Blues v Hawks Venting thread - keep it all in here

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Hawks find the time to make changes

Hawks find the time to make changes

We were without four talls in Bower, Waite, Walker and Austin, plus Mclean, Lucas, Houlihan, Hampson, Hadley, Warnock and Grigg.

Yet we don't have enormous depth.

Another bigger mid such as Hadley, Mclean and even Grigg was needed yesterday.

There were about ten players who could have played yesterday.

Plus the likes of Davies. Kerr and O'keeffe who are coming through.

Journalists are muppets.

Simpson has been a good player this year, yet he still needs to kick the sodas he misses on the run.

Jake Niall :rolleyes:

Enough said.
 
My thoughts:

- Thornton is desperately out of form. Everything about his game just looks slow at the moment, and he seems to have totally lost the ability to make the correct decision. I think Austin has to come in this week irrespective of how underdone he is (especially now with White's injury); with Bird perhaps only saved at the selection table by our painfully long injury list. He really needs a huge game this week to keep his spot when Waite becomes available though...

- I absolutely HATED Ratten's decision to play Armfield through the midfield. Whilst he still had a serviceable game and was probably one of our better players, Armfield has become critical to our defensive set up with his line-breaking runs. It was excruciating watching us try and slowly pick our way out of defence with little chip passes or hospital handballs, and I think we sorely missed Armfield's dash and ability to take the game on. Nobody down there wanted to take a risk or assume responsibility for turning defence into attack. Armfield was sensational last week, and I find it bemusing that after such a great game Ratten would unnecessarily tinker with our structure like that.

- Carrazzo was very ordinary. Unfortunately I think his good games have become outweighed by the bad. Yesterday he ran around like a useless crab and repeatedly sold his teammates into trouble with awful disposal. Was also pretty soft in a couple of contests, which is not something I would normally associate with Carrazzo. A senior player who failed to stand up and lead by example: must improve his effort next week. Would also be on the chopping block at selection but for our injuries.

- Judd's disposal was disgraceful at times. Needs to start kicking goals, too.

- I have huge faith in Setanta, but what the **** was he doing? Obviously doesn't have faith in converting his set shots, because almost every time he marks inside 50 his first instinct is to play-on. It came off nicely against Port, but yesterday he was punished. He is actually a better set shot than most people - and probably he himself - realise, and should back himself to go back and kick the goals.

- Betts was another senior player who let us down with a generally piss-weak effort. Our leadership in general appeared non-existent. The entire game was pervaded by a real sense of 'Somebody else will do it', with only Mitch Robinson actually putting his head down and actively trying to make something happen.

- On a positive note, I really enjoyed Jacobs' game. His contested marking is first-rate, and he may well become a good bail-out option for us when kicking-in.
 

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The entire game was pervaded by a real sense of 'Somebody else will do it', with only Mitch Robinson actually putting his head down and actively trying to make something happen.
I'd put Kreuzer in that company too. Just kept going at it all day with little support from the mids. Was one of few to provide a run off the HB line, link up with some handballs to players on the move and running forwards.

Agree re Thornton. I thought he was terrible. I'm not usually a Thornton basher as his disposal is usually pretty good, but its his good fortune that Bower and White are injured, because right now I'd have him in the Ants. We had to hide him yesterday.:mad:

Setatanta shouldn't have played on, but he will learn. In his 9th game as a FF and only another 4-5 as a permanent KPF on top of that last year......he is learning. He does tend to want to play on at all costs, and that has probably got us a few goals that he may well have missed. Yesterday it went the other way. More of a concern to me was his leading, or lack thereof. He just didn't present hard enough to the ball carrier.......and of course when he did the ball missed him by 5m.

Bad day all round. The test now is how well we bounce back. If we have only 1 bad week in amongst 2-3 good ones I'd think that for where our group is, that's pretty good.

Still, it would be nice for those "down" weeks to not coincide with the Hawks and Dons.:(


P.S. There are not too many sides that can apply that sort of pressure on the ball for 4 quarters. The Pies, Hawks (when they are up), Swans, and maybe Freo from what little I've seen.

Bring on WCE.
 
My thoughts:
- I absolutely HATED Ratten's decision to play Armfield through the midfield. Whilst he still had a serviceable game and was probably one of our better players, Armfield has become critical to our defensive set up with his line-breaking runs. It was excruciating watching us try and slowly pick our way out of defence with little chip passes or hospital handballs, and I think we sorely missed Armfield's dash and ability to take the game on. Nobody down there wanted to take a risk or assume responsibility for turning defence into attack. Armfield was sensational last week, and I find it bemusing that after such a great game Ratten would unnecessarily tinker with our structure like that.

- Carrazzo was very ordinary. Unfortunately I think his good games have become outweighed by the bad. Yesterday he ran around like a useless crab and repeatedly sold his teammates into trouble with awful disposal. Was also pretty soft in a couple of contests, which is not something I would normally associate with Carrazzo. A senior player who failed to stand up and lead by example: must improve his effort next week. Would also be on the chopping block at selection but for our injuries.

Re: Armfield in the middle.
I think this was much more a function of our injuries and lack of rotations.

Re: Carrazzo.
When he is good, it's because he is cutting up an opposition player (eg v Dal Santo). When he plays his other game (ie racking up possessions), he is more damaging to us than to the opposition. I put Scotland in the same category. These two players should be doing far more of the 1%er things, and worrying a lot less about racking up cheap possies. What our midfield really lacks are the blocks/shepherds/tackles. Scotty and Carrots should be providing space and time so that Judd/Murphy/Gibbs/Simpson can cut it up.
 
Forgive me for intruding on your board

I thought you were undermanned today and injuries played a huge part of that. Many negative hawk fans refused to believe injuries were a factor in us losing 6 almost 7 goals in a row BUT if you don't have your best team on the park how can you perform to the best of your abilities - plus you had two injuries on the day. (oh yeah and the Hawks were back to their 2008 best!)

Trust me - get back Waite and Houlihan and see how much you improve - O'Halpin no longer is the sole tall forward, you have bigger bodies to protect the littler ones. Ahh it this thread looks just like the Hawthorn autopsy threads over the past few weeks

hang tough
 
I think everyone needs 2 take a deep breath and come back on here in a day or 2
You cant win every week and today i had a feeling it was a good time to get us
We have been up for a while and have a heap of injuries
I will take 5/4with some winable games ahead

Yesterday's game was winnable,mate!
That's what is so frustrating.The way it's panning out the next 6 weeks are going to be more important than the first "tough" rounds.
I had a sickly feeling going to the ground ,I thought we were ripe for a loss ,and of course we let Buddy/Roughy put on a f'ing show.
Going on our past few weeks form it was conceivable that we could have won the next 6 rounds and we would've been sitting pretty for a run to the finals.

We were shit yesterday but I wasn't impressed with the Hawks either!
 
Waite needs to be given a talking too. really missed him today for his stupidity last week.

Betts is playing terrible, having no impact. even against st kilda he did nothing till the last qtr when the game was done.

Hendo kicking 3 was good, still needs to clunk those marks.

Even though we had those injuries, we were already 6 goals down when they happened. We didnt have the intesity required to beat them.

Good thing is we have the eagles next week over here, should put us back on track.

Be very careful with comments like that mate.Someone once said"The moment you think it's an easy game,you've already lost" !!
 
Hodge doesnt even have to execute a proper handball just like Buddy doesn't have to bother with bouncing all the time.

yeah... I loved Buddy's 25m run from the centre to the chf position. I counted a whole zero bounces...
 
To everyone,
Really...........I mean was this loss a shock???
Why are we so upset?
I think we all predicted it was a danger game and personally I went one step further and predicted a loss. I couldn't see how we were going to stop franklin/roughhead before the game and guess what, we didn't stop them. We have a terrible recent record against them, they were playing to keep their finals hopes alive and they just got back a few important players, PLUS key premiership players started to find some form/fitness.e.g.sewell,mitchell and brown.

Not upset with the loss... I am upset with the way we lost the game. There was no effort apart from the third and it seemed that we were walking around rather than trying to take the game on.

Add to the equation that we had a stack of injuries before and during the game, plus we went in as favourites, which we hate.

Pre-game it had a loss written all over it and our loss is no surprise for me.
They wanted it more and had more to play for then us, still its no excuse at all.

Losing 2 players to suspension and injury last week, 1 player before the game and 2 in the first half has stretched us a bit, but I am expecting us to get some people back for this game.

Agree. Look out West Coast. If we don't come out breathing fire next week after that performance we don't deserve to be playing finals. I dont care how many injuries we have, being hard at the pill doesn't require skill, its an attitude thing and committment to your team mates and your club.

I expect a win next week but we seem to be dropping like flies atm, hopefully we get a few back.

We had a loss to the filth, then bounced back to beat the Aints and the power. I expect us to roll up our next 3 opponents now and kick some serious arse while doing it.
 
One thing about our defence.

Similar to the Essendon game,our defenders seem shit scared they'll be tackled when they have the ball,and consequently handball recklessly to a team mate who is under more pressure.Kick the f'ing thing!!

At a kickout,Hawks were zoning off,instead of looking up the ground to break the zone,we start chipping inside our 50 ,which then allows Hawks forward to apply more pressure and then we turn it over. Kick to a contest ,at least its a 50/50 proposition as opposed to having the opposition forwards and mids just pressing harder and harder!!
 

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Not much to bring in with our injuries, unfortunately.

Exactly. I don't want to rush players into the side if they are underdone. Bower injury could have been prevented.

We need Waite to pull his head in, release all of his anger and get back into the side.
 
Hawks find the time to make changes

Hawks find the time to make changes

We were without four talls in Bower, Waite, Walker and Austin, plus Mclean, Lucas, Houlihan, Hampson, Hadley, Warnock and Grigg.

Yet we don't have enormous depth.

Another bigger mid such as Hadley, Mclean and even Grigg was needed yesterday.

There were about ten players who could have played yesterday.

Plus the likes of Davies. Kerr and O'keeffe who are coming through.

Journalists are muppets.

Simpson has been a good player this year, yet he still needs to kick the sodas he misses on the run.

I have only seen the game once on TV but can anyone tell me how Jon Ralph gave Hooper 4th BOG with 9 possies/6 eff :confused:
 

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