The effort is definately there, our players as individuals seem like we have the makings of a powerful team but geez we are miles off game plan wise.
The movement of the ball into our f50 is still the worst in the comp and without this addressed we won’t win many games regardless of the development of the young kids.
Just saw this from the AFL.com live feed which speaks to this directly......
'Richmond was able to move the ball more effectively scoring 54-7 from defensive midfield chains, and leading 67-35 in overall scores from intercepts.'
We scored 1.1 from clean transition out of defence to 8.6. And they were twice as effective as us capitalising on turnovers.
Just think about that for a few moments and it scares the piss out of you!
I sat thru both games yesterday and they were eerily similar in a lot of respects. The Richmond pressure, attack on the ball, structure behind the ball, fast spread from the contest and overlap run is very good, and it wore us down in both games.
In contrast we look incredibly haphazard, but the effort is generally very good - there are periods of really good stuff, some individual moments of brilliance, but it is still not a sustainable approach. It's impossible to do for 4 quarters.
Unfortunately cohesion and understanding can only be built over time and guys playing together. What worries me [like a lot of people here] is that it is hard to see what the actual game plan is, and our ball movement through the middle and into our forward line remains a dogs breakfast after 5 years.
One moment stood out for me early in the last quarter when on a fast break Murph had to stop, prop, and do a u turn on the outer wing as their was no in a good position to kick too. Good sides never do this.
The difference in ball handling in both games was stark - we fumble, panic, and give the ball to guys in bad positions way more than they did in both games. The number of uncontested marks taken by their defenders in both games was also way too high.
Maybe it was part of Chappell's termination payment from the BCCI - come back to Australia and be welcomed back with open arms and then proceed to f*ck up Australian cricket over the next 10 years with your stupid ideas and dogmatic approach. Do such a bad job that CA will promote you to a selector and then you can reek even more havoc on the game......
It's the only logical answer - he's working for the other guys! But seriously, what's he ever done as a coach / administrator that was a resounding success?
It really is comedy capers with the selectors now - it's embarrassing. Hohns and Chappell should walk the plank at the end of this series. Dropping Marsh and Finch are both admissions of failures that blind freddy could see coming - Finch isn't even a domestic level opener, and Marsh STILL isn't good enough at either batting or bowling to hold his place at test level. But every man and his dog knew that already.
So we replace them with Labuschagne - who hasn't proved himself capable of converting good starts at domestic level to bat 3! And we move our best performed batsman from 3 to open to make this happen. And then we add in Handscomb who hasn't looked like scoring a run in the 2 tests he played, instead of trying Burns or Maxwell and give them a crack.
You seriously couldn't make this stuff up. And these blokes are paid to this? Chappell is the prime architect of the demise of our batting stocks and he somehow remains as a selector??
Another embarrassing effort at every level - selection, game plan, and execution. We are non competitive against a bottom side. 11 scoring shots to 1 rushed behind for the quarter.
How long do we keep have to watching this tripe? It's just sickening to think how far away we are from even being competitive week to week. At what point does something have to change??
That was absolutely pathetic. Zero intensity matched with deplorable skills. Unwatchable - I have an 8 year old son who is so resigned to us being a basket case he’s happy if we get beaten by less than 10 goals.
Mullett, O'Shea, Lamb, Graham and Pickett would not get close to a game in any other AFL team in the comp IMO. Probably throw Kerridge into that group as well. They are not even the present, forget the future. Plus add to that Lang is seriously undone.
That's basically one third of the team right there. I just can't see how we are going to win games with this sort of selection strategy. I know the cupboard is pretty bare, but if that side doesn't set alarm bells ringing in the list management department then god help us all.
I pray I'm wrong [and I often am], and they have down on form, but I don't see enough ability in that team to compete against an AFL team and kick anything like a winning score.
How can you think that playing Rowe Casboult and Phillips alongside McKay, Kreuzer and Jones against such a strong midfield is beyond my comprehension. It’s just beyond stupid. When will the MC learn?
They scored 64 points to 3 in a 40 minute burst. It’s hard to conceive how we could be so poor at putting pressure on around the ball or in defence.
The simple fact is as a football club we are slipping slowly but surely into abject irrelevance. We are spiritless and spineless and the story of our demise is not even interesting in the media anymore. The rest of the competition expects an insipid performance most weeks and that’s what we consistently deliver. And the worst thing for me is I have an 8 year old son who loves his footy and the Blues who has to sit through that crap week after week. It’s heartbreaking to watch a team I loved watching as a kid turned into such a shell of its former self and their is only years more of pain on the horizon.
Can anyone enlighten me as to what role Lamb and Mullet are supposed to be playing. 3 games in a row they have provided nothing at all - in terms of possessions, scoring, pressure. I just cannot understand why a hard running bloke like Kerridge can’t get a game when we are so thin in the middle and cannot lay a tackle to save ourselves.
Without Doc our backline leaks like a sieve. Plowman, Jones & Weitering have been massively exposed in the last 3 weeks.
And our general skills and fumbling is simply embarrassing.
So we lose 2 half back flankers and replace them with a ruckman and an inside mid!! A pretty damning admission on how badly balanced the team was last week.
The side looks better on paper but we have kicked 18 goals in our last 7 quarters since the fast start against Richmond. Our forward line is still a basket case so I'm not confident, but hopefully something will click into gear this week. Surely things have to improve from last week's dismal effort........
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