Roast Are we the worst skilled team in the competition??

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

It was interesting mattymac to hear that we were ultra vocal in the warm up. Very loud, fired up.

Faking it.

It's what shit teams with average culture and no senior leadership do because they think it shows how switched on they are. Really they just don't know what to do. I bet Geelong don't bother with that crap.

 

[Schulzycrow]

Great write up mattymac...but sadly I can't see it changing anytime soon. Too often today there was one Crow player and three Carlton players. We pick and choose when we want to "turn up" and it has been going on for years. One constant...the coaching panel.

 

[mattymac]

Great write up mattymac...but sadly I can't see it changing anytime soon. Too often today there was one Crow player and three Carlton players. We pick and choose when we want to "turn up" and it has been going on for years. One constant...the coaching panel.

Yeah I also feel a bit like we're doomed. I can't see the people that have failed to make necessary decisions suddenly making them and in turn there is no way to move on those failing decision makers. So logically it will continue until some happy accident rescues us in the distant future.

The thing that saved oz cricket was former players caring about the state of things and demanding independent reviews and sackings. Our former AFC players don't seem to care about the direction of the club enough to speak up which is getting increasingly disappointing as the years without making finals mount up.

 

[JohnK]

There's no need to overstate the case. We are the tenth least skillful team in the comp.
And we can only get better.

 

[PCORF]

Even against Collingwood, our skills were hardly precise. The difference between today and our win against Collingwood was largely the level of intensity we played with.

That was my concern all week leading up to the game of us getting too carried away after the big upset win over Collingwood. I had doubts against Carlton, it was just one of those games that was never going to be pretty but still winnable. The players looked nervous in front of goal, simply putting themselves under too much pressure, plus some hurried misses too which is normal. Also too much handballs.

 

[Mr_Moogle]

Skills are shocking but they don't run hard enough either. Fitness is just as much a problem at this club.

 

[TheLeftFist8]

We're not greatly skilled but skills always look worse with mental softness, confusion, and a fear of failure instead of taking the game on.

 

[Allefgib]

If we're not the worst, we're pretty damn close.



Skills are the issue, or at least, the major issue. There's no point even trying to think about whether our game plan is any good or not when we miss targets left and right. No game plan in the world holds up if you can't execute simple passes.

Disagree.
If your plan causes loss of confidence, which it does imo, then this can flow on to impact regulation skills.
Even getting too much footy in pressure situations will impact de.

 

[cmndstab]

Disagree.
If your plan causes loss of confidence, which it does imo, then this can flow on to impact regulation skills.
Even getting too much footy in pressure situations will impact de.

That can certainly happen, but I don't think it is what has happened to us this season.

What I've seen is that the Crows play a high-pressure brand of football, where they try to hunt the opposition and force them to turn the ball over. However, once they do so and begin streaming forward again, they are missing regulation passes and giving it straight back.

This means we have players pelting back to create pressure, then pelting forward once we turn it over to provide an option, then having to pelt back again to cover the turnover, and so forth. The players look absolutely stuffed by midway through the game and I don't think it's a fitness issue. I just think our skills are destroying us.

No wonder things like goalkicking and red-time defensive efforts are killing us. We're exhausting ourselves by turning the ball over all the damn time. Someone commented in the gameday thread (I think) that Martin never misses set shots in the SANFL but he misses them in the AFL, and concluded that this meant he was mentally weak and not up to pressure situations. I have a simpler explanation - he is just so much more fatigued playing midfield in our AFL side because he has to constantly run back and forth to make up for our simple skill errors.

I honestly think if our skills were good we'd be well and truly entrenched in the top 8, and nobody would be talking about our fitness or goalkicking woes. The problem is that you can't simply flick a switch and turn an unskilled team into a skilled team. It needs to be a long-term plan starting from getting the right coaching panel, and most likely will involve moving on several players who are simply not up to it. Until we do so it's hard to see us being a legitimate flag threat, because all the best teams will force you to execute skills under pressure and we're just not capable of doing that at the moment.

 

[Slippery Pete]

even our players with naturally good skills are struggling.

Right. So what does that tell you?

"Our skills were poor" is such a bone-headed analysis of a poor performance.

We have plenty of very skilled players. In fact our team, on paper last night, was much more skilled than Carlton's.

So what does that say? What does that say about what they're being asked to execute? What does that say about the respective gameplans of the teams?

Remember when we played Collingwood in that final of 2009 and our backline had about 34,000 handballs? Anybody remember who ran through that backline that evening? McLeod, Goodwin, Edwards and Johncock, to name a few. Hardly players with poor skills! So why did Malthouse pants us again that night?

Bad skills? Garbage. We were beaten last night, and against Port, and Sydney, because one coach understood the limitations of his team, and the other didn't.

We were beaten because of poor on-field decision making and poor ball movement, and the buck for both of those things stops with the coach, because he has had this group for three years.

Why does Dangerfield play on onto his left foot 15 metres out from goal? Why does Sloane not have the composure to fire off a handball? Why does Rutten stop and handball backwards when he has Walker one on one 40 metres up the ground? Why do we have a gameplan that makes our elite players look like absolute deers in the headlights?

They are the questions we should be asking. Not "why do we have poor skills." We don't.

 

[Vader]

Worst skilled, or a completely utterly stupid ******* game plan.

Or both?

 

[Mattrox]

Right. So what does that tell you?

"Our skills were poor" is such a bone-headed analysis of a poor performance.

We have plenty of very skilled players. In fact our team, on paper last night, was much more skilled than Carlton's.

So what does that say? What does that say about what they're being asked to execute? What does that say about the respective gameplans of the teams?

Remember when we played Collingwood in that final of 2009 and our backline had about 34,000 handballs? Anybody remember who ran through that backline that evening? McLeod, Goodwin, Edwards and Johncock, to name a few. Hardly players with poor skills! So why did Malthouse pants us again that night?

Bad skills? Garbage. We were beaten last night, and against Port, and Sydney, because one coach understood the limitations of his team, and the other didn't.

We were beaten because of poor on-field decision making and poor ball movement, and the buck for both of those things stops with the coach, because he has had this group for three years.

Why does Dangerfield play on onto his left foot 15 metres out from goal? Why does Sloane not have the composure to fire off a handball? Why does Rutten stop and handball backwards when he has Walker one on one 40 metres up the ground? Why do we have a gameplan that makes our elite players look like absolute deers in the headlights?

They are the questions we should be asking. Not "why do we have poor skills." We don't.

I'm with you on this.

 

[TheLeftFist8]

The most recent year WC had a great year much was made of the fact they went from one of the worst to one of the best teams re disposal efficiency in the league in the space of one off season. Skills miraculously improved out of sight!

We do have some players with average skills but I'm in the camp that believes it's not the primary problem.

 

[Allefgib]

That can certainly happen, but I don't think it is what has happened to us this season.

What I've seen is that the Crows play a high-pressure brand of football, where they try to hunt the opposition and force them to turn the ball over. However, once they do so and begin streaming forward again, they are missing regulation passes and giving it straight back.

This means we have players pelting back to create pressure, then pelting forward once we turn it over to provide an option, then having to pelt back again to cover the turnover, and so forth. The players look absolutely stuffed by midway through the game and I don't think it's a fitness issue. I just think our skills are destroying us.

No wonder things like goalkicking and red-time defensive efforts are killing us. We're exhausting ourselves by turning the ball over all the damn time. Someone commented in the gameday thread (I think) that Martin never misses set shots in the SANFL but he misses them in the AFL, and concluded that this meant he was mentally weak and not up to pressure situations. I have a simpler explanation - he is just so much more fatigued playing midfield in our AFL side because he has to constantly run back and forth to make up for our simple skill errors.

I honestly think if our skills were good we'd be well and truly entrenched in the top 8, and nobody would be talking about our fitness or goalkicking woes. The problem is that you can't simply flick a switch and turn an unskilled team into a skilled team. It needs to be a long-term plan starting from getting the right coaching panel, and most likely will involve moving on several players who are simply not up to it. Until we do so it's hard to see us being a legitimate flag threat, because all the best teams will force you to execute skills under pressure and we're just not capable of doing that at the moment.

Righto - so the gameplan has us too stuffed too execute our skills? I'll buy that (thougth I'm sure it's not what you meant).

We start so many games doing this short controlled stuff. Where we are in trouble of losing touch with the game we seem to revert to a longer kicking, more direct option.. and we get back in it. Do you disagree with that?

My view.. start with the longer kicking option ffs.

 

[TheLeftFist8]

My view.. start with the longer kicking option ffs.

Crazy talk

 

[footy4ever]

Go back Marty and start this thread last Friday week.

 

[skoobydoo]

Righto - so the gameplan has us too stuffed too execute our skills? I'll buy that (thougth I'm sure it's not what you meant).

We start so many games doing this short controlled stuff. Where we are in trouble of losing touch with the game we seem to revert to a longer kicking, more direct option.. and we get back in it. Do you disagree with that?

My view.. start with the longer kicking option ffs.

Because we are not a running side, and other styles 'don't suit us', or we 'don't want a shoot out' etc etc, maybe our slow hesitant starts is Sando's way of 'playing the game at our tempo' from the get go?

 

[fine wines]

Your kicking and handball (high looping) skills baffles me, when we were bad we were a lot like GWS now, just didn't seem interested but you guys seem like you want to win especially with our form in your faces. I can't blame fitness because Carlton basically had Pre season jogging on the spot in the snow and had about 20 players up for surgery, I can't blame Dean Bailey's death because he was with you last year and that was bad, can't blame Tex injury because you were poor before he got injured last year so only thing I can pinpoint is the loss of Tippett because he was so good for you but surely you would be over that by now, just boggles.

 

[cmndstab]

Righto - so the gameplan has us too stuffed too execute our skills? I'll buy that (thougth I'm sure it's not what you meant).

We start so many games doing this short controlled stuff. Where we are in trouble of losing touch with the game we seem to revert to a longer kicking, more direct option.. and we get back in it. Do you disagree with that?

My view.. start with the longer kicking option ffs.

Definitely agree with the latter viewpoint.

On the former, it's not so much that the gameplan has us too stuffed to execute our skills. It's that poor early execution leads to us having to run a lot harder than we should, and from there it all eventually unravels.

 

[Magma]

it's always been confusing to me that professional athletes seem to go through phases of performing the basics well or poorly. and how they can change in the matter of a week.

loopy kicks and handpasses, continual fumbles, balls to the feet of players. these things are basic no no's. yet so often players do them. i just do not understand it. i can give it a pass if it's young teams who are struggling, but quite often now it's our young players standing up and the senior bodies letting them down. way too ****ing often

 

[ManOfClay]

That kick by Wright was the hail mary. A terrible decision combined with terrible execution. Up there with one of the worst moments from a skill point of view I have ever seen in an AFL match (and I follow the Dogs, we have had maybe 5 skilful players on our list since the 2010 prelim).

 

[Slippery Pete]

Anybody have the stats on how many goals Carlton scored from turnovers?

 

[RePete]

Your kicking and handball (high looping) skills baffles me, when we were bad we were a lot like GWS now, just didn't seem interested but you guys seem like you want to win especially with our form in your faces. I can't blame fitness because Carlton basically had Pre season jogging on the spot in the snow and had about 20 players up for surgery, I can't blame Dean Bailey's death because he was with you last year and that was bad, can't blame Tex injury because you were poor before he got injured last year so only thing I can pinpoint is the loss of Tippett because he was so good for you but surely you would be over that by now, just boggles.

-Pretty sure the players don't care about Port's form a bit come gameday. Bigfooty is different from running out onto the oval.
-Dean wasn't with us most of last year because of the Melbourne not-tanking suspension, was only with towards the end of the season when we were doing well
-Yeah you kind of can blame a lot on the Tex injury, left us with no forward line messing our structure and forward line efficiency up.
-Tippet only player like half of 2012 and wasn't solely responsible for our success then, it was more to do with our senior players gelling really well and having pretty much everyone in form.

The real problem is gameplan atm. At a very high intensity like the Collingwood game we can get away with it due to the pressure applied on the other team, but when you are off that bit it looks like total shambles. imo need to go back to the 2012 gameplan of 'always be on the move, going forward' and 'switch to centre, not backwards.' In otherwords take the came on instead of playing handball keepy-offs. Also should be noted we are still well off having our strongest team on the park.

 

[fine wines]

-Pretty sure the players don't care about Port's form a bit come gameday. Bigfooty is different from running out onto the oval.
-Dean wasn't with us most of last year because of the Melbourne not-tanking suspension, was only with towards the end of the season when we were doing well
-Yeah you kind of can blame a lot on the Tex injury, left us with no forward line messing our structure and forward line efficiency up.
-Tippet only player like half of 2012 and wasn't solely responsible for our success then, it was more to do with our senior players gelling really well and having pretty much everyone in form.

The real problem is gameplan atm. At a very high intensity like the Collingwood game we can get away with it due to the pressure applied on the other team, but when you are off that bit it looks like total shambles. imo need to go back to the 2012 gameplan of 'always be on the move, going forward' and 'switch to centre, not backwards.' In otherwords take the came on instead of playing handball keepy-offs. Also should be noted we are still well off having our strongest team on the park.

Fair enough calls but surely gameplan doesn't affect a guy with no one near him a chips a small kick sideways and completely misses a target 15 metres away kind of like when Jaensch (who I rate this year) kicked directly to Wines with no one within 10 metres during the showdown, strange times we live in.

 

[JP Sauce]

Anybody have the stats on how many goals Carlton scored from turnovers?

Probably somewhere between most and all of them.