Autopsy Round 1, 2023: Bombers beat the Hawks

[Strapping Young Lad]

“I look at our performances over the summer… I look at how we’ve trained, how we’ve gone about it and how our attitude has been,” Mitchell said.

“And then I look at the performance today and it is certainly not what we expected as a group.

“I think we would’ve expected to have been much better for much longer, we showed some very small patches of some decent football, but a long way from what we think we’re capable of as a side.

“We’re not going to get it right every week, but I expect we’re going to be better than that.”

 

[triangulation_squared]

A promising first quarter... after that a big let down.

Positives
Will try not to double up on what others have said already

-Reeves won some nice clean taps that led to seemingly easy centre clearances
-Cam mckenzie on debut showed looked like he has played 75 games already, disposal is ridiculously good and need a few more to get to his current level
-CJ's running goal, we need more of that from CJ, does he do more damage from a wing?

If there was a time machine
-Kosi out and either of Frost or Brocky forward
-Bramble out and Scrim, CJ or Weddle on a wing
-Impey looks like he has lost a yard of pace, it could be time to inject some speed there- Weddle has enough to make an instant impact
-I'm going with Butler to bring some fight
-I'm playing DGB or his trade value heads to a second rounder

Next week
-I'm looking at getting games into Ned Long, Brocky, DGB and Scrim
-out Bramble, Kosi, Impey, Conor Mac

 

[GrumpyOldFart]

I'm old and often struggle to understand the tactics of the modern game. But, when you're getting hammered, wouldn't it be a good idea to revert to man-on-man footy rather than guarding grass? Even for a short period until balance has been restored. At least you could make a contest rather than be a passive onlooker (the technical term being "witches hat" I believe).

And it would be helpful if we could read the drop of the ball - fundamentals, my dear boy! I sometimes wonder if these lads are so overcoached and "structured" as to having lost the feel for the game and they're unable to play with instinct.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

 

[peetoo]

I'm old and often struggle to understand the tactics of the modern game. But, when you're getting hammered, wouldn't it be a good idea to revert to man-on-man footy rather than guarding grass? Even for a short period until balance has been restored. At least you could make a contest rather than be a passive onlooker (the technical term being "witches hat" I believe).

And it would be helpful if we could read the drop of the ball - fundamentals, my dear boy! I sometimes wonder if these lads are so overcoached and "structured" as to having lost the feel for the game and they're unable to play with instinct.

I wondered if man on man would have been a valid coaching tool once losing

 

[Jazzfan]

I’m not using it as a cop out as much as I’m contextualising what I saw.

The good I saw was a lot of our midfielders connecting and brealing from the centre stoppages. The poor was the efforts to roll onto the next bomber palyer, to press up into space and push back to help the defense when the switch was continually on.

There’s accepting the loss and then there’s rationalizing it. I’m doing more of the latter.

The coach and footy dept gave us a very good and direct opportunity to understand that todays outcome could be something that was on the cards in the early part of 202

You should watch Sam's presser again mate. Today was absolutely not expected.

It's not like we were playing Melbourne. We were playing another bottom six team, also young, with a new coach, and also missing key players. We lost by 10 goals. We gave up. We played bruise free footy.

Fans have every right to be upset with today's performance. Being so doesn't mean we're not here for the long haul, or misguided by expectations.

Shocking start to the year. Hopefully we are more competitive against the Swans.

 

[halfback dasher]

Terrible

 

[burger09]

Couldn't have said it better.

Exactly how most of us felt.
Yeah we are young, yeah we dont expect 4 quarters of high level output, yeah we don't expect to win but that was horrible.

 

[The Jet From Poowong]

I'm old and often struggle to understand the tactics of the modern game. But, when you're getting hammered, wouldn't it be a good idea to revert to man-on-man footy rather than guarding grass? Even for a short period until balance has been restored. At least you could make a contest rather than be a passive onlooker (the technical term being "witches hat" I believe).

And it would be helpful if we could read the drop of the ball - fundamentals, my dear boy! I sometimes wonder if these lads are so overcoached and "structured" as to having lost the feel for the game and they're unable to play with instinct.

Essendon did play one on one against us when defending. But they had better structure and purpose about their offensive running and movement. And we just chased tail and no real plan on transition. I saw this a number of times in the pre season also. It suggests something isn’t working with the defensive plan/positioning. Hence we get opened up and can’t lay a glove. Explains the low tackle count.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

You should watch Sam's presser again mate. Today was absolutely not expected.

It's not like we were playing Melbourne. We were playing another bottom six team, also young, with a new coach, and also missing key players. We lost by 10 goals. We gave up. We played bruise free footy.

Fans have every right to be upset with today's performance. Being so doesn't mean we're not here for the long haul, or misguided by expectations.

Shocking start to the year. Hopefully we are more competitive against the Swans.

Sam expects us to put our best footy forward every game. That’s a given.

But he’s also highlighted that it’s highly unlikely that we will do that every week.

 

[GrumpyOldFart]

Essendon did play one on one against us when defending. But they had better structure and purpose about their offensive running and movement. And we just chased tail and no real plan on transition. I saw this a number of times in the pre season also. It suggests something isn’t working with the defensive plan/positioning. Hence we get opened up and can’t lay a glove. Explains the low tackle count.

Yes, agreed. There was no defensive pressure from our forwards and Essendon waltzed out time after time creating a numbers mismatch all the way down the field.

We also seem to be a team of ball watchers unable to anticipate where the ball is likely to go in the next play. Such a simple thing that I taught my boys as juniors. I'm puzzled why we can't do this at AFL level. As I said I struggle to understand the modern game.

 

[Jet_black]

After the first quarter, it was demoralising sitting near the Essendon cheer squad at the city end.

Had a young family in front of us with 2 young kids who were hawks supporters - they were crying in the 3rd quarter and even covering their eyes and ears. They left before the final quarter started.
I was sad they had to deal with that type of disappointment.

Anyway - looking forward to the Geelong game, hope we make it a closer or competitive affair.

 

[TylerDurden]

Nathan Brown

22

Nathan Brown

Age

35

Ht

196cm

Wt

99kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

8.8

2star

K

3.9

2star

HB

4.9

4star

M

2.7

3star

T

1.8

4star

No current season stats available

D

6.4

2star

K

3.2

2star

HB

3.2

3star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.8

5star

said on Triple M pre game, it wouldn't surprise him if Essendon won by 10 goals, or Hawthorn won by 10 goals.

What hurts is that we chucked it in when it got hard. Not one bloke stood up. Sicily tried, but it's bloody hard to swallow when it happens against a shit team. And they are bog average.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Nathan Brown said on Triple M pre game, it wouldn't surprise him if Essendon won by 10 goals, or Hawthorn won by 10 goals.

What hurts is that we chucked it in when it got hard. Not one bloke stood up. Sicily tried, but it's bloody hard to swallow when it happens against a s**t team. And they are bog average.

It's a recurring theme for the hawks.
Best foot forward against the good teams, big average against the poor ones.
Remember, it wasn't uncommon even during the threepeat years to drop games to teams sitting near the bottom

 

[Simon Crawshay]

I liked patches of what i saw but our transition breaking down in the face of a pretty average defensive team was telling.

It’s going to be a long road but there were glimpses - a lack of fwd quality meant we didnt capitalise but i saw enough of a young midfield to think the ingredients are there.

The biggest disappointment for me was I think we were a touch soft and got out muscled by a team of downhill skiers. Unsociable intra clubs mean nothing if you are a bit meek in the real stuff.

Yeh getting bullied by Essendon of all teams should set off all kinds of alarms.

We bring that kind of effort against the Swans next week and they will absolutely slaughter us.

 

[MasterSamurai]

That margin was NOT expected. I still think max gives us more edge around the stoppages and in particular the frwd line then Ned , so I wouldn't mind seeing him play instead. But, our frwd half work was unacceptable! Brockman and Butler inclusions would make us more flexible and quicker in defending the turnover inside frwd 50! Anyone who follows footy can accept losses for this yet to fully develop team, but against essdn , relatively bruise free footy is definitely not acceptable. Sam may tell the boys to get out the gloves and mouth guards to training again this week!

 

[Simon Crawshay]

I will say it was heartwarming to see Worps having a real red hot dip today.

He plays like that the rest of the year and a second PCM isn’t out of the question.

The secret with Worps I think is not to over complicate the game for him. Just tell him to crack in all day and not do I worry about the odd (inevitable) Worps clanger.

 

[pd_89]

I was at the game and stayed until the end.

1) The biggest issue for me was that we made a lot...and I mean a lot of turnovers in defence. They would have still beaten us but we really struggled to get the ball out of defence and gifted them quite a few scoring chances.

2) The second big thing was, on the occasion we did manage to get it out and got to about the middle of the ground, our attack ended there. We didn't know whether we were committing to bombing it long or lowering the eyes and ended up doing neither and turned the ball over once again.

3) We simply didn't run hard enough off the ball and from the second quarter onwards, they moved the ball with ease through our midfield which was incredibly disappointing. You can forgive a lack of skills but not a lack of effort.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

You should watch Sam's presser again mate. Today was absolutely not expected.

It's not like we were playing Melbourne. We were playing another bottom six team, also young, with a new coach, and also missing key players. We lost by 10 goals. We gave up. We played bruise free footy.

Fans have every right to be upset with today's performance. Being so doesn't mean we're not here for the long haul, or misguided by expectations.

Shocking start to the year. Hopefully we are more competitive against the Swans.

Yes, I understand that it was a pre-season trial game, but after getting so close to Collingwood, and seeing the Pies on Friday night, I had a deluded sense that we would acquit ourselves well today. Very disappointing.

 

[Gaston]

I get we’re young and whatever and it’s going to take time but that was as piss weak an effort as I’ve seen served up for a long while. That margin could’ve been reduced 4-5 goals on effort alone.

The redman goal after the hand off from Merrett was the cherry for me, you could see him wandering up from 50 metres away and was clear as day what was going to happen. Not an opponent within 30 metres of him. Genuinely asleep at the wheel today we were. You just wanna see effort and today wasn’t it - can cop that stuff in Rd 15, but Rd1, spare me

Bingo!!
This was the real issue for me today, how can you, in Rd 1, dish that up!!!
Pathetic, especially against a side who is tipped to finish bottom 4.

The 2nd half was as bruise free a game as you will see, pre-season is over gents, time to pull the finger out.

 

[Accipiter]

You should watch Sam's presser again mate. Today was absolutely not expected.

It's not like we were playing Melbourne. We were playing another bottom six team, also young, with a new coach, and also missing key players. We lost by 10 goals. We gave up. We played bruise free footy.

Fans have every right to be upset with today's performance. Being so doesn't mean we're not here for the long haul, or misguided by expectations.

Shocking start to the year. Hopefully we are more competitive against the Swans.

100%

 

[Stratton_Gun]

What an absolute shambles to start the season. I haven't looked at other posts so not sure if I'm rehashing the same thoughts as others but it's going to be a long year.

. Has Newcombe dropped weight? Has putting pushed off the ball by Parish and if he's not out muscling the opposition then he really has no upside tbh

. I know the delivery was poor but Kosi looked timid/non commanding and Fergus Greene

26

Fergus Greene

Age

26

Ht

187cm

Wt

75kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

8.8

2star

K

5.4

2star

HB

3.4

3star

M

3.6

4star

T

3.0

5star

G

1.0

4star

No current season stats available

D

8.8

3star

K

5.4

2star

HB

3.4

3star

M

3.6

4star

T

3.0

5star

G

1.0

4star

looked unsurprisingly VFL standard. I know Mitch Lewis is out for a month and until then I can't see where goals will come from

.Wingard can piss off. Even at his Hawthorn best has been a shadow of his Port says.

.Sam Frost

8

Sam Frost

Age

31

Ht

194cm

Wt

94kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.4

3star

K

7.1

3star

HB

5.2

4star

M

3.7

4star

T

1.9

4star

MG

191.6

3star

D

10.5

3star

K

6.3

3star

HB

4.3

3star

M

4.0

4star

T

1.5

2star

MG

191.6

3star

D

11.2

3star

K

6.0

3star

HB

5.2

4star

M

3.6

4star

T

1.4

4star

is just an average player with shocking decision making. With age not on his side surely we just get rid of him once his contract is up.

. Reeves and Meek too similar. Can get a tap but really don't offer much if anything else.

. For all the hype of pre season, Worpel looks like the same slow mid with poor disposal. Absolute 0 poise.

. Amon had a bit of class but didn't get enough of it.

. Really liked the look of McKenzie. Clean hands and good disposal. In a few years should be a very good player.

. I don't mind Blanck as a rookie pick but if Weidermann and Jones are making our key backs look like chumps then I don't hold much hope against the true gun key forwards like McKay and Curnow.

. Jiath got a pass and actually took the game on.

. Sicily didn't look anything like a captain. Played average and wasn't able to keep his head. Not good enough from maybe the one A grader we have

The most scary thing is that apart from Lewis we pretty much had a full team. Morrison is ok but dime a dozen and DGB is average. On the plus side I hear Harley Reid goes ok....

Sydney in Sydney next week huh?

Might need a bottle of Captain Morgan to get through that one me thinks

 

[Gut Runner]

I reckon Sicily is quite upset there.

Think the boys will be devasted. Hope the coaches can pick them back up from the canvas.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Interesting comments from Sic.

 

[Gut Runner]

McKenzie was great on debut.

Worpel seems to have found a little form.

Blank showed he has improved over the preseason.

Nash provided some grunt when he came on.

Our link up run in the first qtr was exciting.

Extremely disappointed with everything else.