Review R24: Port v Melbourne review

[malph]

EDIT: In regards to the above: Logan running to a pack with his man, before jumping into the pack to try and punch it into his direct opponents hands (it was punched by Trengove in the end) for it to go straight to him for an easy snap at goal was a terrible, terrible piece of play.

I reckon it was in the first minute of the last quarter. I watched Logan leave his man and run back towards the contest, thinking out aloud "don't do it don't do it don't it . . . fk."

And as per the rest of the above, there are not many more things as disheartening as seeing Ebert get off to a good start. He played well from the first quarter, but it meant that you knew at least one key forward would be in for a long day of not very much.

 

[Spadge]

Did anyone else notice how slow Broadbent was when he was chasing down a ball on the members side wing?

He gave Nathan Jones a 10m head start and Jones not only passed him but was 5 metres in front of him by the time he got the ball

 

[sog35]

There it is again in black and white. WHEN we have a midfield that lets us play Gray as a crumber up forward THEN we'll really be on our way. Ebo played well yesterday but is clearly in the way of the structure up forward, and maybe he can maybe he can't spend enough time in around through the guts. One more go for him next year.

That midfield currently needs all of Dom Boak Hartlett Sal Pearce Rodan firing in it, individually; after that first tier Banner & Broady probably, eventually, will come to be seen as just a bit too slow, I don't know if that can be fixed at the fitness table. When Thomas and Logan can be gutsy but clearly depth midfielders, we'll be getting there. Roll on 2012.

Gray is crucial to the midfield IMO. Our best natural clearance player. We should be focussing on finding another of him to add to the forward line.

 

[Macca19]

Did anyone else notice how slow Broadbent was when he was chasing down a ball on the members side wing?

He gave Nathan Jones a 10m head start and Jones not only passed him but was 5 metres in front of him by the time he got the ball

Broady has really struggled in the second half of the year with his pace and fitness. Maybe hes carrying something, maybe hes burned out, but hes gone from someone who looked to have reasonable pace in his 1st and 2nd year to probably the slowest player on our list this year.

His goal needs to be to get super super fit next year.

 

[Spadge]

Gray is crucial to the midfield IMO. Our best natural clearance player. We should be focussing on finding another of him to add to the forward line.

yep

his clearance work yesterday was exceptional.

It all comes down to his engine really. If he keeps building that up then he will be a critical part of our midfield

We need someone else to take that small forward role. Gray is too valuable in the midfield

 

[Shaucob_Burjan]

yep

his clearance work yesterday was exceptional.

It all comes down to his engine really. If he keeps building that up then he will be a critical part of our midfield

We need someone else to take that small forward role. Gray is too valuable in the midfield

Banner.

 

[Portology]

Gray is crucial to the midfield IMO. Our best natural clearance player. We should be focussing on finding another of him to add to the forward line.

this is also a solution ! cloning takes too long...

 

[Jonts]

this is also a solution ! cloning takes too long...

Milera, the non crows one, get rid of davenport and get this lad on board

 

[The Smaller Warrior]

Happy to Draft Terry with our First Pick in the Rookie Draft imo.

 

[Portology]

Milera, the non crows one, get rid of davenport and get this lad on board

hey why not? put him, banner, phillips & broady in a sprinting, acceleration, agility & endurance test to the death like they would do at draft combine. see who survives and can then still hit one of a set of moving targets right after a punishing session like that

 

[Jonts]

hey why not? put him, banner, phillips & broady in a sprinting, acceleration, agility & endurance test to the death like they would do at draft combine. see who survives and can then still hit one of a set of moving targets right after a punishing session like that

add in Hitchcock

Broadbent would lose everytime

 

[Forzaport]

Happy to Draft Terry with our First Pick in the Rookie Draft imo.

Not first rookie pick, maybe last rookie pick. I'd want us to target a mature aged mid with the first pick

 

[Minotaur]

How funny was it when Logan tried to kick the ball back to the umpire after a failed bounce and kicked it straight over his head.

Was probably going to report him until he realised who it was

 

[El_Scorcho]

Banner and Gray should be switching between the midfield and forward pocket as far as I see it. They can both play the role terrifically and they both have a great goal sense.

Play a forward line of roughly

F: Gray/Banner Butcher Hitchcock/Phillips
H: Westhoff Schulz RestingMid

That gives us
- a leadmachine in Schulz who will run all day and provide an option.
- X factor and sticky hands in the form of Westhoff who will cut sides up if they ignore him and float down to the wing if he isn't getting into the game
- A packsplitting mark clunking juggernaut out of the goalsquare
- A genuine crumber in the form of Phillips or Hitchcock who should be a the bottom of every contest waiting for the spill.
- An ubertalented strongbodied small who can move through traffic, read the play and find the goals with devestating effect.

It's a traditional setup and, providing it's getting some service from up the field, potentially devastating.

 

[Portmanteau]

Copied from the Gameday thread, wonder if anyone has any similar or contrary thoughts:

One negative from today:

We are probably the worst crumbing team (offensively and defensively) in the history of the sport.

Worst offenders are Ebert (obviously; did enough today though) and Logan - who consistently loses his man flying in for the hero mark.

Fix this and we'll be a four goal better side, at least!!

No wonder Boomer Harvey absolutely licks his lips when we come up on the fixture.

Also, the running back into traffic upon receipt of the ball continues unabated. A bit reduced with the absence of Matt Thomas but Steven "Opposition Tackling Bag" Salopek carried the flag for this developing tradition...

 

[tribey]

Ebert definitely goes up more often than he should, but when his best asset is his marking it is hard to tell him not to sometimes. Though definitely in pack situations you would prefer the guy to stay the **** down.

I want to make it clear though that IMO just because Butcher is tall doesn't give him the right to jump into the side of a pack when he has no chance of getting to the ball.

Him and Ebert both jumping at the ball and screwing it up (whenever it happened) was terrible from both of them really. Need to have better communication than that.

This is the absolute crux of the frustration with Ebert. As Porthos said, he's done this since day dot.

He should know better.

The amount of times he charges at a pack, often late with bigger teammates already competing and at the expense of any crumbing chances or groundwork is infuriating.

On the flipside, Butcher is a power forward. He's there to compete in the air and bust packs open - in these situations Ebert should GTFO, stay down and look for crumbs, saving his marking for leading up to the wing from HFF a la Stuart Dew.

 

[PowerKat]

Copied from the Gameday thread, wonder if anyone has any similar or contrary thoughts:



Also, the running back into traffic upon receipt of the ball continues unabated. A bit reduced with the absence of Matt Thomas but Steven "Opposition Tackling Bag" Salopek carried the flag for this developing tradition...

yep - on the day these things were said more than twice -
"we have no crumbers - Melb are cleaning us up off the ground " (...all over the ground actually - same as all year)
"Ebo is getting in the way of the tall guys - ffs stay down or away" (not to mention friendly requests for ppl to stop kicking it to Ebo and 'kick it to the tall guy!!')
"why the face is Sal backing into his opponent when he gets the ball??? " and
"well done Chappy for guarding that bit of no-man's-land space right thur "
"Logan " (plus sarcastic calls for "fifty" "fifty" for that wayward return to the ump lol)

 

[Jonts]

Banner and Gray should be switching between the midfield and forward pocket as far as I see it. They can both play the role terrifically and they both have a great goal sense.

Play a forward line of roughly

F: Gray/Banner Butcher Hitchcock/Phillips
H: Westhoff Schulz RestingMid

That gives us
- a leadmachine in Schulz who will run all day and provide an option.
- X factor and sticky hands in the form of Westhoff who will cut sides up if they ignore him and float down to the wing if he isn't getting into the game
- A packsplitting mark clunking juggernaut out of the goalsquare
- A genuine crumber in the form of Phillips or Hitchcock who should be a the bottom of every contest waiting for the spill.
- An ubertalented strongbodied small who can move through traffic, read the play and find the goals with devestating effect.

It's a traditional setup and, providing it's getting some service from up the field, potentially devastating.

Swap resting mid with Moore, is there any Ebert?

But still if we got get some more I5's that would be up there for the best in the competition

 

[Powerstufff]

We were murdered in the clearances. We tended to be able to turn centre bounces into nil-all scuffles for a while but at a wild guess I'd say they eventually took it away 2/3 of the time. And if anything even more at around the ground contests. But our defence was able to rebound it often enough that we survived. That and straight kicking early.
Umpiring was semi-crazy and both sides suffered with unpaid marks and weird holding the ball decisions. Where we did not get the calls we deserved was in the rough treatment handed out with high tackles and pushes and bumps to our marking players. The latter have been 50m penalties all season, but suddenly not in our game.

PLAYER REVIEWS

Salopek - Yes it may have been his best game of the year but that's off a very low base. Adequate on average, some quite good moments but some pretty poor ones. Did not drop his head though.

Pearce - Fast and deadly for long periods of the game

Motlop - His last game for us looked like being one of his best in years but of course he then almost cost us the game with a U12 style **** up.

Ebert - BOG for me. Was everywhere and I think was our top goal scorer.

Banner - Very mature game for the number of AFL games he's had. A personal favourite though I don't know quite where he is best suited. Sure hands, good ability to find space, booming kick.

Gray - Gave it everything and as others have said the puzzle/frustration is what role to assign him as he's currently vital to our midfield but he's also one of our best crumbers.

Rodan - Magic, crowd favourite. Only influential in bursts but responsible for a couple of goals we wouldn't have got in a game we won by 8 points.

Westhoff - You either get no Hoff or very influential Hoff and luckily we had the latter. One great tackle to generate a goal-scoring shot we should not have had.

Cassisi - Fierce hard captain's game in close. No outwardly glamorous moments but crucial in our win.

Boak - Joel Selwood type game without the head-ducking. Brilliant in patches.

Carlile - As others have said physically and mentally the best game he's played this year.

Trengove - Won the vital battle with Watts

Brogan - Great game, I freaked when Matty put Lobbe back in the ruck late in the 4th quarter. My nerve failed me and I wanted Chesty Bond back in the middle.

Schulz - Grumpy game of almost-marks, almost-tackles. Would be nice if all our big forwards could be 'up' in the same game.

Broadbent - Showed a bit of the promise I was seeing around R5. Nothing sensational, but some good (slow) runs into attack.

O'Shea - Sensational runs from defence, very confident. Dare I say Wilbur-like?

Logan - Valiant but ineffectual. Unusually second-rate for him when many of our other defenders were working well.

Lobbe - Had a pretty good game, I appreciated the good contested mark to ensure a goal late in the game.

Chaplin - Fine job, no problems. One excellent save on the goal line.

Surjan - I thought he was very good, especially for a guy who was struggling in the Maggies a few weeks ago. I understand others have different views. Was that his last game for us? I think he is out of contract and Primus was quite clear they are only chasing the signatures of Lobbe and Butcher now.

Butcher - A bit more like the ineffectual kid I saw playing with the Maggies. A bit of exaggeration here saying Ebo was responsible for Butch playing like a mere mortal, it only happened once. But Butch did often draw two defenders which was helpful. Not useless but not the magician of the past few weeks.

Jonas - I didn't really notice anything special but I do tend to mix him up with Lobbe at times.

 

[ctpower]

Broady has really struggled in the second half of the year with his pace and fitness. Maybe hes carrying something, maybe hes burned out, but hes gone from someone who looked to have reasonable pace in his 1st and 2nd year to probably the slowest player on our list this year.

His goal needs to be to get super super fit next year.

I agree. But will he do it.
I doubt.

 

[Waspy79]

Chaplin was not 'fine' yesterday, he again failed to stick tackles and impose himself physically in marking contests. He needs to HTFU.

 

[PJ Power]

Copied from the Gameday thread, wonder if anyone has any similar or contrary thoughts:



Also, the running back into traffic upon receipt of the ball continues unabated. A bit reduced with the absence of Matt Thomas but Steven "Opposition Tackling Bag" Salopek carried the flag for this developing tradition...

Always agree with your posts Bresh, and this one is no exception. In the first half especially, the flying of little guys (especially the two you mention) against their taller teammates killed us. Firstly because it prevented the likes of Butcher from marking but also because it gave Melbourne a numerical advantage at ground level. It is just plain dumb. Logan's opponent(s) were the main beneficiaries. Even Carlile does it too much - flying when he is clearly not needed in the pack only to let his opposition player benefit with the crumb. I recall Hall getting a simple one against him as a result of this 3 weeks ago. On the weekend, Howe and Bate did the same against Logan.

We've overcommitted unnecessary numbers to pack contests all year, and equally to ground level contests. Classic case in point is the extra numbers of midfielders we have who belatedly arrive at the tackle scene, only to leave their direct opponents unmarked outside the scrimmage for the quick release.

We have got to get smarter, as well as fitter and stronger.


Finally, your comments about tackling bags (Salopek and Thomas) are also on the money. The only positive from the weekend with regard to this, was that at least Sal held the ball in. Against Essendon he continually dropped the footy in those situations and handed it back to them. O'Shea and Jonas have the same affliction IMO.

 

[edgie]

We still have Phillips and Hitchcock to work with for that crumbing role, everyone has seemed to forget they exist

 

[Shaucob_Burjan]

I dont rate Phillips and Hitchcock as AFL players.

Gray, Banner and Rodan are superb at crumbing though. Too bad our midfield sucks.

 

[Shaxx Attaxx]

Rodan is so damn good at it. He's that low to the ground he doesn't really need to bend. Tree trunk legs and massive hips, not many people can stick a tackle on the little nugget.