Autopsy Toothless Bulldogs overcome Norf in a game not for the ages

[geoffjennings79]

I'm led to believe the coin tosser was a corporate sponsor of North's but actually a Bulldog supporter. Forced to wear a North scarf though

But there was no one there, per my post you quoted. Coin toss attendance was 1 x umpire, Bont and some random North player (allegedly a captain). Umpire tossed the coin.

 

[bresker]

Sanders will be a better player aged 21 & 23. That's all I care about. Anything we get now is a bonus. He's no shrinking violet so he just needs a few preaseaons and more confidence in himself.

As threenewpadlocks said weve got the habit on this board of overrating some players in their first year, but writing off others before the age of 23.

Williams and Dale would have been traded or desisted had some had their way.

(Mind you the calls to trade Daniek while he had currency had merit , we'd not get a handful of jelly beans now)

 

[doggy_dog]

Sanders is tracking exceptionally well for a 19yr old. He just looks to be a Macrae style workhorse rather than a blow you away explosive type, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that

 

[maddog37]

He is quite slow unfortunately - no chasing down blokes for Sanders.

No need to chase when you already have the pill.

 

[dogwatch]

Finally got to view the game.

Bont was at his imperious best, even with a bad back. Why Clarko didn't tag him has me puzzled, even acknowledging the good season Treloar has had. Maybe he thinks he's untaggable?

Agree that JUH's game was pretty good. Dropped four marks that you'd expect a player of his skills to take, all within kicking range. Could easily have had 4-5 goals. Some days are like that.

Impressed with Vandermeer's game but just couldn't squeeze him into my top 5. He is genuinely a 20% better player this year than last year or any other season he's played. More creative, far less fumbly, great tackling pressure. And that's without my being able to see all that unrewarded off-camera running that I'm told he does.

Even more impressed with Freijah. He just slots so smoothly into the backline. Great composure and vision. Good kick. Good decision making. Good positioning and anticipation. It was very noticeable that the commentatoes hardly ever called his name, probably because they are too lazy to try to analyse some of the lesser known lights in the game. Also Freijah is not flamboyant so he goes under the radar and doesn't get talked about like say a Nic Watson. For this reason he might struggle to even get the RS nomination which he richly deserves. (It's been turned into such a dodgy award. Just another AFL clanger.) Also has anybody else noted how he has a slightly stooped posture, a little like Michael Tuck? There aren't many action images of Tuck so this is about the best I could find ...

It didn't seem to hurt Tuck's career. If Freijah turns out anywhere near as good as him (and he might) we have a gem.

Speaking of RS nominations, and not being flashy, I wonder if Sanders is going to get one. He played another solid game but they rarely give a nomination for even a string of solid games. Anyway Sanders has been looking more relaxed and comfortable in recent weeks. I'm predicting he'll play even better games before the year is out.

Bramble is another who has steadily improved as the year has progressed. He had another good game on Saturday and was not far off getting a vote from me. This progress of players we'd often regard as our "bottom six" (or close to it) has a fair bit to do with our improved form over the last couple of months. Players like Bramble, Freijah, Vandermeer, Duryea, Lobb, Gallagher, Harmes and Garcia. Even Baker. There's more belief and confidence in each other so they are playing better as a team. That was a feature of how we played in 2016.

Final point. I couldn't close without a word of contempt for the dumb North fans who have probably closed every quarter the side has played this year with a chorus of boos directed at the umpires, the opposition or any scapegoat they can find. I thought the umpiring was pretty reasonable for most of the game (I haven't been able to say that very much recently) but we really got the rough end of the deal in that final quarter. Norfies wouldn't have seen that though, or been able to accept it if they had. I know a few nice intelligent people who are North fans, but collectively they don't seem like a very likeable or clever bunch do they?

 

[geoffjennings79]

Finally got to view the game.

Bont was at his imperious best, even with a bad back. Why Clarko didn't tag him has me puzzled, even acknowledging the good season Treloar has had. Maybe he thinks he's untaggable?

Agree that JUH's game was pretty good. Dropped four marks that you'd expect a player of his skills to take, all within kicking range. Could easily have had 4-5 goals. Some days are like that.

Impressed with Vandermeer's game but just couldn't squeeze him into my top 5. He is genuinely a 20% better player this year than last year or any other season he's played. More creative, far less fumbly, great tackling pressure. And that's without my being able to see all that unrewarded off-camera running that I'm told he does.

Even more impressed with Freijah. He just slots so smoothly into the backline. Great composure and vision. Good kick. Good decision making. Good positioning and anticipation. It was very noticeable that the commentatoes hardly ever called his name, probably because they are too lazy to try to analyse some of the lesser known lights in the game. Also Freijah is not flamboyant so he goes under the radar and doesn't get talked about like say a Nic Watson. For this reason he might struggle to even get the RS nomination which he richly deserves. (It's been turned into such a dodgy award. Just another AFL clanger.) Also has anybody else noted how he has a slightly stooped posture, a little like Michael Tuck? There aren't many action images of Tuck so this is about the best I could find ...
View attachment 2036390 View attachment 2036393
It didn't seem to hurt Tuck's career. If Freijah turns out anywhere near as good as him (and he might) we have a gem.

Speaking of RS nominations, and not being flashy, I wonder if Sanders is going to get one. He played another solid game but they rarely give a nomination for even a string of solid games. Anyway Sanders has been looking more relaxed and comfortable in recent weeks. I'm predicting he'll play even better games before the year is out.

Bramble is another who has steadily improved as the year has progressed. He had another good game on Saturday and was not far off getting a vote from me. This progress of players we'd often regard as our "bottom six" (or close to it) has a fair bit to do with our improved form over the last couple of months. Players like Bramble, Freijah, Vandermeer, Duryea, Lobb, Gallagher, Harmes and Garcia. Even Baker. There's more belief and confidence in each other so they are playing better as a team. That was a feature of how we played in 2016.

Final point. I couldn't close without a word of contempt for the dumb North fans who have probably closed every quarter the side has played this year with a chorus of boos directed at the umpires, the opposition or any scapegoat they can find. I thought the umpiring was pretty reasonable for most of the game (I haven't been able to say that very much recently) but we really got the rough end of the deal in that final quarter. Norfies wouldn't have seen that though, or been able to accept it if they had. I know a few nice intelligent people who are North fans, but collectively they don't seem like a very likeable or clever bunch do they?

Sitting up high on L3 for the first time in several years, it's more noticeable that both Freijah and Lobb have a stooped posture when running. Maybe that lab beneath VUWO run by Zimmer has had a few glitches when players have been booked in for their logbook 'service'...?

 

[Mutt]

Finally got to view the game.

Bont was at his imperious best, even with a bad back. Why Clarko didn't tag him has me puzzled, even acknowledging the good season Treloar has had. Maybe he thinks he's untaggable?

Agree that JUH's game was pretty good. Dropped four marks that you'd expect a player of his skills to take, all within kicking range. Could easily have had 4-5 goals. Some days are like that.

Impressed with Vandermeer's game but just couldn't squeeze him into my top 5. He is genuinely a 20% better player this year than last year or any other season he's played. More creative, far less fumbly, great tackling pressure. And that's without my being able to see all that unrewarded off-camera running that I'm told he does.

Even more impressed with Freijah. He just slots so smoothly into the backline. Great composure and vision. Good kick. Good decision making. Good positioning and anticipation. It was very noticeable that the commentatoes hardly ever called his name, probably because they are too lazy to try to analyse some of the lesser known lights in the game. Also Freijah is not flamboyant so he goes under the radar and doesn't get talked about like say a Nic Watson. For this reason he might struggle to even get the RS nomination which he richly deserves. (It's been turned into such a dodgy award. Just another AFL clanger.) Also has anybody else noted how he has a slightly stooped posture, a little like Michael Tuck? There aren't many action images of Tuck so this is about the best I could find ...
View attachment 2036390 View attachment 2036393
It didn't seem to hurt Tuck's career. If Freijah turns out anywhere near as good as him (and he might) we have a gem.

Speaking of RS nominations, and not being flashy, I wonder if Sanders is going to get one. He played another solid game but they rarely give a nomination for even a string of solid games. Anyway Sanders has been looking more relaxed and comfortable in recent weeks. I'm predicting he'll play even better games before the year is out.

Bramble is another who has steadily improved as the year has progressed. He had another good game on Saturday and was not far off getting a vote from me. This progress of players we'd often regard as our "bottom six" (or close to it) has a fair bit to do with our improved form over the last couple of months. Players like Bramble, Freijah, Vandermeer, Duryea, Lobb, Gallagher, Harmes and Garcia. Even Baker. There's more belief and confidence in each other so they are playing better as a team. That was a feature of how we played in 2016.

Final point. I couldn't close without a word of contempt for the dumb North fans who have probably closed every quarter the side has played this year with a chorus of boos directed at the umpires, the opposition or any scapegoat they can find. I thought the umpiring was pretty reasonable for most of the game (I haven't been able to say that very much recently) but we really got the rough end of the deal in that final quarter. Norfies wouldn't have seen that though, or been able to accept it if they had. I know a few nice intelligent people who are North fans, but collectively they don't seem like a very likeable or clever bunch do they?

Nice analysis, as always, dogwatch.

To add to your observation about Norfies, they have a massive persecution complex. Everything and everyone conspires to deny them victories and glory. Many of the North fans around me were simply insufferable throughout the game, in a way that I've rarely encountered, even with Carlton flogs.

Watching North games is only bearable because we have belted them most of the time since their now-long-forgotten heyday late last century.

 

[geoffjennings79]

Nice analysis, as always, dogwatch.

To add to your observation about Norfies, they have a massive persecution complex. Everything and everyone conspires to deny them victories and glory. Many of the North fans around me were simply insufferable throughout the game, in a way that I've rarely encountered, even with Carlton flogs.

Watching North games is only bearable because we have belted them most of the time since their now-long-forgotten heyday late last century.

Not sure where you sat Mutt, crowd was spread out in our vicinity, only a few insufferable North types making much noise.

But the collective whingeing and booing from the city side just went on and on, all game. Some of the ruckus for contests that didn't merit a free either way was laughable, but not nearly as laughable as the over-reactions when Weightman gained any of his possessions. Even from L3, we could see people out of their seats on L1 gesticulating (and presumably venting vitriol at him). I'd imagine it's just water off a duck's back to Cody.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

In defence of North fans, the average fan that has stuck around in the last few years would concentrate the weird types as a proportion of the entre fanbase, rather than others that have already on with non-football elements of their life (even I personally know a couple of North fans who are more general AFL fans than they are hardcore support-my-team-every-week, they'll watch the Friday night game or whatever but not work their personal life around later in the week to watch the North game).

There's tens of thousands of nominal North fans out there that have latent support and just haven't engaged with the last few years that we would think of as being 'normal fans' (even if we would also criticise them for being bandwagoners).

 

[bobs head soup]

Quite shocked by Libba. Worked hard but looked well off his best.

Reckon Libba's hard contest and negation of LDU was his biggest impact on the match. Suspect he hurt a lot of Norf's plans, Clarkson probably gave him 1 vote.

 

[Sentinel]

Nice analysis, as always, dogwatch.

To add to your observation about Norfies, they have a massive persecution complex. Everything and everyone conspires to deny them victories and glory. Many of the North fans around me were simply insufferable throughout the game, in a way that I've rarely encountered, even with Carlton flogs.

Watching North games is only bearable because we have belted them most of the time since their now-long-forgotten heyday late last century.

Just have a look on the North board at their reaction to Bevo's comments last night. It's endemic across the supporter base.

Everyone else is always at fault but North.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Reckon Libba's hard contest and negation of LDU was his biggest impact on the match. Suspect he hurt a lot of Norf's plans, Clarkson probably gave him 1 vote.

It's only one out of the two coaches giving one vote among five players that we still don't really know how much time or application or the method or timing that the coaches give the votes - I would certainly think that they spend less time on it than the Brownlow votes, for example. It's not that big a deal! I've certainly seen more perplexing Ching votes, too.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Just have a look on the North board at their reaction to Bevo's comments last night. It's endemic across the supporter base.

Everyone else is always at fault but North.

They're complaining about the fact part of the compensation package might be taken away if they improve too much, which apart from being ungrateful misses the entire point of why they're being assisted in the first place.

They're getting the additional assistance package because they're so bad for so long, that it's an additional drag on the league. If this was a league with private owners, private money would be taking a hit, so they'd let them bleed. On the other hand, all clubs and the league are non-profit, and the league itself conceptually is just a manifestation of the clubs banding together. Therefore, North's failure is a financial drag on every other club and the code as a whole in a different way than the tanking 76ers were a drag on nothing but their owners' pocket money. Their assistance package is to only get them to a point where they're not so inept that other clubs are effectively covering for them in the growth of the sport and the league as a whole. Once they stop being a drag (while maybe still being a bad team), the other mechanisms of the draft and salary cap can take over, in the interests of sporting fairness.

 

[weltschmerz]

They're complaining about the fact part of the compensation package might be taken away if they improve too much, which apart from being ungrateful misses the entire point of why they're being assisted in the first place.

They're getting the additional assistance package because they're so bad for so long, that it's an additional drag on the league. If this was a league with private owners, private money would be taking a hit, so they'd let them bleed. On the other hand, all clubs and the league are non-profit, and the league itself conceptually is just a manifestation of the clubs banding together. Therefore, North's failure is a financial drag on every other club and the code as a whole in a different way than the tanking 76ers were a drag on nothing but their owners' pocket money. Their assistance package is to only get them to a point where they're not so inept that other clubs are effectively covering for them in the growth of the sport and the league as a whole. Once they stop being a drag (while maybe still being a bad team), the other mechanisms of the draft and salary cap can take over, in the interests of sporting fairness.

They also immediately traded out the 2024 draft picks they were given last year, which had the condition that they could be re-assessed based on 2024 performance. Got rid of them before there was any chance of them being taken away, which makes that re-assessment stipulation a bit rubbish.

 

[BrisDog]

No need to chase when you already have the pill.

That’s why the dogs off loaded Lipinski

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Reckon Libba's hard contest and negation of LDU was his biggest impact on the match. Suspect he hurt a lot of Norf's plans, Clarkson probably gave him 1 vote.

Yeah either way one of the coaches recognised his impact that us supporters often miss. Selfless acts to help the team win > stats.

 

[Bald]

Sanders statistically stacks up pretty nicely with year one Liberatore, especially when you consider him being subbed on/off a couple of times and running at 10% less TOG.

 

[_Mike_]

Sam Darcy has no right to be so clean at his feet for a man of his size.

Seems to tick all the boxes as a tall KPF at a young age. In 5 years time he’ll either be an AA CHF/FF or bust.

 

[Mutt]

Not sure where you sat Mutt, crowd was spread out in our vicinity, only a few insufferable North types making much noise.

But the collective whingeing and booing from the city side just went on and on, all game. Some of the ruckus for contests that didn't merit a free either way was laughable, but not nearly as laughable as the over-reactions when Weightman gained any of his possessions. Even from L3, we could see people out of their seats on L1 gesticulating (and presumably venting vitriol at him). I'd imagine it's just water off a duck's back to Cody.

We sat in aisle 41, second level in an area that was primarily North supporters.

 

[weltschmerz]

Sanders statistically stacks up pretty nicely with year one Liberatore, especially when you consider him being subbed on/off a couple of times and running at 10% less TOG.

Similar to year one Macrae too, including the lower TOG.

 

[TiAn_]

Wardlaw, LDU, Sheezel, McKercher, Comben, Xerri, Curtis and Larkey are good to very good. Duursma might be one day. Zurhaar, Scott, Logue and Simpkin are solid role players.

They have a few other kids that might or might not be role players one day.

That’s it really.

They’re still rolling out a raft of mature cloggers like McDonald, Corr, Shiels, Tucker, Stephenson, Stephens, Fisher, Pink, Teakle and Taylor.

Their list remains pretty grim.

 

[Next Waiting]

He is quite slow unfortunately - no chasing down blokes for Sanders.

I get Mitch Wallis vibes

 

[TiAn_]

He is quite slow unfortunately - no chasing down blokes for Sanders.

I’m hoping it’ll be less of an issue when he’s a full time mid. As long as we have other mids like Richards around him. He’s just not a flanker or wingman and was always going to be a square peg in a round hole for a couple of years. If he can become an elite clearance winner and stoppage defender it’ll offset his lack of wheels.

 

[GetDimmaBack]

I get Mitch Wallis vibes

Reminds me of Crossy.

"Chris Judd - in Ugg boots"

I'd be happy with that.

 

[grassman75]

Was it Richards that did the basketball dribble instead of grabbing it?

Dale