we thought Elliott got an armchair ride, wait until you see Petracca up close, if Pitto, Hewett or Kennedy even brush a forearm hair against Petracca's passing frame it'll be free kick and 50m!
After a week of the media blasting the AFL over "holding the ball" and "Incorrect disposal", I'm pegging the first fan shock of next Thursday night will be Kysaiah being awarded a free kick for poleaxing Walsh or Cripps at a stoppage causing them to drop the footy, that is generally exactly how the AFL roll!
I didn't want to name names, the vision is damning enough, and there was another.
Acres runs his arse into the ground, I get that sooner or later he needs a chop out and he might have needed one in those moments, but there are times you don't have a choice, you just have to keep going at it Robert Harvey style until you throw up your own ring!
AFL is built on the premise that it is the last person left standing/moving, that gets the spoils!
But it's not just those events that cost us, multiple times Cottrell had worked hard into open space on the fat side and we ignored him instead dropping the pill on the head of BigH or Charlie 1 out against 2 or 3! At the moment, I can't say Cottrell is more or less likely to peg a goal than Harry or Charlie, and going to Cottrell a bit more might help spread the opposition defence!
Filth did it very very well, they used the player who was on, not formulaic at all, we by comparison seem very formulaic!
I get we have Harry and Charlie, but it's making us predictable at the moment, weirdly it's TDK that seems to be giving us a bit of X-Factor, if only he could hang on to a few more of the marks he gets his hands to!
For all the vitriol in the fans base directed towards Williams, there were two other complete brain fades that cost us goals during the game.
The first was in the critical moment letting an opponent make an extra number goal side of our defence in our D50, a player that most can't possibly catch given a step or two of head start.
The second was one of our other defenders turning traffic cone earlier in the game, as he became paralysed by the Filth tsunami sweeping around him,.
Both these incidents were moments of inaction that lead to goals free of umpire influence, and far far worse than Williams.
As LAJ noted, I believe very accurately, our losses this year have been of our own making.
It's hard to ignore the game influence when you watch vision of Elliot getting rewarded at one end of the ground for a tummy tickle, while Owies gets nada for being dry humped at the other end while trying to mark!
Having said that, we are cooking the footy at the moment, our ball use must be an "F" over the last few weeks. FFS, in the dying minutes BigH had the pill in the clear with four Baggers in and around CHF with space inside the F50 arc, and he kicked it straight to the Filth 10m away from any team-mate!
On Williams, he made 3 mistakes and went at 86% DE. Acres made 10 mistakes ( Could be a season 2024 record! ) and went at 65% DE, some fans gave Acres votes while calling for William's head!
Had to give Elijah a vote, didn't get much footy but was one of few who stayed calm and didn't hatch it, I couldn't give Acres a vote for the opposite reason in that he got heaps of footy but b0rked it multiple times. Should give the MC a D- for making Kennedy the sub, that'll go down as the blunder of the season.
The current problems have nothing to do with our ruck or midfield, claiming it's the ruck at fault is a confusion of correlation versus causation, and the assertion about the ruck causes a distraction that lets the real issues slip by without being addressed / discussed.
The rucks / midfield didn't; - Cause Williams to be penalised. - Allow Pendlebury to kick it OOBOTF - Ignore the holds on BigH and Charlie. - Allow Maynard and Schulz to drop it cold. - Cause the frequent poor uncontested disposal going into F50. - Cause injuries to Martin, McGovern, Saad, Marchbank, Fogarty and et., al.. - Permit Fantasia and Durdin to play on largely free of contributions to the match.
Yet the fan overreaction seems to be to pick this moment to force one of our rucks to go solo for four quarters against Gawn.
So the fan tactical plan is to make one of the few areas we are winning at the moment, and turn it into a potential loser!
He put his arms around him, once you do that youre gone.
Go back and watch the replay, Walsh is basically in a bear hug every other stoppage with arms around his waist, nada, nothing, nought!
Fans want to whack Williams, but what he did players do all the time and do not get pinged. The willingness of fans to throw rocks at Williams goes back to when he signed on, fans bitched and moaned about the dollars, but that is not Williams fault, much like it wasn't the fault of Martin or McGovern before him. But the dollars put him in the sh1thouse with many fans forever more, with the dollars promoting some weird sort of tall poppy syndrome!
Then you have the intentional out of bounds, our bloke gets pinged for a kick off the side of the boot that dribbles past 3 or 4 players, Pendlebury kicks it 50m almost directly sideways in the dying moments and gets away with it. When Pendlebury kicked there wasn't a player within 35m of where the ball headed.
These are game changing moments caused by officials not good play by an opponent.
I get our club doesn't want to be seen as whinging, but if they are raising these issues in a very public way it's never going to go our way. The privacy does nothing, we need the AFL giving fans a public explanation. When the AFL officials get sick of making up excuses, the errors will diminish.
Glad you mentioned this. The illegal tactics used on H and Charles, in particular, are, to be blunt, horrendous. And the blocking of Crippa is something I hope the club brings to the attention of the AFL. Pronto.
Umpires pinged Pitto for "blocking", using straight arms in the ruck, I thought that was allowed in 2024?
But shepherding Cripps off the ball is all OK with the opponents often having their back to the footy, although the bigger bodied opponents are now basically pushing back into Cripps and holding him momentarily behind their back.
