Autopsy 2024 Rd 9 Blues hold on in 1 point thriller

[Gethelred]

Alright, that's enough.

The next poster who thinks they should have a crack at an individual or a collective reaction to this game is going to find themselves threadbanned. Terms like 'bleaters' or 'shit posters' will see things escalated further.

Let's discuss our views on the match without getting the knives out, please.

 

[gab213]

Very happy to have won last night's game, it was huge for us. 6-3 is much better than 5-4. Our season still very much on track and it will get better as more players return.

 

[gbatman]

Great performance apart from that last quarter, that was really poor. Tried to waste time and shut up shop and did an extremely poor job of it, let them right back in. Things seemed to change when we lost Cerra.

Thing we have over Melbourne is that they are a similar side to us. They aren't a team that can exploit us with pace.

Good to see more of our defence back. McGovern showed his worth, Weitering cam back into form, his first good game of the season, Cincotta was good in a lock down role, Cowan was ok, Boyd was good so we had some really good contributors back there.

The midfield was really good for a lot of it. Cripps and Walsh dominating, Kennedy doing a job fairly well and Cerra was playing well before injury. Hewett came on but he doesn't add what the team desperately needs in there. Cerra took away what we need more of. Run. Acres was good, Hollands was good but I want to see him better his defensive and contested game.

Forward line looked good at times, it marked well. Thought Curnow got a bath from May as he did the last time we played them. May lead the game for marks, 9 which were against Charlie. Curnow took 8 and kicked 2 but at crucial times May kept them in it. Even when we were dominating them, May was the one who turned a lot of our plays over. McKay is in red hot form. DeKoning is in form. Martin made an impact, makes our forward line function a lot better. Owies is in good form.

I thought our top end were good. We let Petracca have a big night. Some of it was him being too good. Some was bad football. You would think after last week, you don't let the gun players get goal side in range of goal but it keeps happening.

We won, that keeps us in touch with the 8 and a chance to finish in the top 4.

Marchbank, Williams and Motlop hopefully return next week. Fogarty and Saad in the next fortnight. Start to get a good team on the park is important. Cerra's injury is frustrating. It may not have been a bad one but he is a player with chronic hamstring issues and that is really frustrating we have not been able to get ontop of this.

 

[HaydossJ]

Great win against top 4 opponent
All the talk about Demons 5 days break, this was Blues third game in 12 days.

and all high pressure, brutal contested games against other contenders.

Opposition fans won't acknowledge that though

 

[Magruder]

that's quite remarkable!

Have a look at our next opponent by the time we play them 17 May.

Sydney 6 games since April 4 (43 days) with a bye in there.
Us in the same period 7 games including 6 in 35 days.

Makes the win last night super important.

 

[Coops93]

Ollie was everywhere first quarter. Lots of touches and good moments.

I thought he was very good.

He was exposed late with a few howler moments too. His being pinged for 2 or 3 HTBs were huge in the 4th and they were bad ones where he just didn't expect the heat and looked slow processing what was happening.

 

[sparkybagger]

The Thursday night thing is definitely TV-ratings driven. Attendances are an afterthought/bonus. An AFL/Channel 7 delegation (one of many) came over circa 2016 for an NFL Network briefing on the success of Thursday Night Football and I remember the analytics popping across my desk at one point. There's differences in the Aussie vs US TV markets, but it was a massive ratings winner for the crappy NFL Network even against the major terrestrial stations on Thursday nights.

The irony is that the exclusive rights for the bulk of Thursday Night games for the NFL ended up being sold in 2017 to digital platforms (Amazon/Twitter) for over a billion per season.

 

[FlowersByIrene]

I love the Blues

 

[Del9Sep24]

How about you produce this 'clear evidence' that you speak of.

Cripps post match interview. Voss instilling limiting beliefs in the players before the game. Cripps words not mine.

That percentage could cost a top 4 spot and therefor cost a flag.

 

[Soapy V]

Williams to the reserves. Needs more work.

With Cincotta and McGovern in I think you will see an improved Williams. He needs to run and not lockdown

 

[T2B_]

Very happy to have won last night's game, it was huge for us. 6-3 is much better than 5-4. Our season still very much on track and it will get better as more players return.

Yep, just gotta grind out the wins even when we're not at our best. We're a bit of a spluttering engine lately, often misfiring and barely wanting to even idle, but there are times when the engine revs up and purrs.

 

[Soapy V]

I think Cowan is almost there, I've been impressed with his improvements this year. Needs to hold on to a few more contested marks but his toughness and awareness in the backline is very good. His dump kick from the backline seems to travel 10 metres more than anyone else down there which is actually very important.

He will get there. He can run and is a beautiful kick. Just needs to believe

 

[gab213]

Cripps post match interview. Voss instilling limiting beliefs in the players before the game. Cripps words not mine.

That percentage could cost a top 4 spot and therefor cost a flag.

That is not clear evidence of anything and you're making something of nothing. Our players were totally gassed in that last quarter, they didn't make a conscious decision to go defensive, they were hanging on as best they could. Just enjoy the win.

 

[katmanblue]

Can't or won't play shoulder to shoulder. Not comfortable unless he has a run at the contest.

Different type of player. Gov's got great closing speed and a good leap. Backs himself to get. Gets it wrong sometimes but he's often right, too.

On SM-F926B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Sam The Doc]

With Cincotta and McGovern in I think you will see an improved Williams. He needs to run and not lockdown

yeah agree, cant be seen 1 on 1 anywhere in the danger area.....

 

[passmark]

I knew we’d win when I saw Pitto take a contested mark in the second quarter.

I thought “The gods are with us!”

 

[Blue since 72]

We played well for 3 and a half quarters. The rain came harder, the ground was more heavy going, and our game style is taxing. These guys left it all out there on the field. We were out on our feet.

That's what it looked like to me, they were stuffed plus Cez going off, Martin's first game, Gov coming back.

Nice to see Charlie pushing down back to settle things, thought Newman had his best game for the season and applause to Weiters again.

Happy to have Gov's long kicking back, Martin's skill and pressure, Sammy Welsh, Crippa and lets Keep Kennedy in the middle please and good on Matty Owies for snagging three, more of that thanks.

 

[passmark]

Old Maxy Gawn was a bit fired up last night.

He’d be feeling shithouse today again.

 

[Jacks Seething Rage]

Different type of player. Gov's got great closing speed and a good leap. Backs himself to get. Gets it wrong sometimes but he's often right, too.

On SM-F926B using BigFooty.com mobile app

More an observation than a knock. I think he can improve his understanding of when to tighten up.

The smarter players like CP will absolutely use the space they are afforded.

 

[T2B_]

It was good to get 2 goals from our 2 rucks

 

[katmanblue]

No one shepherds anymore at any level of football, I don’t get why but it’s definitely a lost art.

Maybe the penalties for accidents are having an effect on this but Everyone also wants to play the overlap game with numbers running in support and the act of shepherding takes one of your own guys out of that wave.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

If that bloke is between the teammate with the ball and the opponent, surely it makes more sense to block the opponent that to call for the ball.

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[GoBlues!]

“We won’t win this by much”

What a clever belief to instil in a team before a game. Brilliant stuff vossy.

It worked, no one and I mean no one would have thought we could come out and kick 5 goals straight to Melb’s 0.0 in the first quarter.

The mindset before the game was perfect…we’re playing a very good side who demolished Geelong last week and have quality players all over the ground. We will need to be switched on, work hard and defend well from the get go….and guess what we did.

 

[Jacks Seething Rage]

Just have to praise Cincotta's game again...he's said to the match commitee you can prise this spot out of my cold dead hands.

 

[branedotorg]

Is it getting the mix wrong and over-correcting to defence?

What I observe is the contest ahead of the ball utterly dries up, then there’s repeat entries and rushed sky kicks out. I wonder if we retreat a bit TOO deep to “hold on”? Or if the slow of foot players can’t get up and back like they ideally should, so get stuck being useless in the middle? Or is it poor physicality from our forwards who might be in the right spots but get brushed aside?

There’s something I can’t quite grasp that invites opponents to give it all they’ve got without fear late in games. We aren’t organised and ready to pounce and land the knock out blow to snuff out the contest, which is frustrating because we do so much good work to get into a position. That killer instinct to end it would go a long way towards us being a contender.

as a team we've defaulted to panic when under pressure, some teams push back, others retreat, we've retreaded when the heat is on for most of this century.

Up to a point Voss' team have turned that around, compared to say Teague's era when the mere thought of winning three in a row or being comfortable favourites in the media seemed enough to almost ensure a loss. Now we mostly win close games but under the surface, under the learnings there's still a kernel that the team panics under pressure and melbourne really turned up the pressure when they had nothing to lose.

geelong and last year, collingwood, are the only current teams that really have enough self belief to defy that pressure and expect to win every game. i think we're on the right path but clearly not there yet.

 

[fizzkakz]

I really like Ollie Holands as a player...but he really needs to work on his situational awareness. The number of times he gets run down from behind is becoming a bit of an issue. Shouldn't be too difficult to fix...but he needs to do it. Needs to put on a bit of muscle too.

Some of that falls to his team mates. Where is the talk letting him know how much time and space he has?

 

[jj1978]

Good to pocket the points but it didn't feel much like a win to me in the aftermath.

I really dislike how early Voss parks the bus. We go super defensive way too early for my liking and it stops us from ever being able to kick away in a contest. A few weeks ago Leigh Matthews was talking about it and mentioned we do it probably a bit too early as well. It shows in how many close finishes we've had that we don't kick away to ice the game. All we needed really was 2 goals in the qtr to kill the game, and probably just 1 in the last 10 mins would've finished it.

I think from pretty much halfway through the 3rd qtr we Parked the Bus. We did it well until the last 5 mins, at which point we panicked several times to give them the game they wanted. The whole qtr I got the sense that this sort of finish was coming, holding the game down only works for so long and I was just waiting for Melbournes explosion, which very nearly was enough.

I think going forward we need to not completely shut the game down so early and we also need to be better in the last few minutes. I know we have loads of wins by under 7 points but I still think several guys in the team clearly panic in those late moments.

Well assume Leigh and Voss still have a good relationship and have one anothers numbers, hope Leigh reaches out to Voss to give him some of his thoughts or Voss reaches out to him.