Autopsy Hawks defeat Dogs elimination final.

[bigdog54]

Just home, after stewing on that 'effort' in the car driving home the last few hours.

Disappointed? Yes

Surprised? Not in the least. Apart from 2016 finals and the semi and prelim in 2021, this club just finds new ways to f*** its supporters.

Yeah, people can excuse Lobb, Freijah, and maybe one or two others if you're really desperate.

Bottom line is 2024 is another fail. No sugar-coating it.

As far as I'm concerned tonight, Beveridge, Bontempelli, Bains, Grant, Watson-Wheeler and all the coaches and players can either take a running jump or go **** themselves.

51 years of giving up my hard-earned well into four figures p.a. to see them dish up that (highly predictable) sh1t - against the SAME opponent, in the SAME manner, with the SAME key players taking us to the cleaners as we've watched on repeat.

F*** off. Just f*** off.

And #44 and #2... f*** me, are you two serious?!

(This is a toned down post on what I was contemplating earlier, maybe should have posted my initial reaction and enjoyed the ban. What a bitter taste to finish the season. A pathetic effort all round.)

Anyway, enjoy spring, summer, Christmas and new year everyone...

(Did I mention how f***ing p1ssed off I am... ?)

Fair enough mate and a good summary. If you're just getting home now wtf are you? Port fairy?

 

[bigdog54]

Just home, after stewing on that 'effort' in the car driving home the last few hours.

Disappointed? Yes

Surprised? Not in the least. Apart from 2016 finals and the semi and prelim in 2021, this club just finds new ways to f*** its supporters.

Yeah, people can excuse Lobb, Freijah, and maybe one or two others if you're really desperate.

Bottom line is 2024 is another fail. No sugar-coating it.

As far as I'm concerned tonight, Beveridge, Bontempelli, Bains, Grant, Watson-Wheeler and all the coaches and players can either take a running jump or go **** themselves.

51 years of giving up my hard-earned well into four figures p.a. to see them dish up that (highly predictable) sh1t - against the SAME opponent, in the SAME manner, with the SAME key players taking us to the cleaners as we've watched on repeat.

F*** off. Just f*** off.

And #44 and #2... f*** me, are you two serious?!

(This is a toned down post on what I was contemplating earlier, maybe should have posted my initial reaction and enjoyed the ban. What a bitter taste to finish the season. A pathetic effort all round.)

Anyway, enjoy spring, summer, Christmas and new year everyone...

(Did I mention how f***ing p1ssed off I am... ?)

And agree that after the first quarter it just felt like another finals game for a dogs supporter of 30 years

 

[Some Idiot]

Their game was won by their sweeping half backs and wings, not by their midfield (after all, we won the clearance count comfortably, and both teams had roughly the same amount of shots per inside 50).

People can disagree but that's the main difference in where the game was won - ability of each team to move the ball. Not the respective forward 50s or stoppages but the I50 differential.

Individual players in our forward line and defence played well and poorly and that sort of balanced each other out.

But our structural ability for our wings and small forwards to structure and pressure up was clearly poor from early in the second.

Gallagher was lost on the wing before he subbed off and left huge holes that were exploited (on top of poor in ball in hand). That was the main selection mistake on top of everything, I've posted plenty of times how silly how many games he has gotten for how poor his season has been.

McNeil was okay in efforts but didn't work well structurally off the others.

Weightman got sucked into hunting the ball once he started poorly, which let their half backs ran riot.

Vandermeer was poorish but it isn't as much his job as the others.

People have already pointed out how poor Harmes was.

This was poor by Bevo who was thoroughly outcoached. One win vs GWS and some poor form shouldn't have cost West's place in the team structurally, who would have done a disciplined role on their rebounding defenders and held his position deep forward, allowing McNeil, Weightman and the others clearer roles. West's discipline and adherence to structure and defensive stuff as allowed Weightman to hunt the ball on instinct this season, but without that for this game, Weightman's roaming left their defenders free

There was one marking contests with our big in the 3rd quarter where the ball got out the back and it would have been perfect for their smalls. Instead, two of their small defenders got behind the contest and won it vs 0 of ours. Compare that to Jones' fresh air spoil in the last where they has 2 forwards to run onto vs ours.

Other than that, Hawks played excellent footy, the kind has made them one of the best teams in the last few months, plus riding the wave of their fans and their home ground and a fearless attituse. It's entirely possible that we could have put one bad game against another top side to the side and still win against other top teams, but I guess we'll never know given we failed to finish top 4.

This has laid bare our weaknesses

Jai Newcombe went on a midfield rampage in the 3rd quarter, sure he wasn't winning clearances but he was winning contests and brushing aside our mids, just like he did in Tassie last year.

 

[RWnBluey]

Just home, after stewing on that 'effort' in the car driving home the last few hours.

Disappointed? Yes

Surprised? Not in the least. Apart from 2016 finals and the semi and prelim in 2021, this club just finds new ways to f*** its supporters.

Yeah, people can excuse Lobb, Freijah, and maybe one or two others if you're really desperate.

Bottom line is 2024 is another fail. No sugar-coating it.

As far as I'm concerned tonight, Beveridge, Bontempelli, Bains, Grant, Watson-Wheeler and all the coaches and players can either take a running jump or go **** themselves.

51 years of giving up my hard-earned well into four figures p.a. to see them dish up that (highly predictable) sh1t - against the SAME opponent, in the SAME manner, with the SAME key players taking us to the cleaners as we've watched on repeat.

F*** off. Just f*** off.

And #44 and #2... f*** me, are you two serious?!

(This is a toned down post on what I was contemplating earlier, maybe should have posted my initial reaction and enjoyed the ban. What a bitter taste to finish the season. A pathetic effort all round.)

Anyway, enjoy spring, summer, Christmas and new year everyone...

(Did I mention how f***ing p1ssed off I am... ?)

Yikes. If you’re still that mad after such a long drive I’m just glad you made it home safely.

Understandable rant. A little unfair on Bont though. Yeah prob wasn’t the ideal time to have one of the worst games of his career but the man has carried this club for a decade. Let’s not forget that.

 

[theAthenian]

just saw the presser - what a fckn 1st class w***er our coach is
we deserve everything we get

learning curve?

when will timmy learn?
when will vdm learn?
harmes?
dale?
durea?

when will you ****en learn ? beaten the same way three times by a one trick pony

 

[In Repair]

We finally kicked above our xScore!

xScore / Actual
WB: 50 / 62 (+12)
HW: 102 / 99 (+3)

xMargin / Actual: -52 / -37

xScores calculated by Liam Crow

It felt like a 50 point loss being there

 

[Chalky White]

Spangher was literally hugging members of the Hawks cheer squad before the game. Great look.

So was Duryea

 

[Chalky White]

Harmes went to him. He just couldn't keep up.
I would have just sent Marra to him after half time. Jamarra couldn't get near it, at least make him useful.

Harmes was on him but it wasn’t a tag and Sicily just drifted off. I said to the wife, okay it looks like Harmes has been picked to negate Sicily.
Nah, he played as a forward who stood next to Sic at centre bounces, then played as a forward with no thought of Sicily at all.
Horrible coaching.

 

[Chalky White]

Did you watch the Essendon elimination final?


On iPad using BigFooty.com mobile app

The diving game?

 

[Chalky White]

Gunston kept him out of the game by sitting deep, it was 1 of a number of Hawks’ tactics that worked and we didn’t counter.

Also, the English lovers are pretty quiet tonight wouldn’t you say 3NP?

I got howled done for suggesting that Sweet was a far better option than English. Well, English was hammered by a Sweet clone last night. You don’t need to break the bank for a hungry ruckman. Physicality in a ruck is in my opinion the most important trait. Tim is not a ruckman, he is more like a Lobb.
He is a very disappointing player

 

[Chalky White]

I felt both Darcy & Naughton were better than Tim in the ruck, do we just run with Darcy/Naughty ruck combo & make Tim the most expensive VFL ruckman in history?

Actually, when Darcy had his first stint in the ruck that was the impetus to get us out to the early lead. I didn’t notice if he was rucking against Meek. Later in the game Naughton was rucking against Chol and Weddle.
English was just insipid and terrified of Meek. Sleeps with the lights on Timmy.

 

[Dogs54]

Bottom line, we are a soft football side. We are weak.

That weakness extends to the coaches box where it seems all cuddles and love when what we really need is foots up arses.

Tonight was unforgivable. That was the most insipid performance of the season and how that can be rolled out in a cut throat final is beyond my grasp.

A ruthless club would just about trade Ugle Hagan after that performance, English was soft again, Naughton rarely sighted and the amount of times we were easily pushed out of the contest made my blood boil.

They spread and had (were given) acres of space. They flipped the ball around and were much harder.

Will we do anything about it? Course not. We'll drift through the trade and draft period, minimal change and expect better results next year.

We're a middling side right now and unless there's proper change, we're not going anywhere. It's crap.

Sick of the touchy feely BS, when are we going to stop accepting mediocrity?

Agree. We were outcoached by their gameplan and match day coaching. Imagine if we ran Hawthorns forward gameplan, with our talent it would be exciting, but no lets stick with bomb on their heads....so easy to defend and run it out.

 

[glenashley]

At this point I'm barracking for GWS as the least gross team left in the finals

 

[Dogs54]

If no one is going to shoot bambi then i will..

Bont, Treloar, Libba, JUH, English, Dale, Weightman and Naughton lost this game for us. 8 of our top 10 players gave us disaster level efforts. Honestly how can this thread still be taken up by comments on McNeil, VDM etc. At least they played to their par. I'd say those two gave much more effort tonight that those 8 players. VDM was creating lots of space in the first half and McNeil went in hard all night. While those two have limited skills at least they gave a shiit. These 8 high profile, highly paid players got beaten up

Our handball game was the worst i've seen for years, due to the defensive quickness and aggression of the hawks. Its one thing having speed, but speed defensively is something we do not have.

I was fine with Harmes playing, only because he was a perfect match up for Sicily. How that can not be an option by the coaches is beyond me. Absolutely no game plan for Sicily was game over right there.

Huge claps for Lobb, Richards, Williams, Daniel and Freijah. JOD was a problem but overall our defense wasn't too bad. They had no chance with the pathetic level of effort given from forwards and mids.

I don't blame the players, the game was lost by the coaches. Hawthorns gameplan has been the same all year and we had ample opportunity to develop plans to negate their strengths both before and on match day. Look at Hawthorns forward gameplan and compare it to ours... its embarrassing. We need big changes to our coaching if we are to utilize the list we have.

 

[grassman75]

Selection was screwed.
No West in to play the defensive game on Sicily is ****ing boggling.

Went back to the lack of pace with Harmes and Daniel - he got a lot of it but it’s 5hose short kicks that kill the modern game if you don’t have speed

I see the value in the role that VDM and McNeill play, however they aren’t good enough.

Not bashing just them though

Whole team was down, the John Schultz passing won’t have helped, but that’s no excuse either.

So many down players including Bont

We need to address quality, skilled players with speed.

English hopeless dropping marks, juh unsighted, Weightman owned again, woeful skills all round - fumbly, falling over, poor skills

And yes, letting Sicily roam free again

I can understand why West wasn’t selected, due to the jaw and he had been a bit off and looked gun shy last week in VFL but overall a crap effort

Free kick Hok was back early and some things called against us that were let go early such as below the knees and HTB made a comeback later. Naughton arm held in the goal square when he got one hand to what would have been Bonts 2nd in a minute to lift us.

I hate Hok

 

[Dogs Rule]

Actually, when Darcy had his first stint in the ruck that was the impetus to get us out to the early lead. I didn’t notice if he was rucking against Meek. Later in the game Naughton was rucking against Chol and Weddle.
English was just insipid and terrified of Meek. Sleeps with the lights on Timmy.

Yep. He's signed a new contract but I wouldn't care if English went tomorrow. He's the softest player I can ever remember in our jumper.

In 2016, we had hardness, toughness, think Picken, Matty Boyd, Clay Smith, Morris. Fearless. Put their heads where they shouldn't be. English is a marshmallow and he's not alone (Ugle Hagan), but he stands out like a sore thumb because he has zero presence.

But it's all OK because listening to the brief clip of the presser on radio last night, we'll just have some big hugs and talk about our feelings and it'll all be fine

Can we try and get some pace into the side. We look like treacle and deer in the headlights.

Would rather finish 12th than have to endure that s***. Embarassing.

Absolutely done.

 

[theburst]

somehow the preparation wasn't there, too often no time to breathe, coughed it up when continually under pressure, you see 39 Inside50s and say,na,that's not the Dogs
at least if good enough to finish top 4 have another week to right the wrongs...not us, again

 

[grassman75]

Bevo needs to do the decent thing and go.

I disagree but was told yesterday that it was win or your gone….lets see

 

[grassman75]

I’m done. Not going to cancel my membership or anything but there’s only so many finals losses in this manner that the human brain can take.

I’m not the type to just care less about footy, take a break and not let the result annoy me, but I think I’ll have to tell myself to not believe in this team. And I probably won’t again until I actually see them win a premiership.

You didn’t watch the Geel and Stk games in the late 00s?

 

[grassman75]

Yep. He's signed a new contract but I wouldn't care if English went tomorrow. He's the softest player I can ever remember in our jumper.

In 2016, we had hardness, toughness, think Picken, Matty Boyd, Clay Smith, Morris. Fearless. Put their heads where they shouldn't be. English is a marshmallow and he's not alone (Ugle Hagan), but he stands out like a sore thumb because he has zero presence.

But it's all OK because listening to the brief clip of the presser on radio last night, we'll just have some big hugs and talk about our feelings and it'll all be fine

Can we try and get some pace into the side. We look like treacle and deer in the headlights.

Would rather finish 12th than have to endure that s***. Embarassing.

Absolutely done.

That’s the problem and it’s why we struggle.

No one sees it, VDM and McNeill types have speed but no skill. We need upgrades on them.

They play because it’s all we have

Played too many plodders last night and we were back to Daniel short kicks again instead of running the ball

Let him go

 

[BallaratBulldog]

I disagree but was told yesterday that it was win or your gone….lets see

If Bevo goes I will streak down the cbd

It just won’t happen

 

[Dogs Rule]

somehow the preparation wasn't there, too often no time to breathe, coughed it up when continually under pressure, you see 39 Inside50s and say,na,that's not the Dogs
at least if good enough to finish top 4 have another week to right the wrongs...not us, again

Why bother finishing top 4? Make it hard by starting the season slow again, hit crisis mode, then come home with a rush and look like world beaters and fool us all again, give us hope. Throw in some p****** golden opportunities down the drain into the mix and then embarrass the club yet again in a cut throat final with a pathetic performance. That's the formula, right?

Oh, and keep playing half a dozen VFL level plodders, that should do it.

 

[Dazb86]

Hawks were just way better than us. Meek killed English which allowed their midfield to get on top and thats the game.

Lobb was great I thought.

Bont was well down which never helps.

 

[Claudonious]

The diving game?

The one where he kicked 4 goals - that one.


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[Johnny_Dogg4]