AFL Autopsy RND3: Beaten by the Saints

[citizen-erased]

Have said for weeks but we gave away another 5 - 6 shots on goal from free kicks alone. We had 4 free kicks in the front half all night. 2 of those was a set shot on goal.

This has been an issue for us for a while
Tippa is the only player decent at drawing fwd half frees.
We tend to get a lot of ours in less dangerous positions on the ground.

 

[Yoda_]

Their system and their running was impressive
I like ours too but it falls apart with skill error and effort at times. And when it does we're a little slow to adjust
That will come as we develop as a group and some leaders emerge.

I am seeing in Weid what my dees mates warned. He isn't the answer. Fine for depth. CHF is still an achillies for us. But id add that the saints had a 3 gamer as their key fwd last night and made it work.

Id have flip in just to get draper fwd at times. He's a tough defensive match up and it's worked for two weeks. Why we went away from it i do not know.
Stringer was not ready. Winnable game lost on 3 selections - Weid and stringer in and heppell retained

Tick to the fortitude to not drop our heads at 5 goals to zip. Thought shiel worked incredibly hard as merrett was blanketed. Emerging as a leader.
Caldwell keeps growing. Id love to see him and hobbs in the same side just mucking in.

Quieter games for setterfield and merrett.
Whoever had Hill let him off the leash. Was everywhere they needed him to be last night.

Did we get a diagnosis on how many weeks zerk is gonna miss?

Big thing for me was how often there runners go us on the spread.

Martin was serviceable on the spread. Durham and Heppel were invincible, ditto Langford who we had been so impressed with in the last 12 months as a winger.

 

[Yoda_]

This has been an issue for us for a while
Tippa is the only player decent at drawing fwd half frees.
We tend to get a lot of ours in less dangerous positions on the ground.

Ive been a big watch no this in recent seasons and maintain we must give away more shots on goal than any other club in the ocmp and have less shots on goal from frees than any other club in the comp/

I would love to actually have this confirmed. We had 4, might be 5 free kicks in the front half last night. 2 of those were barely over the half way line. 1 was a deliberate and another soft one I think.

To give them half a dozen shots without earning them is the difference right there.

 

[sameolds33]

The obvious improvement is stop kicking the ball straight to the opposition when you are under limited pressure.

Agree with much of what you say but wanted to respond specifically to this point.

So many of our players kicked directly to Saints players. It wasn't just Heppell - even Ridley, generally a reliable kick. The pressure as, you say, was limited. That's not a skills issue it's a lack of mental preparation - a commitment to buy in of the game plan and belief in the team.

It's what Ross Lyon is good at building - and McRae is even better. We're getting better at the mental part of the game but we are still not there.

The way I saw it was that players panicked after the initial Saints onslaught and the perceived pressure that lack of self belief creates caused stupid mistakes - like kicking it directly to the opposition. This compounded the panic and led to the two 5 goal bursts which decided the game.

I think some of the kicking directly to the opposition was due to the Saints having the same colours as us. In a panic, it's convenient to see a black and red jumper as ours, especially if the player is standing where you want to direct the ball. Address the perceived pressure (the mental part of the game) and those mistakes don't happen.

 

[Yoda_]

Agree with much of what you say but wanted to respond specifically to this point.

So many of our players kicked directly to Saints players. It wasn't just Heppell - even Ridley, generally a reliable kick. The pressure as, you say, was limited. That's not a skills issue it's a lack of mental preparation - a commitment to buy in of the game plan and belief in the team.

It's what Ross Lyon is good at building - and McRae is even better. We're getting better at the mental part of the game but we are still not there.

The way I saw it was that players panicked after the initial Saints onslaught and the perceived pressure that lack of self belief creates caused stupid mistakes - like kicking it directly to the opposition. This compounded the panic and led to the two 5 goal bursts which decided the game.

I think some of the kicking directly to the opposition was due to the Saints having the same colours as us. In a panic, it's convenient to see a black and red jumper as ours, especially if the player is standing where you want to direct the ball. Address the perceived pressure (the mental part of the game) and those mistakes don't happen.

We have been celebrating how much our 22 has transformed into a much better marking unit (Langford, Martin, Durham, Heppell even, Redman) we struggled to get around the ground. Outworked by a couple of wingers player career best football imho (Hill & Mason Wood) showed the young guys what an elite running winger should be doing.

 

[fishardansin]

Positives - Looked over at qt time and we fought back well.
Cadwell show his skills
Kelly was good - Probably the only defender that can really hold his head high.


Negatives - Defense -
Selection - As I said in the gameday thread. Next week is important for him because he choose and poor team tonight and was out coached. We all saw it coming...

Stringer is a liability these days. 1 Above Average VFL game wasnt enough. Shouldn't have played

Hinds isn't a good option for Sub. Wasn't able to have an impact when he came on.

Heppell needs the tap and really shouldn't have played.

Draper can't solo ruck -

Weeds can't backup ruck. When were rolling at the start of the fourt, Draper was good. When weed rucked, he was barely competitive. Killed momentum.

Flip should have played.


Also on specific players

Redman - Well that's why he ain't captain. The Saints forwards got in his head early and he didn't have the maturity to work through it. He'll need to bounce back next week.

Jones - Just doesn't impact games enough and too often misses important kicks, specially for goal, but it still developing. Not too worried.


God we missed BZT.
Laverde sadly is just a stop-gap for until Reid comes back.

Yep. I think we can make selection calls and save face for aging stars as well.

Assuming that BZT and Hobbs did just roll their ankles and are available next week:

Stringer and Heppel can have managed minutes in VFL and be replaced by Voss and Hobbs.

Jones to go back to VFL and learn how to impact the contest. Phillip to come in for him and Weiderman to not ruck, give him a month to prove his ability as a forward or replace him with a (hopefully) improved Jones. Hopefully Bryan can step up and push Phillips out of the side.

Redman can play small in defence. Bring BZT in for DAmbrossio. Redman and McGrath as small backs, Ridley as medium and Laverde and BZT as KPDs. We need to replace Laverde with someone of genuine size by end of year.

Hobbs must replace Heppell in the midfield because we need extra grunt with Setters. Caldwell showed he's a huge upgrade on what Guelfi brought to the table last year. He's also capable of playing a tag in the midfield and Hobbs can play forward so having those two adds a lot of flexibility to the enginroom.

Langford must play forward, but also be part of the wings rotation.

In BZT Hobbs Phillips Voss
Out Dambrossio Heppell Jones Stringer

I still expect Stringer to be a mainstay and think that Voss has more VFL than AFL this year, but Stringer can't use the AFL as the place to work on fitness and Voss needs a taste.

 

[Mr Sasquatch]

Is it copping s**t from St.Kilda supporters you didn't even know were st.Kilda supporters?

I'm not sure because I'm sure there's only about 15 in total

 

[Old Campaigner]

I think that game was an honest reflection of where the side is at. Improving but still a long way to go.

Old Essendon would have rolled over after the first quarter, positional changes would've been limited to moving Hooker to the other end of the ground and we'd have gone down by 10 goals.

To fight our way back into the game showed a degree of improvement, but we're probably a couple of preseasons away from team defensive becoming instinctive enough to pressure the better sides.

We're probably also a couple of drafts away from having enough quality across every position to reliably mix it with the better sides too.

 

[IggypopsTshirt]

Interesting to note the focus on dissent across this round. It cost us a few snags last night and then later in the game Higgins in particular couldn’t have been more physically and verbally
demonstrative with the umps and nothing was done.

 

[Old Campaigner]

penalising calling the umpires campaigners seems extremely unAustralian for a game that calls itself "Australian Rules"

 

[citizen-erased]

Interesting to note the focus on dissent across this round. It cost us a few snags last night and then later in the game Higgins in particular couldn’t have been more physically and verbally
demonstrative with the umps and nothing was done.

Thought that too.

 

[jannissary]

Interesting to note the focus on dissent across this round. It cost us a few snags last night and then later in the game Higgins in particular couldn’t have been more physically and verbally
demonstrative with the umps and nothing was done.

i'm content with it but i genuinely get frustrated when it isn't applied consistently. i couldn't give a rats ass if it was applied to everyone, but when it isn't it's an absolute piss take and really frustrating

 

[Alberto_Magnifico]

Interesting to note the focus on dissent across this round. It cost us a few snags last night and then later in the game Higgins in particular couldn’t have been more physically and verbally
demonstrative with the umps and nothing was done.

He was having a bitch too when he was clearly wrong, if the dissent rule achieves anything hopefully it stamps out players having little hissy fits, but it does next to be applied consistently first.

 

[Foxx]

Saints the better side, but obviously holding and chopping of the arms isn't a free kick anymore.

 

[ant555]

penalising calling the umpires campaigners seems extremely unAustralian for a game that calls itself "Australian Rules"

Problem is something had to be done not for the top level but for the sake of grass roots footy which is dead set struggling to attract umpires and plenty walking away from doing it because the fans / players seem to think it is okay to unload on them every week. The blokes at the top need to just shut it. In 50 years of watching footy I have never seen an umpire say I got that one wrong and change his decision. Play the game. Get the club to ask for explanations on Monday.