Autopsy 2024 Rd 7 Blues Go Down To Classy Cats In A Belter

[Ezayyak]

Our current injuries won't matter against most side, against the very top sides it will.

Half our backline is out, one of our best midfielders is our and a couple of important forwards are out.

Despite all the bellyaching about our forward line we still managed to kick 105 points. The fact that this was a high score by current standards but not a winning score suggests defensive issues.

Yes we smashed them in inside 50s so it's reasonable to suggest we could have scored a little higher.... But, we had 118 kicked against us. We got flogged defensively. Which comes back to having half our backline out.

I think Geelong knuckled down on defence and did well, we tried and failed. Let's go around again with Saad, McGovern and Marchbank in the side and we win.

There is no reason to over think this one, Geelong were good, fielded a strong side and we made too many mistakes and leaked too many goals. I think we kicked enough or close to it but we leaked like a siv. That makes sense looking at the 3 big outs.

I think if Geelong kicked 118 and we won, that would have been a lot about luck. About having a poor defence and making the most of forward entries and shots on goal etc. Last season and this one we have been tight. This one we weren't.

Forward line retention is a bit of a problem. That's what you get when you lose your best pressure small forward but more so when you have a third tall forward who is over 195CM and not under 195CM. Martin or Silvagni instead of TDK makes the forward pressure so much better and still gives us a target.

I agree, no team can cover the outs we have and expect to keep winning against top opposition. You might be able to get optimal performance out of your second strong players for a week or two but they won't be able to sustain it against very good opposition, week in, week out. Hence I am worried about this week with both McGovern and Saad out.

 

[JustaBattler]

This is plain wrong.

What was instrumental in us turning that game was 22 players giving it their all. Almost the hardest I've ever seen 'the group' try in a game. When the group does that, everything looks like it is working including 2 rucks. In the last qtr and half, even the defence looked like it was good/working when we know there is issues there to solve.

I dont think so but TIYOAYAETI

 

[Arr0w]

Said it a number of times, I think we under analyze wins, over analyze and or more critical of losses

Ultimately it still comes down to numbers, win/loss ratio

5 and 2, beaten by a small margin to an undefeated side with 1 out of best 22

Lions win seems average, but they did beat the Demons in Melbourne

Tigers look a clear bottom 6, but they did beat the Swans

North, everyone is beating them

Dockers sitting in the 8

Crows, clearly a bad loss, but 1 kick isn't horrendous and they will take some scalps from here on

GWS a flag contender before and still now

Not sure some of the commentary around so many of our deficiencies is accurate, especially against the rest of the competition as a whole

 

[JustOneTime]

The big picture looks good if we get players back. I talk about the Geelong game but i'm not worried about the loss because there are uncontrollable reasons for it.

 

[The Unforgiven]

Every time we got close your pressure and intent lifted kicking a goal or two holding us at bay all day.
Nothing to do with umpiring or our kicking for goal even if we kicked them, you would have lifted.
It gave the impression one team believed/wanted it more.
No wonder our coach is pissed.

For a large part of our successful period, Geelong was not known for having excessive leg speed, or forward pressure. In fact, we usually got towelled up by turnovers and quick play from transition.

These days, our game is built on pressure. We are not the old, slow Geelong of old. Young, fast legs, and players with elite foot skills. Myers, Close and Stengle are a serious problem for clubs.

I agree with you that if you guys kicked more true, perhaps our players may have lifted to the occasion. But, then again, maybe not. Brisbane lost the game against us the week before, as much as we won it.

The old adage "bad kicking is bad footy" certainly rings true.

We can speculate all day about the ifs, however, what is certain is that had your guys taken your abundant chances, at some point that scoreboard pressure could very well have culminated in an insurmountable margin.

I haven't looked far enough ahead to see if our clubs play again in the H&A season, but one thing is for sure, if we play again then it will be a cracking game. Both sides have shown to be absolute quality in 2024.

 

[4flagsin5yrs]

Finally watched the replay last night.

1. Geelong played good footy, very professional, no doubt. Got us on the rebound time and time again - largely due to our poor execution/skill levels or taking terrible options e.g. kicking to a 1 on 3 contest. Can't blame it on leg speed really - refer to the GWS game.
2. Terrible, terrible ball use both coming out of D50 and running into our attacking 50 - fluffed kicks, taking bad options...slow ball movement (i guess no Saad, Guv doesn't help). Cowan looked pretty ordinary a lot of the time. Thought Young went ok overall. Boyd disappears a fair bit. Newman looked tired from the get go. Williams had a poor game. Kemp getting better each week, learning the caper (would like to see a bigger upper body on him).
3. Not sure why Cameron got such big wraps - most of his goals were nicely gift wrapped close to goal, one a snag. Thought Cripps was way more influential.
4. Thought Durdin was pretty solid, leaving aside that horrible miss at the start of Q4. Obviously needs to tidy up his shots on goal.... set and on the run. Owies had a poor one.
5. After we had kicked 0.3 at the start of Q4, came the Zack Guthrie non decision for deliberate out of bounds - one of the worst non decisions I've seen in years - he was facing the boundary line, he kicked the ball directly at the boundary line (a clean kick), there were no players close to the ball and it went out (and was always going out).
That would have given us another deep entry e.g. top of the goal square....
6. Of course there were many other moments - the high hit on Williams, the shove on Young - in the back - right on the goal line (both featuring Ollie Henry). In Q2, the umpires lost their whistles, so many HTBs not called. That was odd.
Old Mr Tuohy kicking three - well that's just a reflection on how poor we were defensively.
7. O. Hollands - seems bereft of confidence. Must return to the 2s for a time....
8. Charlie and Harry are always operating in a clogged up space - never get easy goals or 1 on 1 contests - hopefully Cerra can help fix the ball use problem. Geelong flooded back hard all day.
9. Terrific game from Pitto, TDK not so much (0.3 is bad footy).
9. Both teams at close to full strength? We win comfortably (provided we don't shoot ourselves in our feet again).

 

[morningbrown]

Don't think Moir plays AFL this season, assuming our injury list reduces. He has good moments, then vanishes at VFL level.
His strong dual-sided kicking is his super power until the rest develops.

I keep seeing this criticism of Ashton, yet we've persisted with Owies and Durdin who disappear just as much and don't have anywhere near the skill level of Moir. What is so wrong about giving him a chance? We're dying for a good user going inside 50.

 

[4flagsin5yrs]

I keep seeing this criticism of Ashton, yet we've persisted with Owies and Durdin who disappear just as much and don't have anywhere near the skill level of Moir. What is so wrong about giving him a chance? We're dying for a good user going inside 50.

Agree, what's there to lose.

How can the kid not be fit enough?

No one is suggesting he needs to have the tank of Acres or Hollands or whomever?

That's not his role. He's a natural forward with undeniable X-factor.

If he has 6 or 7 touches and kicks 2-3 goals. Well done son.

 

[timbertron]

Terrible or not, the ball is in the danger zone...rather than players sooking (metaphorically speaking) about not getting perfect, pin-point entries, halve the $%^&* contest!!!
Try and spoil the intercept mark if you don't think you can mark, harass, block, chase, tackle with psychotic intent (what better way to win a fk for HTB, create another stoppage, soccer the ball closer to goal etc etce etc
The longer the ball is inside our 50, the more opportunities are created...and the more breathing space our defenders have

The forwards earned multiple HTB's inside our forward 50. The umpires decided not to pay them.

 

[BluStreak]

The issue is that we dont have Pendles, Sidebottom, Daicos, Daicos in our side for the final inside 50 kick. So it is no use having dominance between the arcs. It's why Voss has them booting it deep. Then lock it in attempt.

We have Cripps and Acres who both think they are Pendles.

newman can and does pick out the loose player

 

[timbertron]

Told we had 20 more inside 50's on Saturday

It's been my frustration for last 12 months. We play well but just don't kick enough goals for all the good work we do

Poor connection, poor ball use, poor kicking for goal and injuries to key players need to be addressed. IMO it's the number issue holding us back

Team defence is the number 1 issue. We are kicking winning scores each week but are bottom 5 in the comp for points against.

Can't win a flag without much improved defence. This is what Voss talked about after the game and he knows we are a mile off it defensively. But they cleaned it up last year and I'm hopeful they can do it again this year.

 

[Aphrodite]

I haven't looked far enough ahead to see if our clubs play again in the H&A season, but one thing is for sure, if we play again then it will be a cracking game. Both sides have shown to be absolute quality in 2024.

Rnd 15 Friday 21st June

Looking forward to it and we should be close to full strength by then.

 

[timbertron]

Why contentious 50m penalty was paid against Blues

The AFL has explained the decision that resulted in a crucial 50m penalty being paid against the Blues

www.afl.com.au

This explanation from the AFL about the 4th qtr 50m penalty against Cripps lacks any sort of common sense. They admit that Harry obviously didn't hear the umpire but then just paid 50 anyway. Overly technical bullshit!

 

[bigblueboy]

I had a perfect view over looking the ground during the game and it was so obvious at times how the play was going to unfold.

Multiple times we had a shorter safer pass on but we'd burn that player getting open and kick it long to the contested options.

This happened so often it has to be due to it being a team plan to more so than players constantly making poor decisions.

Given Voss never seems to mention it it can only mean he's on board with it.

Possibly believes that our ball movement forward of centre improves commensurate with the defensive pressure. He's probably right but IMO there's also issues in terms of decision-making and execution.

 

[Revenant1965]

Rnd 15 Friday 21st June

Looking forward to it and we should be close to full strength by then.

And why I am I now thinking of broken mirrors....?

 

[The_Wookie]

 

[The_Wookie]

wrong post

 

[Arr0w]

Looks good to me wookie

 

[RedFury]

Rnd 15 Friday 21st June

Looking forward to it and we should be close to full strength by then.

For the love of God(ess) Aph, why would you say this??
Oh well, at least it wasn't in the injury thread.

 

[Aphrodite]

For the love of God(ess) Aph, why would you say this??
Oh well, at least it wasn't in the injury thread.

 

[Coops93]

A question, at what point is it actually ok to critique the umpires or suggest it may have been part of a reason for a loss?

I mean seriously question it, not just generally whinge like you see a lot. For example click on any AFL post about a games results and the top 5 comments will be something like "The umpires handed them the game". That's not what I mean.

I don't like to do it as it often is crass and wrong. It's a cheap dig at best most of the time.

However, in this games instance, when even the commentators live on air are saying "Gee Carlton are playing against 2 teams, the ones in hoops and the ones in green" after yet another non call or soft free to the other team. That goes beyond normal nitpicking or whinging that my team didn't get that one free kick I wanted. For commentators to comment on the state of the umpiring like that it needs to be to an egregious point, the AFL would very clearly have guidelines around commentary on umpires and you never hear them speak like that.

I know they talk about individual situations often, but broadly speaking like a fan essentially on the umpires being comically one sided in their calls is very rare.


Even writing this I'm wondering if I should bother. There're several other reasons we lost too - we probably didn't deserve the win and if we had it would have been lucky. However, the umpiring shouldn't be one of those reasons, though when it is at what point is that a fair thing to say? I think once the host broadcasters are making jokes about how bad it is then it's fair play.

Or is it?

 

[teagueyubeauty]

Agree, what's there to lose.

How can the kid not be fit enough?

No one is suggesting he needs to have the tank of Acres or Hollands or whomever?

That's not his role. He's a natural forward with undeniable X-factor.

If he has 6 or 7 touches and kicks 2-3 goals. Well done son.

He’s nowhere near fit enough to play the way we need to play, happy for him to build confidence and fitness in the twos.

We don’t need to play draft picks straight away nowadays, that’s actually a good thing


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[teagueyubeauty]

Rnd 15 Friday 21st June

Looking forward to it and we should be close to full strength by then.

Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[Blue Pulse]

Why contentious 50m penalty was paid against Blues

The AFL has explained the decision that resulted in a crucial 50m penalty being paid against the Blues

www.afl.com.au

This explanation from the AFL about the 4th qtr 50m penalty against Cripps lacks any sort of common sense. They admit that Harry obviously didn't hear the umpire but then just paid 50 anyway. Overly technical bullshit!

It was wrong on so many levels:

If Harry was on the mark, Cripps should have been asked to leave the area or move further away from Cameron.

If Harry was on the mark, Cameron was 5m around off his mark toward the centre of the ground and should have been made to line up with the man on his mark and the centre of the goals. If the umpire makes the player stand the mark he has to ensure the player receiving the kick is behind the mark not 5m to the side of it. Poor excuse by the AFL, this decision was made up on the spot

 

[Blue Pulse]

A question, at what point is it actually ok to critique the umpires or suggest it may have been part of a reason for a loss?

I mean seriously question it, not just generally whinge like you see a lot. For example click on any AFL post about a games results and the top 5 comments will be something like "The umpires handed them the game". That's not what I mean.

I don't like to do it as it often is crass and wrong. It's a cheap dig at best most of the time.

However, in this games instance, when even the commentators live on air are saying "Gee Carlton are playing against 2 teams, the ones in hoops and the ones in green" after yet another non call or soft free to the other team. That goes beyond normal nitpicking or whinging that my team didn't get that one free kick I wanted. For commentators to comment on the state of the umpiring like that it needs to be to an egregious point, the AFL would very clearly have guidelines around commentary on umpires and you never hear them speak like that.

I know they talk about individual situations often, but broadly speaking like a fan essentially on the umpires being comically one sided in their calls is very rare.


Even writing this I'm wondering if I should bother. There're several other reasons we lost too - we probably didn't deserve the win and if we had it would have been lucky. However, the umpiring shouldn't be one of those reasons, though when it is at what point is that a fair thing to say? I think once the host broadcasters are making jokes about how bad it is then it's fair play.

Or is it?

Tough job being an AFL player as the rules, or "interpretation" of the rules change weekly and I believe adding the 4th umpire has added more frustration and hasn't bettered the game in any way.

I feel the umpiring has been really inconsistent this year across all games and believe the constant twerking of the rules doesn't help the umpires in any way at all.