Autopsy Cats lose to Demons by 8 points

[Footy_Fan2007]

I still can't get over the omission of O'Connor and Parfitt.

We were 7-0, we can afford to manage players atm.

 

[iameviljez]

I still can't get over the omission of O'Connor and Parfitt.

The season is a marathon so you take risks like that, rather than limping to the finish line.

Bluntly put, going 18-5 guarantees us a top two place, going 17-6 makes it 50-50. We should be able to get to 11 and 4 from here with the draw that we have; I would rather continue to rest players when sore and take the H&A hit, than try and push players into the red so early in the year.

Resting O'Connor and Parfitt this week does allow us to rest someone else next week.

 

[iameviljez]

Seems that way to me too. I also think Danger is being underrated in these discussions. He was brilliant last week in that first half, set the scene for our style of play.

I completely agree, but I honestly am looking at Danger like he's one hammy away from popping the boots in a drawstring bag and bidding the AFL good night and good luck.

 

[fpm84]

Where is our key leading / pack marking forward?

How can they justify keeping Neale out?

Can Shannon play in the same forward line as Cameron, Hawkins, Henry and Rohan?

To me Hawkins is the only logical one who can make way for him. Scott claimed post match that Hawk is not carrying an injury and that we will not be resting him next week. I think Hawk being rested for the Darwin game the following week is a certainty regardless.

 

[The_Koulouriotis_Fan]

Yes, I agree, we are in that mix at present, and 7-0 will help that.
No Danger- Saints probably beat us.
No JC- how many games do we win this year?
BUT, I agree, you can say that about Pies/NDaicos, Blues/Harry&Curnow, but with the Swans, Demons and GWS, they seem to have more widespread contributors to a win.
We are rarely belted even in any quarter.
I just wonder what will transpire as the season goes on, with that MF and our aged list.
We are 1/3 of the way through it, May will be very challenging.

That’s being selective, some games the contribution this year by Geelong has been extremely even. Danger took the moment against the Saints but he didn’t win us the game. If anything, last night showed that we can win without Jezza having a massive influence, but like all contributors in an even side, he has to execute when it’s his moment/s. He didn’t 3 out of the 4 times. Which has to be deflating for the team working so hard to get him the ball. He gets a pass though.

On the flip side, Melbourne’s most influential player executed when it mattered and they won the game… by 8 points.

Also, teams lose games, no team in history has won every game, our most successful years we’ve gone 19-3 and 18-4 & the losses were by low margins, which is the way last night happened. If we were blown away, I’d be worried. But that game could’ve gone either way last night, it just went Melbourne’s.

It’s insane to me that after a close loss to a team that everyone rates, where we were off, the analysis from so many on here is doom and gloom and writing off players like Duncan, whom has been excellent this year. We’ll absolutely be contending this year and it could just come down to the bounce of the ball for anyone.

 

[Play it Sam]

I still can't get over the omission of O'Connor and Parfitt.

You have something there, I'm sure selection would like their time back.
We have to be fair and accept that tampering with team balance can make it harder to adjust, rather than necessarily strengthen a team. serendipity plays a part. Danger out, Bruhn gets injured and the chess pieces fall over, not replacing like with like.

They have their resting plans, but you just cannot always adjust to continual change and play all the good reserves nominated here on BF. Steady the ship Scotty et al.

 

[Spearman]

I had a suspicion we'd lose and if we did I thought I wouldn't be angry. But I'm a bit angry because I'm not used to seeing Scott outcoached this badly.

Goodwin saw that he had the tools to take our game away and he did.

Melbourne too smart and too well drilled. Bravo to them

I'd add that our skill errors and lapses might have nullified some of Scott's moves.

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

The season is a marathon so you take risks like that, rather than limping to the finish line.

Bluntly put, going 18-5 guarantees us a top two place, going 17-6 makes it 50-50. We should be able to get to 11 and 4 from here with the draw that we have; I would rather continue to rest players when sore and take the H&A hit, than try and push players into the red so early in the year.

Resting O'Connor and Parfitt this week does allow us to rest someone else next week.

Spot on and I’m not sure why people are forgetting this. We aren’t even halfway through. It’s a bloody long year and our excellent start has given us the flexibility to be able to rest/manage players because we can afford a loss here and there.

I’m not concerned at all atm. Lose 3-4 on the trot and it becomes a different story but we are very well positioned atm.
Who wants to be playing their best at round 8?
In 2022 we didn’t even start coming good until around this stage.

Plenty to work on as it should be at round 8.

 

[Jumping Jack]

We got ahead of ourselves we even played bruise free footy looking for as soft kill.Guess what.

A few players getting criticised - but I’m not sure the coaches had a great week. Resting players is fine to an extent but leaving Parfitt and MOC out against the Dees midfield was odd. Maybe one of them - but both?????

It’s not like they’re both “older” players.

Dangerfield out - C Guthrie 2nd game after a long layoff so we were thin in there to begin with. Stats are misleading. I thought when the pressure was on - Dees midfield was harder (and cleaner) ….. and a hell of a lot more damaging.


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[cats_09]

Swans and Demons and Pies are more complete MIDFIELD and Rucking teams, not much in it, but we need stellar efforts from JC, Danger and Hawk many times to have wins, and with Tom not firing, we struggle a bit. Neal and Conway are going to help our plight, and it's tricky for the MC navigating that transition period, and I see that Clark, Bruhn, Bowes, Parfitt, MOC, and Atkins will be a handy midfield.

Totally disagree that this season we're reliant on "stellar efforts" from Cameron, Hawkins or Dangerfield to win - one of the most pleasing things this year is just how little we've relied on those "A-list" players for us to get the job done over our first 7 games

Cameron against Carlton was immense, while his other BOG game was against North

Against Brisbane in what was one of our best wins of recent times - none of the above 3 hit the scoreboard in any capacity, while Hawkins had 2 goal assists & Dangerfield 1


The most pleasing thing of our season to date is how much the it's the next generation who've have stepped up and taken the responsibilty in games, and it's not been the usual suspects who've had to lead the way to get us into the position we're in. We've also seen the benefit of playing a much more even midfield, where players know their roles and work together to get the job done, a situation I'd much prefer to other teams who are reliant on too few in that area

 

[BORIS332]

Yeah, I know. Never suggested otherwise.

I didn’t suggest you suggested otherwise. I was just adding to your post.

 

[BORIS332]

Cameron strength is not as a stay-at-home full-forward.

Hawkins appears hindered and can not get out of a gallop. When he gets free more often than not he gets a kick from deep in the pocket. We understand clearing the forward line but we need a forward who can take a park mark a home.

Ollie Henry has a crack but does not have the build.

Where is our key leading / pack marking forward?

How can they justify keeping Neale out?

You don’t need a pack marking forward if you have good F50 entries. Melbourne’s pressure on our ball carriers last night meant we didn’t have time to lower the eyes and pick off forwards, we were just bombing into F50 for Lever/May to intercept.

 

[Tony Barber]

Anyone else clap extremely loudly when Fritsch kicked that goal.
Wow, that was some effort under that much pressure.

Overall I didn't like how defensive we were. That had to be deliberate.
Too many players back and no one to kick to.
It split the grouping of Miers, Stengel,Henry, close.

That type of game will take a lot out of us for next week.

But boy I'm liking Dempsey. He looks to be very clever.

 

[Spearman]

Pre Season 2007....... we smashed Port Adelaide by 1 point in an extreme flooded ground with massive pouring rain

Cameron Mooney was standing on the boundary line and the water on the ground was almost up to his knees

Maybe a training session in the pool picking up some water polo techniques wouldn't go amiss?


EDIT: Mooney already doing the boundary rider thing in 2007?

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

Yes, I agree, we are in that mix at present, and 7-0 will help that.
No Danger- Saints probably beat us.
No JC- how many games do we win this year?
BUT, I agree, you can say that about Pies/NDaicos, Blues/Harry&Curnow, but with the Swans, Demons and GWS, they seem to have more widespread contributors to a win.
We are rarely belted even in any quarter.
I just wonder what will transpire as the season goes on, with that MF and our aged list.
We are 1/3 of the way through it, May will be very challenging.

Disagree about Sydney. They had a stat on one of the footy shows the other day that Heeney is involved in something like 80% of their scores.
If he goes down it’s goodnight Sydney.
Collingwood were rubbish last year when Daicos went down.

No Heeney, and how many games do Sydney win?
It’s being selective imo. Every team has flaws. Gone are the days when we had powerhouse teams who lost maybe 2-3 games for the year.

Statistically, Collingwood were the worst team in history to win it last year. They had/have massive flaws

As I said earlier, we share the load more than any other team.
That’s a huge strength.

 

[Jimmy Yamazaki]

A few players getting criticised - but I’m not sure the coaches had a great week. Resting players is fine to an extent but leaving Parfitt and MOC out against the Dees midfield was odd. Maybe one of them - but both?????

It’s not like they’re both “older” players.

Dangerfield out - C Guthrie 2nd game after a long layoff so we were thin in there to begin with. Stats are misleading. I thought when the pressure was on - Dees midfield was harder (and cleaner) ….. and a hell of a lot more damaging.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

Agree, then replace them with Rohan, a mid sized forward as the sub didn't seem like a great idea to me.

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

Anyone else clap extremely loudly when Fritsch kicked that goal.

No, but I swore extremely loudly.

 

[Farmer2Goggin]

Losses always burn but every teams drops one eventually. Not worried about this in the slightest.

We were clearly off our game. Weren't running as hard to cover the ground. Poor tackling intensity and unforced errors. Yet we still only lost by 8 pts. Dees couldn't have played much better except at kicking for goal and we were just as poor.

In fact, I'm more convinced of our premiership credentials after this game. Winning the midfield isn't even our strength and yet clearances, contested possession and inside 50s were relatively close. Add this onto a return to our usual intensity and we'll be just fine.

Tend to agree and importantly I think Scott does as well.
This was always a danger game if we were slightly off and that missing 5% told in the end.
We had enough counter attacks to win but turned over approaches and missed shots for goal you would normally put your house on.
We will continue to grow this midfield performance and hopefully our defenders won’t lose as many 1on 1’s as tonight- looking at you JH.

Most importantly the game plan whilst needing some tweaks looks very solid - we were far below par yet only lowered our colours by 8 points to a top side who played very well.

 

[catscratchfever]

We’re you guys complaint about the 50 metre penalty against Harry McKay last week?

I bet you wouldn’t have welcomed a Cats supporter posting on the Cartoon board that the free was totally justified.

 

[Baudolino]

I didn’t suggest you suggested otherwise. I was just adding to your post.

Oh my bad. I misunderstood your post. Sorry!

 

[Pure_Ownage]

At the moment, we are more dependant on JC than I'd like. He's the one player without whom we cannot compete with the very best.

The Dees can go without one of Gawn, Petracca or May. We can't go without JC.

The dees absolutely cant go without gawn or may.
Their replacements would be fullarton or tomlinson respectively who are a massive step down.
They could maybe do without petracca but with clarry being up and down without it.

As good as cameron is the one player we cant structurally do without is blitz. Because without him we probably have to play 2 of stanley conway and neale and structurally it would wreck us. Cameron is coverable even though hes elite.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

If you've got Oliver, Petracca and Viney in the middle, you don't need to win the hitouts. It just helps.

Yes but you need at least some ok ruck like soldo and fullarton is an absolute spud.

 

[Spearman]

Not a chance. As bad as hawkins is playing he still has a football brain. Sav will never have one.

No doubt our coaches will try to exploit that.

Hawkins to ask him quiz questions just before they bring the ball back forward?

 

[Finknottle]

Watched it on delay.

Came away thinking our prime movers had their worst games in some time. Duncan, Cameron, Hawkins were terrible.

Season is 23 games long now, and we're better for the run. We'll be fine. They're a good outfit.

Come back next week and put on a show.

Not sure you need a focal poont up forward in today's game but we definitely don't have one. It's been Tomahawk for over a decade but the players are looking for him less and less. Not surprising given Hawkins' form in late 2023 and now in 2024. To see the ball get rebounded as quick as it goes in would be demoralising. Not being so focused on Hawkins has helped us this year. In recent weeks they are putting the ball out in front of Stengle and hoping he beats his opponent which he often does.

 

[CHAWKTS]

Did Rohan have a touch in the last term? He did well to spark us in the 3rd term after he came on, but I can't recall seeing him in the last quarter.

Had 1.

In the third as you say he came on at a different level of energy from others which is what you want out of a sub. And impacted for a couple of goal assists that were crucial for Cats getting back into the game

But zero impact in the last qtr which was a shame as his “fresh legs” was something that we could have used - and it was in our forward area for a fair chunk.

I am going to watch with interest. Different to Guthrie, Rowan has had 3 games to blow off the cobwebs but maybe he needed that sub role to get the pace of AFL again.

He will be very valuable if he brings what we all hope (And have seen) he can to the team….but if he is not at that level of impact then he will take up a spot from probably a midfielder in the end I think. No way he take O Henry space (he is genuine huge impact - scoreboard - off limited opportunities EVERY week) and I don’t think he will (or should) take Dempsey role which now looks to have morphed into a 90% plus wing connector role. So in some sense we will have 8 forwards as defined in “best 23” early in the year if Rohan and Dempsey play which means we need to lose one out of the MF.