Even with our ins and their outs its hard to see us getting within 5 goals.
The selections make sense in our current state. But we just can't be in a position later in the year when the likes of casbolt and ed curnow are getting gifted games and delivering so little. O'Brian goes out; fair enough. He needs time to settle and nail some skills in the seconds. But he only had one less touch than ed curnow last week and one tackle more. He had one.
Should be an interesting game. Both sides like to hold onto the ball, and collingwood play a great zone. Sadly, I fear we will turn it over too much and struggle to hold the ball inside our forward line.
Little point in going over the game, 7 pages of comments have covered most of the problems.
With our outs we were always going to struggle, but the disorganised nature of our midfield and backline were as bad as they have been for years. Thomas, Walsh and weitering did pretty well. Cripps battled hard but did feel he lacked a willingness to smash his opponent. Our utterly dismal senior leadership was on full display. Again.
Left at half time as the young fella was getting miserable. The key lesson, as he is a budding under 8 is to resolve to kick off both feet. We saw Walsh, charlie and McKay today wheel around and get caught out on the wrong foot, delaying and then scrubbing the kick. Its shameful how few players can kick off both and an indictment on so much junior coaching.
So a half hour kick to kick in the drive way doing 8 metre kicks on the wrong foot salved things.
Rubbish, when the opportunity cost is leaving leading players on the other team running rampant because our only tagger is trying to snag a goal (and essentially has zero idea how to be a forward).
That's a dumb comment.
Its not a dumb comment, and a little civility goes a long way, especially after a loss.
Tagging is a tradeoff. Playing Curnow in the middle in a tagging role is robbing another younger more creative player of very valuable time in contests, and probably giving up 15-20 possessions over a game in exchange for cutting 10-15 from an opponent. Cripps got sat on today by Howe and still managed 28 touches. Curnow got 24 touches and kicked a goal at half forward. Its a trade off and we lost by 5 points.
Bolton is wasting our time playing Ed as a small forward....talking about robbing Peter.....
Ed runs hard and is a senior body. His disposal is poor and when he is pushed out of the side we will be going places. But he, along with Thomas, Murphy et al are the few senior experienced players we have. They are not world beaters, and not a patch on the senior players Hawthorn had running around today, but it is what it is. Ed at half forward is working OK. He can find the pill and he can move quickly into the middle with the 6-6-6- rule in place.
Grrr, such a close one and real nailbiting in the last. I hoped the umpires would make another mistake and let McKay's mark in the last second (after the siren) stand.
We lost alot of drive with Simpson ging down, and a few errors really killed us late. Plowman's kick out of bounds and Jones' fumble and missed kick the two low lights.
Still alot to like with some very inexperienced players. Dow's burst and goal was great and the ball movement in the first half was excellent. Hawthorn are a fine side, and while they are down a bit they have some outstanding leadership in Roughhead, Stratton, Bruest, Smith etc. There is a reason why Roughhead went into the middle in the last minutes. The loss of our small defenders allowed their small forwards back into the game.
Omera not being tagged seemed a problem, but any tag is robbing peter to pay paul. Ed Curnow does give us a half forward option, albeit poor disposal, but its often a 50/50 proposition which is why tagging is not always done. Thought Shiels was more damaging, along with Scully at big moments.
Close but not quite. Big improvements on last year and the wins will start to come. We are a work in progress and lost by a kick to a prelim finalist from last year when we won 2 games. Some of the hysteria on this board is a little unhinged.
Big change today was the extra possession and attempts to clear to a free player rather than the hack kick forward. We went back to hacking in the third quarter and turned the ball over. Result of more spread and run in the midfield and Is hard to do but we did it. As a result, we hit targets in the forward line.
A better kick or two and we would be enjoying a win.
For what it is worth, the calls to make radical changes and things are failing need to heed the huge changes we have made as a club. The only things an executive (read head coach) can do to effect change is change budgets or people. We have a salary cap so the first is out. And on the second we have made massive changes. Any workplace that has had the percentage of staff turnover we gave had is going to find the going tough for a while.
The club is now settling its playing list. Our footy this year has been better. We arn't scoring much, but nor are most teams. We have been in games and have not been blown away. I want to see a win, but I'm certain the coach and players want it the most.
Little tiresome the 'sack the coach' rhetoric. Some smarter decisions and some better kicking would have seen us win. We are getting better very slowly and its frustrating to keep racking up the losses, but this is a long game. Turning over the players we have is going to take a long time to bear fruit. Not sure how the howlers from our experienced players an be laid at the feet of the coach.
Not sure what to think. Am away on so only caught the last quarter on a phone. But missed my daughter playing auskick on the ground as she got a last minute spot
Same rubbish of a dysfunctional forward line suffering from slow and bombing delivery. Lack of crumbers and the ball is swept out too easily. Cripps plays an enormous game and we lose by 3-5 goals. I guess we will snag a few wins this year but it is all pretty uninspiring. Good game from Mackay who took some fine marks. Shame about the goal kicking.
Ho hum. Round 3 and same old. We look better but the lack of scoring continues.
I'm happy with the zone style because the coach is expecting them to learn how to play in a way that will win. One on one is for wet days and the bottom leagues. Watch a division one game in local leagues; they play zone.
Its the turnovers that are killing us. We won the inside 50s, which shows we are winning the ball and getting it forward. We then break down and it comes back and we are struggling to get back to position. Playing one one one is not going to improve us much.
One a few occasions this year our approach has worked and we score. Fast ball movement via accurate kicking is very hard to defend. But it requires great skills and being organised and we are struggling to meet these levels.
