Looks like the 2015 flag is ours – AFL fan wrap-up, Round 18

BigFooty forum members react to their teams results in from AFL round 18. Not many Adam Goodes or indigenous player references in here – try the thread for your fix of that.

Friday, July 31

Hawthorn 7.11.53 def by Richmond 10.11.71

“Looks like 2015 flag is ours. Last 3 times Richmond have beat us we were so embarrassed we went on to win the flag. Yaaaay!” – Hodgey 15

“Richmond turned up. We played in first gear. Poor skills, no run, no communication and didn’t do the hard yards. Outcoached, out hungered.”- rdhopkins32

“That’s a terrible end to Dry July. I need a drink NOW!!” – The A Team Van

“It makes me a little bit excited (if you know what i mean) that we’re actually taken seriously these days. Been a long time coming (like really really long).” – Tigez 4 Life

“Congrats on your 250th Clarko:

Saturday, August 1

Geelong Cats 17.11.113 def Brisbane Lions 8.9.57

“Happy with result. Walker main positive along with guys like Motlop, Caddy, Guthrie & Duncan being good again with that consistency.” – Daniel McL

“No injuries, won all four quarters, and picked up a healthy bit of percentage. Yep, I’ll take that.

Having said that though, we need to play a lot better in the next fortnight.” – winty

“Nothing went right today for us. We had a small sniff early on, missed a few chances and the game was pretty much over. Our mob’s confidence is completely and utterly shot. They don’t even have a reason to play. Probably the reason why our youngsters are the ones that are doing the best, because they’re the ones with something to prove.” – bato

“Waltzing Matilda,
Boo for St. Kilda!
Up with Fitzroy,
And down with Geelong….” – Kezzstar

“A lot more positives then recent weeks.

Dawson, Andrews and Paparone continue to impress.

Adcock showing the forwards how it’s done as well, great leadership.

Sadly a lot of our senior bodies let us down. Rich, Redden, Hanley, Zorko, Bewick to name a few – not good enough at all.

Robinson with 30 touches works his ass off for this club, Rocky as well.

Did I mention Andrews? Kid is a gun – rising star this week please.” – BeamStar17

Collingwood 7.12.54 def by Melbourne 13.13.91

“Yep, time to start pumping more games into the kids now (as well as Reid to see if he can handle it) – nothing left to play for now in 2015, not that I ever really thought there would be at the start of the year (we’ve shown some positive signs at different points, but I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to sustain the pressure-oriented turnover focused game plan they’re trying to instil – especially with our deplorable disposal skills by foot).

Disappointing doesn’t even describe today, but I think we all suspected something like this might be coming with our form basically falling off a cliff after running both Freo and Hawthorn close. ” – PartyPie

“Disposal awful, forward line in disarray but for those that see the sun shine Scharenberg was very good on debut, Moore I thought was great and both Varcoe and Greenwood are good additions.” – NT.Thunder

“That was one of the worst games I’ve seen us play in recent times. Absolutely ******* dreadful.” – DERKADERR

“Odd week for football, average week for race relations, great week for sweeping bad news under the rug. Say there was a club who couldn’t properly execute a 20m kick and they wanted everyone to talk about something else, any other week you’d be stuffed. This week the furore caused by West Australians making noises like constipated cows whenever Adam Goodes went near the ball, and many ordinary attempts at justifying everyone’s ‘right’ to join in, ensured that Carlton, Melbourne AND Brisbane all managed to avoid anyone seriously asking the question of “what the **** were you thinking?” – Demonblog

“The good: 22 players defending the whole ground, pressure was immense.

Vince: I love ya
Gawn: Will be an All Australian ruckman one day.
Watts: Stoked for him. Nearly top 5 in the B+F id say.
Vandenberg: thought he was absolutely terrific
Jetta: What a man. Week in week out.
The treatment we gave Pendles.
The last quarter in general: One of the most enjoyable 30 minutes I’ve had at the football.

The bad: Yesterday’s performance just makes the last 3 weeks all the more frustrating.
Thought Dawes was poor for the first 3 quarters, will have to watch a replay though, was good in the last.
Whoever was on Fasolo in the first half, (Grimes?)

Fugly: That holding the ball decision against Jetta when he clearly got legged, right in front of the umpire as well.

All in all, yesterday was just a ******* good day at the football.” – Booshboy

Sydney Swans 17.15.117 def Adelaide Crows 9.11.65

“1. Nice to get over 100
2. McGlynn and Heeney make us a much better side.
3. Tippett played a good first half and Bud was Cyril like with his 7 touches” – Troystenvic

“1. Much prefer the Nankervis– Tippett ruck combination. We pretty much smashed the best clearance team in the comp because we had ruckman following up with tackling pressure.
2. We have key players badly out of form in terms of disposal efficiency and the only way for them to get out of it is to play their way out. Saw some confidence return as the game went on.
3. 3rd quarter. 7 minutes in. Magical. Hope he heard it. ” – kneecapper

“Without letting the emotions of this game settle at all, I’ll review our insipid performance versus Sydney

The Ugly

• Effort. We were behind our opponents all day, always second to the ball, always chasing, never close enough to apply pressure. Just despicable from every member of our midfield group
• Tackling. We are abysmal at tackling and have been for YEARS. Players can dish off clean disposals while we cling on for dear life, meanwhile we get tackled to ground (or just slip over) with ease. Part of this is because we pick players who are s* defensively, especially through the midfield.
• Mackay. You are cooked. Back to the SANFL you go. A ******* house fly could push you off the ball, your tackling efforts are despicable, you provide no run despite being a reasonably quick player, and your disposal cost us today.
• Wright. I don’t care how many disposals you get, your defensive efforts are appalling and have been appalling all season. I see you watch players stream past you as you stand watching. For a ‘senior’ player this isn’t good enough. Just **** off back to the SANFL.
• Lynch. Get your kicking in order and you’ll be a great player for us. But for now, giving you the ball is costly.
• Smith. Out of form and in need of a spell. Where has that laser boot gone? It’s time for the blow torch to be applied because you’re not up to it right now.
• Henderson. Soft and defensively unaccountable. Waltzes around the ground like the runner, not a player. Either harden the **** up or get out.
• Jacobs, we know you’re a good ruckman, but you shouldn’t let yourself get toweled up by a part time ruckman in Tippett. Not a great effort today.
• Walker. You are the captain, playing your 100th game. Where were you today, to stand up and lift our team? Not what I want to see from a captain.
• A number of other players were mediocre. Sloane (not many disposals, are you actually right to play?), Cameron (no run, tackling pressure or goals), Thompson (rubbish defensively)
• It’s hard to blame our forwards today because they got rubbish service, but some of our kicks for goal were awful. We’re not confident in front of goal.
• Defenders were under siege when they never should have been. Did an okay job against against the big forwards after the first quarter, but we failed to stop the midfielders kicking piss easy goals from silver service delivery.
• Tippett kicking 3 goals in the first quarter. In what universe is Lever a better matchup for the big dickhead than Hartigan? What a basic coaching error that should have been corrected before the first bounce.
• Selecting Matt Crouch as the sub. Should have played last week and this week. Just appalling treatment of one of our better midfielders, and was sorely missed in a team smashed at the coal face today.
• Subbing Knight off. What the flying **** were the coaches thinking? It’s not like the game was in the balance, we should have had our developing players on the ground rather than spuds like Mackay
• The goal review involving Wright‘s clear goal was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Despicable from the score review umpire
• And speaking of the umpires in general, they were trigger happy to pay holding the ball against us and were terrible all day. Didn’t contribute to the loss but they crucified us at every chance
• Gold passes have cost us. If we decide to bring back VB this week it will just make things worse.
• Suggesting before the game that we rate some players on “non-statistical roles”. I mean just have a good hard look at what you’re saying David Noble. That’s absolute rubbish and a poor justification for selecting bad senior players week after week. Time to smarten the **** up.
• And finally, Scott Camporeale. I don’t think you’re up to a full time coaching role. We have reverted to some Sando-era bullshit following Walsh’s tragic passing, such as dropping young players, putting young players as the sub repeatedly or consecutively, subbing out developing players when the game isn’t on the line, inexplicable match-ups, not preparing players for the match, the list goes on.” – Scorpus

Carlton 8.6.54 def by North Melbourne 18.10.118

“… hopefully the broom sweeps from the board to the cellar.” – bluebrew

“At least we played a quarter this week…” AB_Blue

“The usual really. Tried hard, a lot of the time anyway, some promise from kids, but too many passengers and poor skills. ” – T2B_

“Any wonder why no Carlton fans turn up to our games when we dish this out week after week. For the love of god, can anyone at our club get to teaching the playing group some sort of system or structure out on the field.” – Carlton2dabone

“At least a positive is Boekhorst having two solid games in a row now. Still fading out in the second half due to fitness I think.” – ShanDog

“My question is how did we get to a point where the entire team has no idea how to move the ball in a structured way?
How did we get to a point where our defence, midfield and forward lines don’t know how to position themselves to win the ball?” – carlton2dabone

“A positive is that we weren’t playing a better team.” – Warrboy

“Good:
JZ, Higgo, Dal, Wright, Goldie
Good to see LT gain confidence as the game went on
Ball movement was possibly the best for the year

Bad:
Typical second quarter brain fade. Another 3 quarter effort
Bastihac‘s howlers in the first half were truly horrible” – Egga

“Positives:
• First quarter, last quarter
• Higgo – was immense
• JZ
• Sexy Dal‘s class
• BJ (kept Murphy to 9d after HT)
• Goal kicking spread
• LMac‘s tackle
• Goldy actually kicking straight for goal
• Ats’ kicking – Quivorir should be proud
• Into the top 6 – on track for a home Elimination Final

Negatives:
• Second and third quarter both shithouse
• Gibson – drop him FFS
• Umpires
• BT and Darcy, **** me they’re shit” – Roo Beauty

Gold Coast SUNS 12.11.83 drew West Coast Eagles 11.17.83

“We have played some very good footy over the last month. Really finishing the season off strong and players are finally standing up and buying in to Rocket’s culture.

A lot of our B grade players were at an A grade level last night.

Just need to increase Chaz‘s contract up to $500k a yr now and he will surely stay.

Who in their right mind would go to the Lions who are showing a lot of issues and publically screaming for a priority pick to save them. Not a good selling point?” – Corkie

“1. Brandon Matera can work hard enough to be a good two way player who can get up the ground as a link player. A couple of super kicks from the back 50 to find a player in space. Big tick. Just needs to hold his marks.
2. Rocket can get them playing hard for 4 quarters, even when they are stuffed.” – Stroppy

“Positives:
Doesn’t hurt top 2 chance
Real kick up the ass before Hawks and Freo
Full Royal

Negatives:
The Rest” – Ochre

“Now lets never speak of this game again.” – ep2006

Sunday, August 2

Port Adelaide 17.10.112 def St Kilda 6.13.49

“I thought it was a good win today! Certainly not the cleanest, or the most dominant win we’ve had, but it was our best and only four quarter performance of the year.

For all bar 10 minutes in the 2nd quarter when we couldn’t get the ball out of the backline, we played the game on our terms and won all four quarters. We limited St Kilda to their equal lowest score of the year and gave them one of their heaviest defeats.” – Macca19

“4 quarter effort is what we wanted all season and for once we finished off a garbage side like we should of all season. Good crowd as well i thought. If 34-36k is going to be our lowest of crowds we’ll pull at AO that is a pretty good effort. People in Melbourne wpuld be pleased with that with 2 Vic sides playing each other. ” – PAFC66

“Weird sort of game. Defensive pressure inside 50 was fantastic, still having trouble from the kick out. To many static players. Boak, Gray and Wingard exceptional. Thought the Hoff set the tone early with some strong marks. Ryder was good except he left his goal kicking boots in Melbourne, at least he is that presence inside 50 we’ve been screaming out for. I think that once Colqhoun puts a few more kilos on he’s going to be an outstanding player. In all, a good percentage booster. What we should have done to Carlton and Brisbane. ” – DazzaTys

“Worst game since Collingwood.” – Joffaboy

“Pass marks for Dempster and Goddard. Below par game from pretty much everyone else. Really frustrating game to watch with the same old story of missing targets under pressure.

One other thing, Eli has lost so much confidence since his injury. I really hope he gets some aggression back after a pre-season, just isn’t the same energetic player we saw burst onto the scene last year. It was a nasty injury so can understand it has some impact on a young player. ” – NarklesHelmet

“One of those games where you just draw a line through it, burn the tape and move on.

Disappointing to lose by that sort of margin but we’ve always struggled against Port in Adelaide at the best of times.

The positives are that McCartin and Goddard are getting more AFL experience under their belts and are looking the goods.

Really hoping we can bounce back with a win against Freo next week with Rooey, Gilbo and Lonie back.

If there is one game I want to win this year it’s that game, I hope Richo and our players feel the same way, I want to destroy them like last year.

We’ve been screwed over by the umpires more than any other club the last few years though, the For and Against free kick stats back that up.” – Plugger35

“When you have 73 less disposals by lose the tackles by 9 it reflects incredibly poorly on our effort. This is also highlighted by our continued poor performance in the contested ball which we lost by 16.

Our disposal is also crap.

The umpires are shit but they are not the problem.” – Periphery

Essendon 5.10.40 def by Western Bulldogs 19.13.127

“It’s funny through this whole saga…

While we were still winning it was #standbyhird

Now we are losing its kick to the curb.

He hasn’t changed, his involvement in the saga hasn’t changed. Just proves – its a results business and results matter. The saga is secondary” – Howard Moon

“I’ve had my phone off since about half time and just saw the score. Is this sack-Hird bad or we’re-just-not-very-good bad?” – ManWithNoName

https://twitter.com/martydownunder/status/627738423873269760

“I cant even get angry at these losses anymore. It’s ******* sad that i am expecting a big loss and hoping for at least a 3 qtr effort” – sacka

“I don’t know if I can tolerate another year of Hird. I’m usually the one to stick by the coach, but we desperately need to start fresh.” – SherbertLemon

“IF BRENT STANTON IS GETTING MORE POSSESIONS THAN ZAHARAKIS AND COONEY PUT TOGETHER WHAT HOPE HAVE WE GOT!! ” – Hulk Hogan

“Disappointing in the sense that I thought we were a big chance in this game – We were just a little bit off in our decision-making in the forward half – Thought multiple chances to kick goals went begging through either decision-making, nearly taking marks, poor kicking for goal – We refused to spot up the leading target between 40 to 60m from goal to separate the Bulldogs defenders.

We missed Hurley big time – Crameri has barely got a sniff opposed to Hurley – Getting Crameri off the chain then lead to Stringer getting off the chain – Crameri and Stringer kicked 11 – Hurley plays and they would have got 3 or a maximum 4. ” – Yaco55

“Lachie Hunter played an even better game then last week!

36 disposals – 6 marks – 4 tackles – 3 inside 50s – 77% disposal efficiency ” – WWSD

“God damn, Hunter really has turned a corner. Hopefully he keeps it up because his last two weeks have been great.

If only he were eligible for the rising star. Ah well, I would be happy with Caleb getting it. ” – Testekill

“Leigh matthews has one final dig on fox saying we haven’t beaten the real gun teams yet. which gun teams other than hawthorn does he mean? Surely not wce, richmond or sydney. And we were far better than freo after qtr time. Guy has gone senile. ” – Substance

Fremantle 12.12.84 def GWS GIANTS 9.9.63

“Solid Weller debut.
Pearce looked ok forward.
Walters very good

Fair few off games

Goal kicking was horrible.
Field kicking was horrible ” – Freoforever86

“- We can always trust Mundy and Hill
– Forward line still in trouble
– A.Pearce was an interesting experiment forward, he needs more time down there but I think it’s safer to keep him back for now.
– Dawson looked lost at times.
– Sandilands marking
– Good effort by MDB, really needs full games to get started. He’s not an effective sub.
– Weller looks promising, definitely needs to start next week.
– Walters needs to stop acting and have more second effort attempts. Sick of seeing him look at the umpire after most contests while his man and the ball is going past him.
– Sutcliffe honestly needs to be dropped. He’s too weak, lazy and always trailing his opponent.” – Silvagnii

“We dominated territory but our final finishing and turnovers was to a lower standard. Midfield won the battle without Fyfe so tick! Alex Pearce got experience up forward and was serviceable so tick! Dawson added some steel, structure and physical presence and allowed Pearce to go forward so tick! Shame he will get suspended. the rucks were excellent, Sandi dominant and Griffen did his role so tick! Mayne battled through an early injury to hit the scoreboard so tick! Got through without any noticeable longer term injuries so tick! Won first 3 quarters but to lose the last was a tad disappointing, but 15-2 (while not in best form) is the biggest tick! we don’t look to have the top end talent spread to win a flag but we are going to give ourselves a crack so top marks to Ross and the team’s effort ” – tek87

“I guess we will never know how close the game could of been if the umpires had of given us a fair shake. And with that same effort we should easily lock in win number 10 against the bombers next week.” – captainMyCaptain

“[When GCS play Freo at home] I don’t care if booing is banned, frowned upon or back in vogue, but Zac Dawson is going to cop it from me from the moment he walks on the field until he leaves the carpark … Biggest sniper I have seen in a long time.” – Big Stinky Monk

“Got to hand it to LC, he kept his cool in the post-match presser. He’d make a good pollie. If quizzed about the umps and the snipe on Jezza in that situation, I would have let it rip.” – GWS_Tragic