I think Libba in the middle disrupting our clearance strength made as much difference as anything. I thought so at the time, but just checked the stats and was surprised.
Player x - 33 touches, 5 tackles, 12 clearances Player y - 34 touches, 6 tackles, 12 clearances
x = Libba y = Cripps.
Libba absolutely smashed us on the inside and gave first class delivery to Richards on the outside, and Richards doesn;t even need that help as he can win his own inside footy. When they lost the clearance our predictable direction worked against us because they had blokes running of the HFF and HBF like Freijah coming into the square and smashing guys like Walsh and Hewett. We were basically being taken out of the disposal chain by late dumping tackles, most of them unpenalized, which killed our overlap run. That's a tell to how teams will counter us in the finals when the heat rises! I hope we have taken some learnings from that game.
There is a distinct difference between an occasional pinch hit event and a regular role, which is the point of difference for all the sort of shock tactics that occur.
The suggestion they can be the default and be effective every time is the flawed suggestion.
Under the current rules, I can't recall a single team surrendering the ruck in advance, and turning it into a victory.
The Dishlickers came after our strengths and, being still young in our 'newer' layer of offense and spread, were caught out... but... we adapted and adjusted in the second half and that is a big credit to players and coaches alike. That's a positive sign and a part of our growth, with plenty still to come and needed to advance up the ladder. We're a work in progress and shouldn't be hung, drawn and quartered for mistakes - it's a part of learning.
I posted earlier in the thread that I wasn't at this game, I won't go to icicle nosebleed stadium. I'm only analysing video from the AFL and Kayo.
But I had some mates there, and from a behind the goals vantage point they both tell me Weitering was one of the main reasons after half time for our lift in performance. They said he became far more vocal and assertive after halftime making sure players got to the right spots at the right time. The trouble is most of that early work the cameras never show, it's over and done long before the footy arrives with the cameras following. The blokes that arrive late at the last possible moment and effect the big mark or spoil often get all the kudos, but the very best defenders get the job done before the ball even arrives. You should expect to see this sort of change in young Dean over the next couple of seasons, some fans will think he is going off the boil, when in reality he is getting better at his job, he'll go from winning contested chaos to boring "mise en place".
Never did I see us allow any Dishlicker player 'walk through' our tackles.
I have no idea how anyone could miss it throughout the 1st half!
Even now retrospectively the stats post-game looked even, but in real time the top ranked to 1/2-time was Dog dominated. We were burning entries into F50, they were taking it end to end and wasting shots on goal, lucky for us.
So many contests, we outnumbered the Dogs at the fall of the ball, and that underDog won! I think a few even posted as much in the game thread, about our return to the bad ways!
What I will say is this, Derksen didn't work forward, what I won't claim is that he would've been any better than Weitering if Derksen had been in D50!
Last week was the first time in a while we got opened right up. Weitering is too slow to be pushing that high up the ground. Lucky they didn't have their kicking boots on.
That's blaming the effect for being the cause.
The cause was 2 or 3 possessions earlier and 50m further away when the Dogs walked through our tackles like they we were giving them a pat on the back! It was the weakest effort for many months., Freijah, Libba, Kennedy, Richards, they had our lot rattled.
You have to ask yourself this question, how did the Dogs forwards find themselves surrounded by 50m of free space, and yet the Dogs mids strolled through the midfield largely untouched, where were all the players? If the Dogs F50 was so open, there should have been numbers, congestion and traffic further up the field, progress should have been slow, but they moved the footy freely! The Dogs got in their own way more than we did!
Greens bowling, both volume and quality has unbalanced the side. Webster's slot should be a specialist's bat or a bowling all-rounder.
Green's a bowler, not just used to change ends?
For all the potential this kid offers, he's massively under delivered, in fact most of the squad fall in that category.
Don't accept the stats, if the greats of the past had as much opportunity to play cricket under the modern idealistic conditions they would have records twice the magnitude! None of these "moderns" compare in my opinion. The modern players find things to complain about in conditions that would have seen Viv Richards or Bob Simpson batting for 5 days!
Can you imagine facing Warne or Lillee around Tea time with a pink ball in a Day / Night test, most batsmen would come off looking like Mr Bean? Think of all those times Warne turned the last moments of light into a symphony of cricket!
I thought that we dominated the game but some wayward kicking from quarter time onwards kept the Bulldogs in the contest.
100% agree, the stats are most likely good because we had 2, 3 or 4 good disposals in the row then burnt the last one, at least that is what I saw but I wasn't there live!
It's probably another good example of how stats can retrospectively paint the wrong picture, or cause people to draw the wrong conclusions.
I particularly noted in the 2nd half on event, we ran the footy out of D50 through CHB to the Wing then towards the HFF. We had setup with CHF vacant, and both Kemp and McGovern started deep with space to lead into. Yet we baulked at that centering kick and forced McGovern to double back and lead into the pocket. Fortunately, McGovern clunked the mark, and fortunately the Dogs had run up towards the ball carrier leaving space behind. I saw Fraser's eyes rolling in the coach's box and he made an arc with his hand like he'd also expected us to the centre the pill and not head to the pocket. Fans will celebrate that play, but the reality is it's easy to kill the footy in the pocket, and if McGovern had not marked the Dogs had the numbers to run the footy back for a full field length turnover, our Mids were pushing towards CHF 20m away from where we kicked the pill leaving nobody to crumb. That makes our lot look slow because we are caught out of position.
I have always rated Richards very highly, he is the exact type of speedy ball user that we need.
Agreed, rare as rocking horse shizen, strong in the contest yet with speed on the outside, very few have those two qualities combined. At any one time in the AFL there is probably only 5 or 6 like that, who can also perform at a high level, when you add size to that like Judd you have a genuine freak.
Richards has been great all season. Taken huge steps this year. Descends from Collingwood royalty. His great-great-grandfather is Charlie Pannam Sr., his grandfather is Ron Richards, and his great-uncle is Lou Richards.Bad luck for the Pies, he ended up at the Dogs.
I think he's been good for 2 or 3 season now, just overlooked in the media, forced into the backseat by bigger names (bigger heads too) who have more mates on the commentary side.
Anti-vaxers will crow about RFK's decisions and the official anti-vax proclamations, claiming that the new bills support the conspiracies.
But the real truth here is about securing control of markets, RedTrump and his cohort are pummelling foreign providers like CSL, so that the US can gain control of the production, just like oil but in a needle, at which time the official conspiracies will evaporate and vaccines will be all good again!
At the start of the season Champion data ranked the Bulldogs as the strongest list in the comp. That doesn't guarantee success but it shows they are a talented squad. Ed Richards has been a top 10 player all season, the other 9 players are all superstars but no one talks about Ed.
Subjectively I think Richards regularly performs to a high standard against us, I'm not sure if that is backed up by the figures but I recall him making a signifcant contribution to our demise in past games. At least some signficant moments.
As much as the batting failed the bowling group abjectly failed to build pressure.
This has always been my assertion regarding the erratic performances, it's OK to crow about some player's best efforts as being a class above, but if the average output is ordinary it drags down everybody around them. This applies to both batting and bowling, probably fielding as well.
For example, the Australian Cricket mafia will use Green's latest innings as a excuse to persist, and Marnus just needs one good innings to secure another extension off the back of an isolated effort, ignoring repeat failures for the sake of one spectacular success here or there. That seems to be modern cricket, a flash in the pan T20 betters the 5 day grind.
It's 2 points because they halved the game. No-one lost either. If you draw you share the points. Half each. Shouldn't be getting a zero like a loss as you didn't lose. Losing is worse.
In our case iot was the unique situation of a draw being a "win" as it achieved the desired goal.
Don't agree, there is a point of difference between two teams playing to win and being tied, versus a team that has settled on a draw as the result.
If having zero points for a draw means we never see a team settle for a draw ever again then I'm all for it, we don't play soccer, draws are sh1t!
I'd rather extra time, and first to a 2pt advantage, no more settling! I think 2pts makes sense, because it allows for a defensive rushed behind while leaving a goal as a winning score.
I thought in the dying moments it was our older heads that took control of the momentum, as is needed, and while it was absent at times throughout the game when it was needed they delivered, but a draw is a very different to needing a win, and Bevo discussed in his post-match they were momentarily thrown by us not trying for the win.
It was certainly a contrast, and sadly as the AFL works towards forever closing the gap between the have and the have nots, it's likely we'll see more of it.
Of course, the AFL can eliminate this completely by making a draw worthless, zero, nada, nothing, zilch. Why does it need to be a split of the 4 points, if it's zero, it's zero for everybody, as good as a bye. Only ever reward wins!
