Autopsy Negatives vs Hawthorn

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You are both wrong

Role players like Rowan Jones are nice and all but, XON isnt a role player. He couldnt tackle a ball of fairy floss and stick it, never mind another footballer.

To be a good role player you need to be able to do the basics well. Apart from the peeling of oranges, im not sure XON has any basic skill down from what ive seen
Looking like a fish?
 

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Positive- I am also a NQ Cowboys supporter. Last night I watched a lowly Wests Tigers outfit put us to the sword 66-18. This is a record high score for both Western Suburbs and Balmain Tigers ( now merged as Wests Tigers) with both clubs being foundation NSWRL clubs.

So in an 18 hour period I have witnessed both of my footy teams cop historically record breaking losses.
Positive - at least you aren't in my shoes.
Negative: I'm also a North Queensland Cowboys supporter - albeit a fairly nominal one.
Positive: I haven't watched any of their games this season. Watching the Eagles is about all I can cope with.
 
Positive - can’t go to the game next week as the missus has a concert to go to and I’ve got both the kids.

Not even sure if I’ll tune into the game to be honest. Gonna get towelled up by the scum.

I can't go coz it's Rowan18 and my anniversary.
 
Negative: I'm also a North Queensland Cowboys supporter - albeit a fairly nominal one.
Positive: I haven't watched any of their games this season. Watching the Eagles is about all I can cope with.
They have been a bit disappointing this year but have looked good the past few weeks. Last nights trouncing was out of the blue
 
Sorry mate but this is an awful take.

Not every player in a sides midfield is a star and there is always room for role players. Even the midfields in the top sides have guys running through the guts who just play a role. willam drew at port, tom sparrow/james harmes at melbourne, atkins at geelong, rowbottom at sydney.

None of those guys are the strong big bodied mids that move the ball quick, they just play within their limitations and let others do it.

Even our 05-06 side, touted as one of the better midfields of all time, had room for players like Jones, Stenglien Braun.

Imagine thinking XON is the problem, its not his fault the talent isn't there around him.
Jones, Stenglien and Braun are about the Sheed level. We just have nothing. It was clear seasons ago that XON, Harry, Waterman, Cole etc etc are sub par and only solid WAFL level. Who have we brought in West, Clark, Edwards, Foley. Talk about speculative. Certainly not strateguc planning. And we cannot identify tallent. One Josh Daicos os worth 10 Mastens. We had to trade while ourt draft picks were low and strike whe we held a good draft hand. Fail and Fail. About 5 seasons before we can rebuild a finals side.
 
I still think there a couple of hidden gems in there.
It's Ginbey I worry about. It's early days but he is not progressing at the rate Sheezel. Wardlaw etc are.
Ginbey will be a gun, and has had an impressive first half to his debut season.

His tackle numbers have been sensational.

Apart from Kelly, he’s also been carrying the contested/inside game for our midfield group, as an 18 yo. You can see him fatiguing/needs a rest, but due to our injury list, he can’t get one.

He’s young and got essentially no support. He’ll continue to improve and will be even better with more quality around him.
 

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positives
We now all agree WCE has the worst list.
We have the MSD top pick sown up
We all agree we need to get ruthless with our squad
We all agree we have to be the unfitest team in the AFL
NM tanking badly 1st time any club has gone over allotted number of player interchanges
 
Jones, Stenglien and Braun are about the Sheed level. We just have nothing. It was clear seasons ago that XON, Harry, Waterman, Cole etc etc are sub par and only solid WAFL level. Who have we brought in West, Clark, Edwards, Foley. Talk about speculative. Certainly not strateguc planning. And we cannot identify tallent. One Josh Daicos os worth 10 Mastens. We had to trade while ourt draft picks were low and strike whe we held a good draft hand. Fail and Fail. About 5 seasons before we can rebuild a finals side.
Even worse and dumber is we had Nic Martin with us but decided that all of those players were better then Nic Martin

We are the owners of a Michelin star restaurant and our head chef cant even cook a piece of toast without burning it to a cinder and nearly destroying the kitchen in the process
 
And just to double down, Hutchings and Masten have medals and are literally the player you're describing.

Yeah which is no doubt warping the clubs thinking about this.

Since 2018 football has changed enormously.

There was a point a few years ago, really about the time Melbourne became great, where the power teams realised that a lot of the specialist midfield roles are just not worth it anymore. however good a dedicated tagger is, it is always better rotation value to have another ball winner/user who can keep the momentum swinging your way for longer. If you look at the seriously good midfield groups,in the AFL, they no longer have 2 or 3 elite clearance players the way West Coast did when Cousins/Judd/Kerr was a thing, they aim to have five or six, even if it means sacrificing a Rojo, Stenglein or Braun. So you end up with on ball rotations like Oliver/Petracca/Viney/Hunter/Brayshaw with every team in an arms race to build the, gruntiest, deepest most damaging midfield group capable of winning the most ball and gaining the most metres with damaging effect.

If i had to hazard a guess why that's become so pronounced I'd say in part its about the further tightening of the interchange cap, the move towards less controlled 'surge' style ball movement and 6:6:6 making it tougher to arrest momentum have all drastically elevated the importance of having a powerful 4 quarter on ball rotation, including guys who can come into the centre square off the wing and have an impact and who can keep the clearance metre ticking over when your best onballers are resting- you can't easily rush them back on because of the lower number of interchanges available, and you can't easily drop numbers back for 10 minutes whilst your prime movers rest. Its also because basically ever since Judd, Dusty and Cripps kicked off the midfield bull fetish, anyone who looks and plays like that is more likely to progress through the juniors and get drafted.

I think one of the reasons we have been susceptible to the absolutely wild momentum swings, particularly in second quarters, is because of what a steep drop off there is in the quality of our clearance players after Kelly/Shuey/Sheed- we are okay when at least a couple of those guys are on ball, but sooner or later they have to rest and teams with deeper onball divisions target us at that point.

Its striking watching someone like Gaff, who was a seriously good player 5 or 6 years ago and is actually still covering huge distances and running his ass off become more and more ineffective as the game changes- having a guy able to bob up for the link possession on the defensive side of packs simply isn't as valuable now, because teams want those possessions in the hands of the two or three specialist ball users, usually from the HBF who can break lines and penetrate with their kicks, whilst insane beep test results are of no real value to a midfielder if you can't hold your own in the engine room when rotated inside.

You can talk about XON doing a 'job' on Will Day, but Will Day is 21! He's a year younger than XON, was drafted the season after him, He wasn't a top 10 draft or a clear standout in his draft class, he has only played 11 games more than XON. And job or no job, he had 9 more touches than XON and more clearances, inside 50s and higher disposal efficiency, ie the exact things that make him an elite midfield prospect. Even if he was slightly below his (stellar) season averages it didn't matter becaus Hawthorn's midfield bats so much deeper than ours in the clearance/ball movement categories.

We don't need more people who can do a job on Will Day in our 22. We need more Will Days. And persisting with guys who were useful in a type of football that simply doesn't exist anymore is not going to fix that.
 
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Dont worry about our young players
A number of young players came in underdun
Gibney should have had a rest by now
Worry about all the players above 30 they need to go
 
I’m sorry to hear that :( My condolences to you and your family.
My condolences to all west Coast supporters. He was a great. Watched every game from start to finish no matter how bad it was.

If he was alive today (fack that’s hard to say), he’d still be finding positives in all the young players. In fact, it was both our birthdays this week and before I left to come here our family’s always got together on Sunday, which would always mean I’d get his diatribe of how much improvement there was in the list. I reminded of him talking up Josh Wooden years ago on one such gathering, how he was going to be elite and was developing nicely to be a star of the competition. Ah the memories we hold
 
Sorry mate but this is an awful take.

Not every player in a sides midfield is a star and there is always room for role players. Even the midfields in the top sides have guys running through the guts who just play a role. willam drew at port, tom sparrow/james harmes at melbourne, atkins at geelong, rowbottom at sydney.

None of those guys are the strong big bodied mids that move the ball quick, they just play within their limitations and let others do it.

Even our 05-06 side, touted as one of the better midfields of all time, had room for players like Jones, Stenglien Braun.

Imagine thinking XON is the problem, its not his fault the talent isn't there around him.

XON being Jones, Stenglien, Braun like.

Just NO!
 
Didn't we go through all this teeth gnashing after the Carlton loss? We don't have enough available players and are not fielding an AFL quality side. We will get spanked until we do.

This could have been our weakest side ever fielded. Darling and TB out from last week - no wonder we couldn't score or defend.

The club's focus needs to be getting players fit and on field. Then trim all the deadwood at the end of the year.
If the depth players are not good enough to compete at AFL level, the list managers need to go. Heads have to roll for this.
 
Yeah which is no doubt warping the clubs thinking about this.

Since 2018 football has changed enormously.

If i had to hazard a guess why I'd say the further tightening of the interchange cap, the move towards less controlled 'surge' style ball movement and 6:6:6 making it tougher to arrest momentum have all drastically elevated the importance of having a powerful 4 quarter on ball rotation, including guys who can come into the centre square off the wing and have an impact and who can keep the clearance metre ticking over when your best onballers are resting.

There was a point a few years ago, really about the time Melbourne became.great,.where the power teams realised that a lot of the specialist midfield roles are just not worth it anymore, because however good a dedicated tagger is, it is always better rotation value to have another ball winner/user who can keep the momentum swinging your way for longer.

You can talk about XON doing a 'job' on Will Day, but Will Day is 21! He's a year younger than XON, was drafted the season after him, He wasn't a top 10 draft or a clear standout in his draft class, he has only played 11 games more than XON. And job or no job, he had 9 more touches than XON and more clearances, inside 50s and higher disposal efficiency, and even if he was slightly below his (stellar) season averages it didn't matter becaus Hawthorn's midfield bats so much deeper than ours in the clearance/ball movement categories.

We don't need more people who can do a job on Will Day in our 22. We need more Will Days.
Day was pick 13, bit disingenuous to say he isn't outrageously talented because he wasn't top 10.

You've contradicted yourself a fair bit suggesting that role players arent great in the midfield and using melbourne because they are by far one of the best teams at it. sure they have Oliver and Petracca but sparrow, harmes and alex-nb all roll through the guts. None of those guys are world beaters.

Yeah of course I'd like to have more will days than xons but idk if youve followed but we actually traded away a lot of draft capital for Tim Kelly as well as fumbled our top 25 picks a fair bit recently so we havent had access to that talent!
 

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Autopsy Negatives vs Hawthorn

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