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Im sure someone has better stats, but we very rarely have players in the top 5/7 for kms travelled per game, and when we do it’s more often our keys backs racking them up. Is our midfield lazy? is it because we have so many rotations and spread the load?
Fitness seems to be the issue to me. Saints have no where near the talent we do but are so much fitter. Our fitness staff need to step up.
 

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The only player I thought worthy of captain other than Bont was Wallis.
Naughton would be next in line I think. His year has been solid but hasn’t improved on last year as much as i’d like. Then probably Caleb and Richards are next. Weightman would also be in the mix. Macrae, Libba and Jones provide a different type of leadership. I assume we are identifying the next group of leaders and working with them.
 
just on that last play, English did the right thing standing on the goal line as Lewis was kicking outside 50, but the wrong choice not letting Richards have the kick out as you can see Lobb, Bont and Treloar each pointing up the middle and I reckon would have found one of them, then who knows
 
I hope we text English to say that last minute play was not on
As silly as that was, it was the next thing that happened was even worse. Still could have made something out of that kick in if not for the shit show ag team of the bailys
 
As silly as that was, it was the next thing that happened was even worse. Still could have made something out of that kick in if not for the s**t show ag team of the bailys

Dale packing his dacks and dumping the ball to Williams running toward the boundary was diabolical.
 
Who would make a better captain than Bont? I see Bont and then daylight, then some more daylight, then I'm in danger of overusing the word daylight.

If we didn’t have Bont, I have no idea who the captain would be. There’s legit no other candidate at the moment who could take the mantle for the next 3-5 years.

People say Naughton, but I think he’s still in the phase of his career where he just needs to be focused on getting the best out of himself.
 
Show the stats that support he is always missing in front and better positions than the others and I’ll accept I am wrong.

Of course his percentage should be better and so should JUH and Lobb, if you are a main stay forward you should be competing at 60% minimum none of ours are. But I don’t agree with the pile on on one guy.

Agree they should all be spending more time on it, it’s one of the most important skills in the game and we seem to take it for granted at our club

Fair argument, but I don't believe it is confirmation bias for at least some of the posters here. I don't think of him like a defender, he's been in the AFL for six years now and a forward for five of them. He gets judged as a forward.

OG will likely be able to give better stats than the AFL tables, which unfortunately don't have OOF listed (at least that I could see on a fairly quick review of the goalkicking), but just on goals/behinds - which is admittedly a basic stat - some key takeaways are:

  • Naughton has kicked at 58% accuracy this year on a G/B basis.
  • Only Jeremy Finlayson of the top 20 goal kickers for the season has a worse accuracy than that.
  • If we extend it to the top 30 players then he's one of five who are below 60% (Rankine at 58%, Higgins at 59% and - gulp - JUH at 49%).
  • The top 40 brings in Riewoldt at 55%, Fritsch at 59% and McKay at 52%.

So while his number of 58% might not be that far from guys like Jeremy Cameron, Hipwood and Daniher at 61%, it's nevertheless one of the lowest of the noted goalkickers in the comp. That both he and JUH are in the bottom fifth of the top 40 goalkickers for accuracy this season isn't great.

I checked the top 20 for last year - Naughton kicked 60%, putting him 17/20 for accuracy with only Max King, McKay and Bolton worse.

Then I thought I'd better check the top 20 for 2021, as we won more games that year. Naughton kicked at 54%, with only Greene worse than him at 52%.

So since 2021 he's been 19th, 17th and 19th (to date) for accuracy in the top 20 goal scorers.

I recognise this is pretty superficial - and I also did it quickly so if someone finds a mistake in those numbers I apologise and I'll amend. Having OOF incorporated might change them substantively, and something like expected score given kick difficulty would be great as an insight. But on the basic, high level numbers he doesn't appear to be league average - and to your point JUH is worryingly bad on those numbers so that should possibly be of more concern.

So while I respect the view that some posters (myself included) might be reactionary after a poor loss where he had two bad misses, I don't believe that's the case. He's not an atrocious kick for goal, but he's not a good one or even really an average one at this stage. It's an actual problem imo, not a perception issue.
You need your stats to include total shots. Goals, Points and did not register (out on the full, off to the side etc.) Work your % off that.
 
Bont is far and away our best player and Captain. He has carried us in too many games through performance and leadership. We have a dearth of on field leaders who step up under pressure to spread the load
 
If we didn’t have Bont, I have no idea who the captain would be. There’s legit no other candidate at the moment who could take the mantle for the next 3-5 years.

People say Naughton, but I think he’s still in the phase of his career where he just needs to be focused on getting the best out of himself.

Anthony Scott and Gardner
 
You need your stats to include total shots. Goals, Points and did not register (out on the full, off to the side etc.) Work your % off that.
The stats which OG provided did have that?

Naughton was at 50% conversion rate shots to goals and like 12% no score

JUH was at 37.5% conversion rate shots to goals and like 25% no score
 

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Every team has those moments now.
6-6-6 has really changed how coaches have to try and halt momentum.

Our issue is our list is nowhere near where a lot of supporters think it is. I still see critical holes in our list that have a massive impact on our week to week performance.
I agree our list isn’t as good as some people say, buts it’s still a good list.
It’s certainly not ‘generational’, or the best list we’ve ever had. Like you said, there’s a few holes, and the midfield do seem a little one way.
 
People on here defending Naughton’s goal kicking, tell me this. The last two games in the wind, Ballarat and Tassie, instead of keeping the ball low, which most footy fans know, he has kicked the ball with every kick. Is Spangher not telling him to keep it low? Is this bloke Naughton just another dumb footballer? Because it seems we have a few of those 🤦
 
People on here defending Naughton’s goal kicking, tell me this. The last two games in the wind, Ballarat and Tassie, instead of keeping the ball low, which most footy fans know, he has kicked the ball with every kick. Is Spangher not telling him to keep it low? Is this bloke Naughton just another dumb footballer? Because it seems we have a few of those 🤦
Again for the 100th time Spanghers isn't the best at his job but teaching them how to kick is not his job he is there for leading pattern/structures ect
 
Obviously English was told to roost it down the middle then crapped himself and did his famous Frank Spencer impression but when it did get to Dale on the wing he evaded 2 hawks then hand passed to a player who was going to shepherd for him, if i was a hawk i'd be still laughing.
 
Not sure who asked about player reactions post-game, this is what I could find of them walking off and I would bet my life that Bont and Macrae were discussing the English kick-in...



Thanks, but I'd also been told Bont was pretty p1ssed off in the rooms, to the extent of (allegedly) turning away from Bevo who was speaking to him and/or trying to give him a consoling pat.
 
Thanks, but I'd also been told Bont was pretty p1ssed off in the rooms, to the extent of (allegedly) turning away from Bevo who was speaking to him and/or trying to give him a consoling pat.

Yeah I was hoping to locate the raw footage from the rooms but was only able to get select clips of Bevo talking to the players.
 
With the English kick in.

I’m not defending it as such, it was a shocker.

But was the problem just a lack of awareness as to how much time was left - as in, he might’ve thought there’s about 10 seconds left, literally no time to waste by waiting for Dale or Richards to come and take the kick in, I’ve got to get on with this myself?

I’m as big a critic of our coach(es) these days as anyone - but I doubt even they’d have devised a plan where the ruckman takes a kick-in with a minute to play when we need a goal to win.
 
English would have ended up in the square to defend the Lewis kick from 50. The second it was a behind though he should have spotted up around 30m from goal, taken the kick from Richards, give him the ball back and within 5 seconds the ball is over halfway.
 
The English kick in is about on par with the Bailey Dale running too far.

We used to be such a clutch team too. The coaches can’t control the players like it’s a video game but this stuff should be practically muscle memory.
 
With the English kick in.

I’m not defending it as such, it was a shocker.

But was the problem just a lack of awareness as to how much time was left - as in, he might’ve thought there’s about 10 seconds left, literally no time to waste by waiting for Dale or Richards to come and take the kick in, I’ve got to get on with this myself?

I’m as big a critic of our coach(es) these days as anyone - but I doubt even they’d have devised a plan where the ruckman takes a kick-in with a minute to play when we need a goal to win.
We hold giant signs on the sidelines that say 5MIN 2MIN 1MIN 30SEC etc. He knew the time, just panicked and thought he was best to take this kick out since he was already in possession. Nothing to do with game plan or coaching, he made wrong call in the heat of the moment. He had no one to kick to, and hesitated, hence his time consuming gallop. Richards should have demanded it off him, he would have played on and thumped it instantly with confidence knowing you just got to pull the trigger in those moments.
 

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