Preview 2024 Preseason: Hawks v Dogs in Tassie

[SSSSSS]

I've seen enough of Ward at AFL level to know he will be a very good player.

Writing him off after a praccy game is foolish.

 

[killerspud]

Both have runs on the board. And have delivered in big games.

Not scapegoating off one practice game. A top 10 pick in his 3rd senior season should be shining. Not ‘still finding his way’. Hence my concern.

Absolute bollocks - look at Petracca's first three seasons - you would have traded him out

The impatience and lack of understanding of some "fans" is truly unbelieveable

 

[kazzooka]

I've seen enough of Ward at AFL level to know he will be a very good player.

Writing him off after a praccy game is foolish.

Judging by what i've saw yesterday. I'm just not convinced Sicily is an AFL standard player. Just never near it, got outmarked a few times. Maybe we need to switch him forward because he looks lost in defence and will never make it in the AFL playing like that.


Oh what's that?... he was AA last year and should have been in 2022 when he was even better?

Judge nothing from this practice match. Everyone thought Geelong was a certainty to go Back to Back this time last year after beating us. When it really mattered last year and a finals spot was on the line, we beat the dogs.

Practice matches you do things that never happen in a real game, you give a 3rd string players key roles, you persist with set-ups that aren't working so you can keep other structures you want to see.

 

[bigmaxi]

Mckercher hasn't played yet, I reckon he is a red hot chance

So is the young bloke from the West……Reid.

 

[bigmaxi]

I’m calling it……Dogs peaking too early.

 

[Mississippi]

I've seen enough of Ward at AFL level to know he will be a very good player.

Writing him off after a praccy game is foolish.

Not just one practice match. Including much of his footy last year, he is probably rated around the 25th or 26th best player on our list. He’s been passed at 100mph by Hustwaite and Mackenzie, and he’s been around for a year longer!
I doubt he’d be selected in most other AFL sides at the moment.

If Ward wants to be more than a fringe player, he’s really going to have to lift his rating this year.

 

[The Golden Glenferrie]

I’m calling it……Dogs peaking too early.

They'll make top 4. Easily

 

[SSSSSS]

Not just one practice match. Including much of his footy last year, he is probably rated around the 25th or 26th best player on our list. He’s been passed at 100mph by Hustwaite and Mackenzie, and he’s been around for a year longer!
I doubt he’d be selected in most other AFL sides at the moment.

If Ward wants to be more than a fringe player, he’s really going to have to lift his rating this year.

There were only four 20 year olds who averaged more than 20 possessions last season.

Daicos, NWM, Callaghan and Ward.

 

[dermott]

They'll make top 4. Easily

Correction : they SHOULD make top 4 with their list.

 

[Maybloomer]

Thanks for passing on Suckling. Massive contribution to our flag after we ended your era and went onto winning the flag

Better to have had an era and lost it than to never have had an era at all.

 

[FB19]

Funny there seem to be polarised views on how to view the game. Either the sky is falling or who cares both seem equally ridiculous to me. Every game is a chance to learn and improve and that’s the phase we’re in. Improvement this year probably won’t be measured in W/L or ladder position. To me this is the year Mitchell gets much greater clarity on the list which is why the injuries are really disappointing. But on the flip side whilst we don’t find out about blanck DGB maybe CJ like we thought we would, we see mackenzie hustwaite philips hopefully butler and ramsden more.

 

[Dazza the Viking]

I only players I would of given a tick yesterday would of been Newcombe, Ginnivan, MacKenzie, MacDonald, Amon and Impey

Hustwaite good in the first half, faded like the team

Phillips was better than Frost

Most disappointing yesterday, Worpel, Nash, Reeves, Hardwick as a forward,

Ward was most disappointing of the younger players

Chol underwhelming, hopefully he will step up

Sicily’s form in the practice matches, hopefully he was just out there not to get injured

 

[Argy]

I only players I would of given a tick yesterday would of been Newcombe, Ginnivan, MacKenzie, MacDonald, Amon and Impey

Hustwaite good in the first half, faded like the team

Phillips was better than Frost

Most disappointing yesterday, Worpel, Nash, Reeves, Hardwick as a forward,

Ward was most disappointing of the younger players

Chol underwhelming, hopefully he will step up

Sicily’s form in the practice matches, hopefully he was just out there not to get injured

Agree except for Hardwick. Thought he was good up forward.

 

[Dazza the Viking]

Agree except for Hardwick. Thought he was good up forward.

Thought more for the first half, where he got out bodied 3 or 4 times, which he usually doesn’t in defense

 

[bindas12]

I've seen enough of Ward at AFL level to know he will be a very good player.

Writing him off after a praccy game is foolish.

we can only go off what we see. his loopy 20m kicks are not dangerous, has no penetration. maybe if he can change that, he could be a gun.

 

[grumbleguts]

Are you serious?

Sadly he is. He can't see that an umpire has an effect on the game. I wonder how much actual footy he's watched. Certainly can't have seen the 2001 prelim, or any dogs game.

 

[grumbleguts]

As soon as you have to pull out a line like this you're either:

• too young to be allowed to use an online forum safely
• in deeper than you thought you'd get
• didn't start reading until late primary school
• Weak as piss when it comes to bant
  all of the above.

Fixed.

 

[grumbleguts]

No major injuries for both sides in that practice match that's a positive good luck for the year

On CPH2305 using BigFooty.com mobile app

at an absolute superstar your name sake was. Watched him every single week at port melbourne as a kid.

 

[grumbleguts]

I remember beating Geelong after the siren in a pre-season game, only be smacked by them round 2 or 3 by 80+pts

I remember beating geelong by 6 points in the last game of 1989, only to beat them by 115 points the next time we played them. Those are better memories.

 

[Phil McCreviss]

I am talking about the type of player. Ward and McKenzie are great but we need speed

Midfield speed is overrated. Hodge, Mitchell, Lewis were not Stawell Gift winners. Great football brains got them in to the right positions both offensively and defensively

 

[toomanysquibs]

Midfield speed is overrated. Hodge, Mitchell, Lewis were not Stawell Gift winners. Great football brains got them in to the right positions both offensively and defensively

Very few players are as good as Hodge, Mitchell and Lewis were at their peak. Their careers at the Hawks ended earlier than they should have, in part due to the one paced midfield we wound up with. Each went on to play elsewhere, and we made the mistake of replacing them with players who were also not fast.

When Smith and Hill were there too during the three peat , we were coping because the ball winners got it to them on the outside, and we had quick players getting into the middle on rotations as well.

Pace in the middle of the ground is more important than it ever was, whether you've got the ball, or are trying to win it back. There's always going to be a Bont, Pendles or other exception. But you have to be very, very good at a lot of other things to compensate for no leg speed.

 

[Mississippi]

There were only four 20 year olds who averaged more than 20 possessions last season.

Daicos, NWM, Callaghan and Ward.

And hopefully this year, Ward can prove he’s anywhere near as good as those other 3 players, because right now he’s a long way short.

Ward’s 20 possessions are relatively ineffectual, he’s just tinkering around the edges. He’s simply not impacting a game like he should be.
We drafted him in 2021 at pick 7 to be a prime midfielder. He has to establish this year that he is just that.
Since we drafted him, Newcombe, Nash, Day, and now Hustwaite and Mackenzie, are shaping up as our prime midfielders - Ward is still on the periphery.
As a younger player, you also have to rate Ward behind Weddle and CMac.

The problem is that Ward is future captain material, but he first needs to start dominating games.

 

[threesixpio]

Facts:
1. Dogs rolled out a top 4 midfield that are finals conditioned and goal kickers (Bont, Libber, Treloar, English), including the best mid in the game. This allows others on the fringe to flourish, ie. Sanders, Caleb Daniel, Harmes, anyone else who can stand upright. They also have McCrae to come back and Bailey Smith out injured.
2. Dogs have enormous talent up forward with Naughton, Jamal and others can scrap around.
3. Besides Jai, our mids were very disappointing in Q3 and Q4 (Worps and Nash not in same class as opposition) and this led to torrent of inside 50s. No backline would do much better under that.
4. Dogs will thrash a lot of sides this year with their list.
5. No panic at all. Good signs in Q2 and lots of upside with younger mids coming through (would also like CmAc give more of a go in there) and return of Will Day.

Too considered. Need more throwing of toys. Ban this guy

 

[threesixpio]

They'll make top 4. Easily

They’re a bit like us in the 2010s - an early flag and then years of subsequent disappointment given the list - which led to crazy hunger

 

[threesixpio]

Not just one practice match. Including much of his footy last year, he is probably rated around the 25th or 26th best player on our list. He’s been passed at 100mph by Hustwaite and Mackenzie, and he’s been around for a year longer!
I doubt he’d be selected in most other AFL sides at the moment.

If Ward wants to be more than a fringe player, he’s really going to have to lift his rating this year.