Autopsy Demons 97 defeat Dogs 71. Never was so much owed by so many to so few

[Virgin Dog]

Clearly still feeling the effects of COVID, probably why he played 90% forward as well.

Wouldn't surprise me at all. Usually one of our cleanest players but geeze he was sloppy. Letting players slip through his tackles, missing kicks, failing to chase. Probably shouldn't be playing at the moment honestly. McComb would have been more useful. I'd rather give him the time to recover and have him back at his best

 

[Charlie Bucket]

We are a darn good side, probably due to our midfield work, but are we possibly one of the worst sides in the league in terms of moving the footy quickly and efficiently from back to forward? Seems like such a battle for us, then the opposition do it so nicely on the rebound against us..it’s infuriating.

We were ranked one of the best sides for transition from Def 50 to Fwd 50 last year.

 

[dergert]

Avoid the media this week.

Avoid AFL media in general. Morris will come out and poke the club some more.

I bet there is more support from opposition clubs behind the scenes than their fickle supporters.

 

[dergert]

It was keath's worst game for the club. He looked completely off it.

We've fed him to the wolves by not giving him any support down there.

Let's hope O'Brien meets our expectations.

 

[theAthenian]

im looking a it this way .. we played really really below our level and melb played pretty well we lost by 4 goals

lets see next week .. as for after the match that should have been avoided

its a marathon in which we are behind but there is a long long way to go....

 

[hoianbulldog]

This is so ******* annoying.

Stupid ******* distractions anyway, now this stupid bullshit and noise around nonsense easily avoided by a coach who should know better.

Surprisingly I’m really close to being comfortable if Bevo leaves. I’d much rather he stays, because he’s a better coach than most of the comp, but if we’re stuck with the denial re. ruck./KPD issues and now it’s coupled with AFL media conspiracy theories then who knows.

I dont argue against, but i will say many argued the same point leading into last years finals.

 

[hatescaptcha]

We were scrappy and many players well below their best. We’ll be better for it.
Plenty to improve.

The cupboard is bare for quality key position players, we need to persist with Schache. Had a shocker but so did many others.

Get JUH in, he’s got star potential and we need to get games into him - he surely wouldn’t be any worse than what the other forwards are giving us. Would also love Jones in, give us some spark.

English looks to have turned a corner. Ready for a big year as number 1 ruck. Great to see.

Clearly there’s more to the Morris / Bev saga. You don’t get that angry over selection being reported early. He’s a snake. Bev let him have it - good on you!

We’ll come out next week and look a lot better after blowing out the cobwebs.



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[Lex22]

Bevo is a calculated operator, I wonder if having a crack at Morris was part of the plan to galvanise the boys. Us against them.

I think this somewhat the case.

There’s some Allan Border vibes about Bevo, i.e. feels in a rut then picks a fight to bring out his best. Needs to find that battle, competition etc.

He coaches at his best like this. Ain’t a Hardwick-Goodwin operator that like getting comfortable. Doesn’t suit him.

 

[Lex22]

Honestly thought we stuck on okay considering given we played about 20 minutes of good footy against the benchmark side playing near their best.

Effort was there all night, just way too many rusty mistakes in key areas. Was it Williams that dropped that chest mark about 80m out after that little final qtr surge? Big momentum killer..we may have nearly pinched it with another goal there.

Big positives in Naughty, Croz and English. Keath won’t play that bad again, Bont rusty as were many others.

A clean & quick JJ makes a difference as a fwd role player. Has a big part to play still, felt we really missed him tonight.

Play Jamarra, the more footy between now and Bruce coming back the better. Might well have fwd line late in the year.

A quiet game for him now is still good experience, whereas Cordy ain’t getting any better.

 

[The Slitherin' Snake]

I think we were lucky it was only 26 points. Should have been closer to 60.

Weightman, Vandermeer, Schache, Gardner all very poor imo. I like Roarke but he’s not good enough against the best teams. Treloar went missing second half, a bunch of others were well down.

We’re playing the best team in the comp with a sub-standard ruck (imo) with no backup, no decent talls except for Naughton and Keath, square pegs in round holes in the forward line.

The players weren’t great tonight, but they are continually set up to fail and when they do succeed it’s despite match committee and the coaching panel imo. Nothing has changed, and we’ll end up finishing 5-8 on talent and wasting another year of the primes of some of the best players in the comp.

Spot on. That was a 10 goal loss covered up by the scoreboard

 

[Golden_6]

I hate to heap pressure on the kid but my god we need JUH to come on very quickly. Naughton is a gun but our plan will solely rest on how he plays each week. There’s zero other options.

Weightman needs to step up too. He needs to become a reliable goalkicker each week for us to kick a score.

 

[The Inbetweener]

After it being an issue for years and years, the poor standard of our key position stocks is quite amazing. Gardner and particularly Cordy aren’t league standard, Schache just demonstrated why he plays forward and we are now relying on a 192cm guy who has hardly played backline in O’Brien to save us. The only developing talent we had coming through in this area was Young, who was within his rights to leave after having Cordy constantly picked over him.

Any team that can match us in the midfield, of which Melbourne obviously can, just completely expose this as we saw last night.

 

[Libbaaaa]

Melbourne’s system is just so much better than ours. You can’t say that their 16-22 players are that much better than ours on paper but on the field the gap is freaking huge. Also induct Neal-Bullen into the “looks like a ball of famer when he plays us” all stars. Good, solid player who freaking looks like an All Australian every time he plays against us.

 

[Macca180]

I'm not normally the one to have a go at players, and I've had a few bourbons so excuse any stupidness, but Schache, Cordy and Smith really have a lot to answer for. Not only that, but players who normally are composed and skillful were just making stupid mistakes. Macrae, Bont, Bailey Dale, Caleb Daniel. There's no doubt Melbourne are about a 26 point better side than us and we need to do something about it.

LIKE for the few bourbons.

 

[Doggies_13]

We aren’t going to fix our KPP player issue in the short term. I’m not as worried about the defence. Keath had a bad game and may have still been hampered by the shin issue, Gardner was first game back but had showed improvement last year and Tim O’Brien is still to come in as the third tall which will support both keath and Gardner/Schache/Cordy.

The forward line and second ruck are the issue. Bruce won’t be back till mid-late in the season, Martin looks every bit of his age and Schache and Cordy don’t offer much up there. We seem to have the choice between using those players we know what we will get from them along side Naughton and English. Or we give opportunity to those which we are unknowns but have scope to improve in Sweet and JUH.

I’m in going with the unknown but potential to improve and grow as players camp.

 

[Boyd oh Boyd]

Well last year we were too good early and cooked in the later half. Maybe we're being deliberately shit now to avoid that?

 

[grassman75]

Curious to see same stat for others - Macrae had one absolute shocker, as did others - not directly resulting in goals, but some of our decision making running free through the midfield, and also into the F50, was deplorable for an (alleged) top team.

Edit: Forgot VDM, maybe because I've tried to put his complete suite of disposal efforts tonight out of my mind!

I know Gardener cops it but there was one play, in the 3rd I think where he had a loose man in front of him on the wing and he elected to go longer to a contest, turn over and goal the other way. It was pathetic. We we right in contention at that point.

Again Rd 1 but our best and worst on full display last night.

Give up 5 goals straight, then kick 7 straight or something like that

Not throwing the baby out yet

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[Golden_6]

As great as English was last night and I believe he will take the next step as a player, we need to play a ruckman next to him for overall team balance. I don't want to see Cordy up forward or in the ruck again and Schache deserves to be dropped after an awful game. Second KPF, backup ruck is simply a massive hole for us right now. I'd bring in JUH & one of Martin/Sweet. Under the assumption of a 120 minute game, I would run the following rotations.

English - 60 mins ruck/40 mins forward/20 minutes bench
Martin - 60 mins ruck/20 mins forward/40 mins bench
JUH - 80 mins forward/40 mins bench
Naughton - 100 mins forward/20 mins bench

It basically means that we always have two genuine targets up forward and one of these guys will always be on the bench as part of the rotation.

 

[RedWhite&Blue]

We handled the ball like it was a bar of soap. A number of times we were out and just coughed up the ball with poor handling of the bloody thing.
And what was Schache thinking playing on 20m out directly in front fmd your a forward back yourself to kick it

Yea we fumbled and looked rushed in the first quarter and then the roles were reversed in the second... they started looking rushed and fumbled everything.
It's about maintaining that manic pressure for longer. They outlasted us... must be fitter

 

[Mofra]

We were ranked one of the best sides for transition from Def 50 to Fwd 50 last year.

Over the whole season?
I only ask as I wonder what the breakdown looks like with Bruce vs without Bruce.

The lack of legitimate second target is a huge problem. Hannan is a foot soldier not a game breaker, Cordy is an honest battler, Scache's gap between his best and worst is so bad the Evergreen would never get wedged in it, and Marra's raw as hell as well as recovering from Covid. Weightman's a kid who is going to be up and down

Naughton is incredible but he seems like Plugger in the 80s for the saints. A complete lone hand

 

[stefcep]

Think you’re slightly harsh labelling the performance unacceptable.

The effort from the team was very good.

I don’t doubt we had a crack tonight.

Not saying the performance was great by any means, clearly we have to improve.

But you can lose a match without being utterly disgraceful, and we weren’t disgraceful tonight.

Apologies for being Captain Obvious but we badly, badly need to come out and make a statement next week.

A bad Grand Final loss, a loss in the re-match and now Beveridge losing the plot in the presser, the club is going to be under siege in the next few days.

Absolutely have to come out breathing fire next week, if we don’t there’s something seriously wrong.

In the match day thread their were multiple comments that our players looked as if they weren't trying or coasting, especially after half time. 20 points in 2.5 quarters of football in perfect footy conditions says it all

Melbourne came off the ground and you could tell by their faces they are comfortable beating us.
On the balance of play this was a 10 goal defeat. And they have another gear to go up.

They know they have our measure.

Worse than that is our players believe they have our measure.

As for Bevo's outburst at the journo, if leaking the team sheet is the reason we played like we did, then the problems are bigger than he thinks.

 

[Dazb86]

Over the whole season?
I only ask as I wonder what the breakdown looks like with Bruce vs without Bruce.

The lack of legitimate second target is a huge problem. Hannan is a foot soldier not a game breaker, Cordy is an honest battler, Scache's gap between his best and worst is so bad the Evergreen would never get wedged in it, and Marra's raw as hell as well as recovering from Covid. Weightman's a kid who is going to be up and down

Naughton is incredible but he seems like Plugger in the 80s for the saints. A complete lone hand

I actually think Wallis has a case for getting a spot in the 22 now that Bruce is out. Think he's better than Hannan just less athletic.

 

[doggies ftw]

He is a grub but what’s he actually done wrong here?


Beveridge needs to grow up, just makes him look petulant.

Did you listen to the whole thing or just the snippets? Obviously other journos, as he said - Sam Edmund, have the decency to call a club before they break a story and say hey just a heads up this is going to break soon so they can get on top of it rather than leaking info probably before even the player knows. Not for the first time.

Do you honestly give a **** how he looks? He’s the only bloke in the AFL to cal speak his mind, and that’s why the players love him because he has their backs. Maybe you should grow up and stop caring what others think about our club and coach. All he’s done is deflect attention away from our shit performance and onto himself.

 

[Mofra]

I actually think Wallis has a case for getting a spot in the 22 now that Bruce is out. Think he's better than Hannan just less athletic.

Hannan isn't the problem. He's ok and battles hard. Wally is slow but I'm not sure we lose that much with his lack of pace, he can use it and mark one on one.
I really like what JJ brought to the table against Essendon in the practice game and think he's automatically in his his leg is ok so that helps there. It's really the lack of a tall target to assist Naughton that is the issue. Perhaps we roll with Stef every second week, even if he does struggle to get off the ground?

 

[Dazb86]

Hannan isn't the problem. He's ok and battles hard. Wally is slow but I'm not sure we lose that much with his lack of pace, he can use it and mark one on one.
I really like what JJ brought to the table against Essendon in the practice game and think he's automatically in his his leg is ok so that helps there. It's really the lack of a tall target to assist Naughton that is the issue. Perhaps we roll with Stef every second week, even if he does struggle to get off the ground?

Surely Sweet is a better option than Martin if he can't physically do it anymore. From memory Sweet is a pretty aggressive type. That's half the battle as a ruckman.