Whether or not Richmond are a basket case or not will play out over the season and potentially justify some people concerns.
Reality is, that is somewhat irrelevent when you are expected to be a top side. Someone who is in their premiership window. You ultimately give up a 41 point lead and there is no obvious turning point (ie jnjury) and end up with a 56(?) point turnaround.
The fact it happened against last year's bottom side just adds an extra bit of sting to that.
Yes, it was one that said i was very uneasy about this match due to who was left out of the side and the fact the side picked itself based on injuries rather than talent/form. However, what happened once the match started should never have happened once we got the lead we did. Inability to put the team away is one thing. Inability to protect such big lead is another.
I'm reading in some places that it's the worst loss in the last 30 years. Some folks are slightly over-reacting, I feel.
I certainly haven't said that and i'm not one to go overboard on superlatives or the opposite.
However, whoever said that has a point. In terms of favourites to win.....and not.....thats gotta be our biggest in 30 years. I can't recall exactly, but on footytipping.com it shows you who has picked who as a percentage. This was high 90's to us, at least 95% if not 98%.
Not many times we'd ever be that strong of a favourite....and doubt we've lost one after being so overplayed.
He wasn't great but he's never woeful he's just not living up to the paypacket and people's expectations.
Haynes was putrid.
I saw a snippet from David King, he stated Gov had 8 intercepts and 14 disposals but 3 clangers resulted in 3 goals, that's the ball game right there. Either way you look at it, I know its only round 1 but I dont think we will make the 8 let alone contend.
Assuming those stats are correct. Let's say gov did cost us 3 goals. But what about the 8 intercepts? Did that not save us potentially 8 shots on goal? Do the math and you'll find that gov is more of a plus than a negative.
Have willed my myself to watch parts of the game in small doses. 1:15 to go in the last. We're 8 points down Cottrell gets a handball from Cripps in the right forward pocket and decides against all that is holy to try the banana snap at goal when he had a bloke 30 metres out directly in front (Evans) unmarked he could've passed to. Selfish, stupid, unprofessional, undisciplined. Switched off the rest.
If we are pointing out that, then i will point out the contested shot that Cripps had that was smothered. Replay shows Lucas Camporeale all alone 15m behind him facing the goal. An extra handball from Cripps and its a certain goal to Lucas. But, he tried to do too much, which is a common trend from him......because it usually works.
Plenty of what ifs that you can play out that will send you insane. Best to forget it ever happened and move on to next week.
Dont believe me? you don't watch football. Hawthorn have played 1 bad game since I want to say May of last year. They play with a foundation of effort, and a system. Their players arent amazing, but they make them look good.
We have played about 3 good one since then and have probably turned up for a half in most of the others.
This is going to be terrible.
Ranking the teams from most wanting to play to do not want to play at all.....Hawks are #1 on the do not want to play list.
We don't match up well against them. Their strengths are our weaknesses.
We will not put in a good effort this week and unless Charlie kicked 8 and singlehandedly wins us the game.
I think its worth noting, for all their injuries and limitations (speed) 2 blokes who put in last night and did their best work in the last 15-20minutes of the game..... Silvagni and Docherty.
Yes, they are slow and have been injured and may not have a specific position in the side they can call their own. BUT.... When the $h!t hits the fan and you want blokes to put their balls on the line and do what they can, those 2 are who you would back to get it done.
Both are pure footballers. Not downhill skiers.
Docherty spent most of the game on the bench. He only played 27% game time, a touch over a full quarter of the game. He finished with 14 touches and 2 shots on goal (unfortunatly 0.2).
Jack Silvagni did his best Stephen impersonation by being solid down back before being thrown forward to try and win us the game....and he almost did with 1.1 which was our only goal in the last quarter.
Get another 20-odd blokes similar to them out there and we won't have the same lapses like we had last night.
I’ve said it for years. We have no effective small forwards. Haven’t since we didn’t get Papley.
Imagine Charlie, Harry, Kako
We have 35 small forwards on the list and still can't find a decent one. Let fill every other position on the field and forget about adding another small forward.
We have gaping holes opening up in key positions which is highlighted again tonight that we continue to ignore. Haynes is a wasted recruit. Fantasia was a wasted recruit Evans is a wasted recruit
Positives.... They've let us down early this year, so we won't have to go through the season with high expectations only to be disappointed in september.
Negatives... Its 6 months until NFL season starts.
FB [1] Jack Silvagni [23] Jacob Weitering, [4] Oliver Hollands HB [42] Adam Saad, [11] Mitch McGovern, [2] Lachlan Cowan C [13] Blake Acres, [9] Patrick Cripps, [21] Lucas Camporeale HF [18] Sam Walsh, [17] Brodie Kemp, [8] Lachie Fogarty FF [46] Matthew Cottrell, [10] Harry McKay, [6] Zac Williams Foll [12] Tom De Koning, [5] Adam Cerra, [29] George Hewett Int [15] Sam Docherty, [26] Nick Haynes,[3] Jesse Motlop,[36] Cooper Lord[44] Francis Evans Emeg EMG [33] Lewis Young, [32] Matthew Carroll,[38] Will White
Campo named on the field
Looking at who is NOT on that team tells us a decent story.
There is 11 players unavailable due to injury. Add to that Elijah and his 'mental health' and thats 12.
Players who have AFL experience and who are not picked in the best 23 (with games played) Young (67) Boyd (35) - deemed not fit enough it appears Binns (3) Moir (2)
Thats 107 games of experience on the sidelines
Everyone else is injured and/or yet to debut.
So kudos for Lucas getting a game, he deserved it. Evans gets a gig as a newbie (although he has played 34 games which may surprise some)
But its pretty clear that if you are fit and have played a game, you basically get a spot in the side.
There's over 570 games of experience sitting in the rehab room across 7 players who you'd probably find a spot in the side for half of them if they were fit. Charlie Newman Cincotta Elijah Pittonet Durdin Fantasia
Suddenly i'm less confident about our chances this week as i don't really know who is missing from Richmonds side and if its similar or if they are much fitter.
Vossy being interviewed now saying that defense is what we need to work on the most and that its been an issue for a couple years now.
......so why do we keep recruiting small forwards and ignoring the defence?!
Probably because, as yet, we've not unearthed a really dangerous small forward? Still an issue for our forward line. Who of our small forwards could walk into any top 6 side?
And when Vossy refers to defence I suspect he's referring to 'team' defence.
Yeah, nah.
Was talking about setting up down back and getting that right and going from there. Was plenty of talk about team defence and all that too, but i think it was off the back of talking about Silvagni being switched to a defender as well.
...and call me old fashioned, but if you want to improve your defence, start with your defenders and work your way up the ground from there! Yes, small forwards can do there bit for defence, but when you start 6-6-6 and you wanna focus on defence, there is SFA your small forward can help you with at that point.
FB [1] Jack Silvagni [23] Jacob Weitering, [4] Oliver Hollands HB [42] Adam Saad, [11] Mitch McGovern, [2] Lachlan Cowan C [13] Blake Acres, [9] Patrick Cripps, [21] Lucas Camporeale HF [18] Sam Walsh, [17] Brodie Kemp, [8] Lachie Fogarty FF [46] Matthew Cottrell, [10] Harry McKay, [6] Zac Williams Foll [12] Tom De Koning, [5] Adam Cerra, [29] George Hewett Int [15] Sam Docherty, [26] Nick Haynes,[3] Jesse Motlop,[36] Cooper Lord[44] Francis Evans Emeg EMG [33] Lewis Young, [32] Matthew Carroll,[38] Will White
Campo named on the field
Looking at who is NOT on that team tells us a decent story.
There is 11 players unavailable due to injury. Add to that Elijah and his 'mental health' and thats 12.
Players who have AFL experience and who are not picked in the best 23 (with games played) Young (67) Boyd (35) - deemed not fit enough it appears Binns (3) Moir (2)
Thats 107 games of experience on the sidelines
Everyone else is injured and/or yet to debut.
So kudos for Lucas getting a game, he deserved it. Evans gets a gig as a newbie (although he has played 34 games which may surprise some)
But its pretty clear that if you are fit and have played a game, you basically get a spot in the side.
There's over 570 games of experience sitting in the rehab room across 7 players who you'd probably find a spot in the side for half of them if they were fit. Charlie Newman Cincotta Elijah Pittonet Durdin Fantasia
Suddenly i'm less confident about our chances this week as i don't really know who is missing from Richmonds side and if its similar or if they are much fitter.
