I'm not going to blame him because it takes a team to defend and sheer weight of numbers would have made it extremely tough, but for a bloke minding buddy he spent a lot of time nowhere near him.
That being said he joins a long list of defenders that buddy has pulled the pants down of.
Jones played a few meters in front of Buddy firstly to give himself first chance to mark the ball, and secondly to block Buddy's run, and thirdly to minimize the chance of giving away a free by attempting to spoil over the shoulder, push in the back etc. One problem that emerges from this is that Jones was constantly looking around to see where Buddy was. Between ball watching, Buddy watching etc., in combination with glut of supply that Buddy received, he was on a hiding to nothing. I doubt Rance would've done better under the circumstances.
I think the strategy was sound enough. If I were a defender, I would much prefer playing in front of Buddy.
Liam had a tough night at the office. He received a bit of a football lesson from one of the great forwards. Unfortunately with Plowman, Marchbank, Silvagni and Rowe all unavailable it was a job he had to do with little assistance and little option for a switch. At the best he'll have learned a few things to work on and be ready for the next contest.
Given he was a bit preoccupied with his opponent he would probably be a bit down in his 1%'s this week
But No!
15 for the game...the next best was Melican from the Swans with 8...the next best Carlton player was Williamson with 4
At the end of the regular season Jones leads AFL for 1%'s per game with an average of 11. A minor stat no doubt....but we won something
We also won this Kicks
1 Sam Docherty 460 2 Dustin Martin 434 3 Dylan Roberton 385 4 Kade Simpson 377 5 Andrew Gaff 371 6 Zach Merrett 370 7 Bryce Gibbs 362 7 Bradley Hill 362 9 Marc Murphy 360 10 Heath Shaw 345 ..and this
Kicks Carlton 4965 Collingwood 4898 Essendon 4854
Do we kick too much
Thanks for that lods. Those 1% show that he pays attention to the small things that make a difference, and that he's unselfish. A team first, athletic, reborn AFL player who has a completely legitimate claim to some very decent scalps this season. I'm happy for him. Well done, Giant Slayer Jones.
And those kicking stats - well, I've touched on that elsewhere. I'd be very curious to know what % of those kicks went backwards or sideways.
i would like to ask our coaching panel is HOW do the opposition always seem seem to have an open forward line with space to lead and ours is ALWAYS crowded it not only the swans games it is been happening all year ? I think we have to look at our forward coach and defensive game plan.
Plenty on here agree, although apparently there is method to the madness. The shackles are supposedly going to be released, or at least loosened, next season.
I don't think one can blame Jones for Buddy's 10 goals.
He had no support defensively from the midfield - as per usual when our mids go missing they go TOTALLY missing and he had no help down back either.....
Buddy would have kicked 10 on anyone with such little support.
The second half belting was almost inevitable - the end of a long year for the kids and Sydney had a lot to play for....
Mention should be made that we had a lot of regular 22 guys out too - ACoS/Rowe, Marchbank, Plowman, Cripps and Curnow.
Take Kennedy and Hannebury out of their 22 and let's see how they go?
The only team we were above last year was that half an essendon side.
Not rocket science. If you have the worst forwardline in the league, and don't do anything to address it in the off-season, you are going to have the worst forwardline in the league again.
Can only hope we've learned our lesson in the upcoming off-season.
There is only so much we can expect from young Harry in 2018. Curnowfides will come on further, but with or without Casboult, that is still not enough.
Yes - 18th in points for and 13th in points against. This speaks of a specific mindset / approach to footy, and a lopsided list. I can't see how we can continue to play this way next season, irrespective of what additions we make or don't make to our forwards. Bolton has to try something. We simply can't expect to restrict every team to 60-70 points.
Thanks for your work on this lods. Time to put the feet up for a while.
No need to start one next season. We'll be implementing phase 2 of Bolton's master plan, so we'll be aiming for 20 goals per match, just like Mark Williams in his PA coaching days.
Daniher and Brown both took until their 3rd year before they became strong consistent performers, and have really started to excel in their 4th years.
So assuming McKay can become as good as them, it won't be until 2020 season that he will be a force - that's still a long wait given the last 4 years of mediocrity.
The reasons why we [or Bris / GC] are where we are pretty is much irrelevant in regards to a PP for mine - it's simply that the draft should be used to help the comp equalise. It is also far from a panacea - 1 extra pick isn't really going to do much and is no guarantee that we will use it well anyway!!
Perhaps, but i was role playing. I very much doubt the AFL will see it that way.
It's an interesting argument and depends on your definition of 'deserve' - I think it's more a question of need.
We all know that the playing field is not even, and the idea that priority picks 'reward mediocrity' is furpphy to me. We have been consistently ordinary for 4 years straight, and at a minimum we are 2-3 years away from having a consistently competitive side assuming the majority of our draftees develop into good players, and we find a way to kick 3-5 more goals per week. An extra pick would provide a small benefit to help close the gap for those 3 teams who have consistently under performed.
The issue with our scoring has been something I have banged on about 2 years, and the simple fact is we haven't really improved. Our conversion improved slightly [so we scored slightly more] but our scoring shots went down. I predicted at the start of the year we would finish bottom 4 because I couldn't see how we would score enough to win more than 25% of our games. It is statistically shown that you will win about 1 in 4 games if you only have 20 scoring shots - and this is exactly what happened this year for us.
Have a look at the Bombers rise this year - there defence is marginally better than ours but they will end up scoring 600 points more than last year through the development of their drafted forwards and recruiting [Greene and Stewart] to spread the load. I will confidently predict again that we will not move up the ladder in 2018 until we find a way to have 5-6 more scoring shots each week and convert those into 3-4 more goals.
I would have loved to have button holed Bolton but the whole coaching group didn't look like they were keen to engage with anybody - especially an opinionated punter like me!! I've actually never seen a more depressing footy dressing room in my life!
sbf, as always, you make some fair points. I reckon one possible reason for the coaching group looking miserable is that they got a reality check for how much work still needs to be done to be a genuine challenger, which then means more green shoot propaganda, more of a hard sell to fans etc., not to mention the actual real work of drafting, trading developing etc., and making sure it's all done right.
wrt to a PP, if I was the AFL, I would not be looking at the MM years at all. That IMO is in the past. I would tell the club : - you have 5 RS nominations this year, one last year, one of whom is playing CHF and looks a chance to be the best player in the comp - you have plenty of high draft picks, through draft and trades. - you have a stated policy of playing youth, which makes it harder to win games - you have been competitive most of the season, including being ahead in the 4th in 7 games, and including knocking over GWS and the Swans, and if you want to gild the lily, the Hawks as well.
sbf, given your issues with our scoring impotence (which I completely agree with btw), you should have crash tackled Bolts in the rooms and demanded to know what he intends to do next season to get us closer to regularly scoring about 100 points. A guaranteed mood lifter if ever there was one.
Last nights game shows how far we drop when we lose more then 2-3 from our starting 18. We have 'just' been competitive without cripps and curnow but once you take out a few more we drop very quickly.
Our list has an early tipping point due to lack of decent depth players and I really hope sos does a better job then he did last year in this regard.
Players like smedts and Palmer are wasted picks IMO we need decent consistent back ups not high risk perspective picks for these positions.
We can't be uncompetitive next season when we are down a few soldiers which will occur in a long season.
With a healthy list we could win 8-10 games next year. But lose more then 2-3 of starting 18 and we quickly drop off to close to the worst team in the comp.
Kelly hooper and co would be nice additions if SOS can make it happen but the need of real depth players can't be underestimated.
Generally agree Shawny, except on Palmer : the only reason he's not getting games is because of our youth policy. He is exactly what a depth player should be - inexpensive, experienced, and can play a role decently without starring. Bolton's statement about picking players on form is nonsense. If it were true, Palmer would be a regular fixture in the 1sts.
I'll focus on the season as a whole more so than today. It's been encouraging. The only game that really annoyed me alot was the Brisbane game. Today, while not that happy, I half expected and it's not going to affect much anyway.
That's a fair post Jim. I never expected us to win, as the Swans are superior to us in every way. But I just wish it was an honorable, hard fought loss, and not a capitulation / humiliation. The Brisbane game was not great by any means, but today we just rolled over, very meekly. I was hoping this was a thing of the past.
