I think some posters have gone early on Whiley. I'm prepared to give the kid a bit more time.
x2....Was playing at VFL pace and looked slow, Pendlebury is probably the best mid in the comp at the minute given Ablett is out and it was a tough ask coming in cold. Worst thing we can do is drop him, I might have tempted to play him off half back after half time and let him take a lesser opponent to build some confidence...
i think we have 16 players who were taken in the first round of the draft.
What does that say to me - the players are not playing anywhere near their ability. They looked (very) slow, disinterested and lost tonight. And the Pies aren't a quick team.
No leadership (again). No game plan seemingly.
The Pies are not that good - disciplined yes, team orientated yes. But really. We are worse than very bad.
1. Malthouse must go. Put Laidley in charge; 2. Murphy must step down (but who fills that void).
God, I don't know.
Yep the Pies are not that good but we had zero idea of what they were doing most of the night...Oxley ran around on his own like McIntosh did for the. Richmond game. The Pies game plan was the same they used for the Essendon game...it was the ex Hawks Ben Dixon who implied we just dont put enough time into scouting opposing teams and come into games underprepared with our tactics and have no Plan B.
I think Cripps is a future captain. I also think he's going to be a terrific player for us. ....but we need to let him have a year or two concentrating on nothing other than playing good consistent football and establishing himself as a regular member of the side.
( I doubt he'll ever be out of the side after the first two games of this season but we'll need to wait and see )
I just hope we can hang onto him and the WA clubs dont start knocking on his door....
The club backed itself into a corner with their talking up of Jones. If he's dropped it won't be for a while yet.
Tend to agree, they did talk Jones up but admitting failure by dropping him wont come easily......to be fair though the game plan hasnt exactly delivered silver service to our tall forwards and he is a player who needs reasonable delivery and not having the ball bombed on his head with a pack of players around him...
I hope Jaksch is 100%. We need him to be our Jack Frost. I am really keen to see if Whiley can play. Did we score a double winner in the trade with Jaksch and Whiley.
I reckon Whiley will get Pendelbury......big test in your first game for a new club but the same lad did the job on Ablett when playing for GWS so I reckon he is us up for the challenge. Jaksch needs the right opponent while he is developing like Goldsack or Karnezis....not a power forward like Cloke or White...
Three good ins and I am pleased to see Whiley playing as I think he will add something to the team... Dont know about dropping Casboult...makes us a bit unbalanced IMO and I am not a fan of using Rowe in the ruck.... Bit concerned as well about Jaksch having to maybe pick up Jessie White who is much bigger and stronger and hopefully Rowe spends more time down back than on the ball..
Jones has to fire up this week as we cant expect Henderson to kick five every game and we have zero crumbers/genuine small forwards given Menzel is out....
Blues by 5 points on the back of Micks milestone game....
re: Nick Holman,, was told he is being used as a run with tagger so his own numbers will probably be down but he played on James Magner last week and the NB's brains trust were very happy with his work... I hope the kids progresses as he got thrown to the wolves in his first couple of games, bullied by opponents and had to fend for himself given how weak our senior players are...
Agreed, tagging is a double edged sword, for example some "scribes" are saying that Freo's attacking upside is primarily due to Crowley's absence!
Problem with Crowley is he doesnt get the ball or do much with it when he does get it.....the best taggers are the ones who tag and get the footy. Cam Ling was great for this reason....Jordan Lewis can mind a man and still get 30 good touches.....I reckon Freo are better off without Crowley and more dangerous...
Good to have him back but I dont want Cripps, Bell etc having lesser roles than they did vs the Saints...they need to get used to life without Judd and take on more responsibility like they did vs Stkilda...
)