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AFLW 2024 - Round 4 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
Autopsy Round 15, 2024: Positives and Negatives vs Essendon
- Thread starter MeltMan
- Start date
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‘No Dazzlering’ Cricket Thread
Most players take a season to bed down at a new club.Given Flynn’s injury we won’t really see his best till next year.
That said I wasn’t impressed when he let that flog Dursma charge through and kick a goal. It was a chance to make a statement but he didn’t take it.
Rotham makes 1-2 clangers a game? I’ll see you and raise you Duggan.
Rotham has made too many squibs to ever cement himself in the team.Duggo at least is hard at it!
That said I wasn’t impressed when he let that flog Dursma charge through and kick a goal. It was a chance to make a statement but he didn’t take it.
Rotham makes 1-2 clangers a game? I’ll see you and raise you Duggan.
Rotham has made too many squibs to ever cement himself in the team.Duggo at least is hard at it!
I had near given up on this as another to add to the list of posts unfinished until I finally found some time today.
I found this game against Essendon to be incredibly frustrating.
I see it as the third match in succession where the team has lost a match that it should have won.
But it was a 30 point loss, how can you say the team should have won that?
Broke even in contests, won clearances, inside 50s and ground ball gets, and made more tackles and intercepts. That isn't the usual stat line of a five goal loss.
So what happened? This did:
Essendon were able to do as they pleased coming out of their own back half, finding open targets again and again, and running possession forward before the West Coast defence could setup effectively.
More than half of their total of 19 goals had sources in the defensive half of the ground.
And here is where the frustration starts to kick in.
How many key position players does a team require? In this match the Eagles had Allen, Darling, Waterman, B.Williams, Flynn, Maric, Barrass and McGovern, with Hutchinson as the substitute. That is clearly far too many and it should be of no surprise to anyone that a forward line containing so many talls struggles to prevent the opposition from rebounding possession at pace - apart from the selection committee it seems.
As we know, this has been an issue for many, many years now - here's something to back up that sentiment:
Just removing a couple of talls has the impact of reducing the defensive half goal source of opponents from one-half to one-fifth, which amounts on average to five less goals being conceded via that means per game.
What was that margin again...?
But there is more to it than just that.
An overly tall team tires early - especially so when a secondary ruck is sitting on the bench for large portions of the game, taking away a rotational spot from the rest of the team. That leads to negative outcomes on the scoreboard:
Two less talls makes the team more competitive in second halves this season by four goals.
Speaking of the ruck, B.Williams spent 40% of the match off the ground; Flynn 33%.
With neither being able to offer any presence up forward, it is an entirely useless situation.
Even worse, despite competing alone against the Flynn/B.Williams combination, S.Draper was the dominant ruck of the final quarter, amassing as many hitouts as the other two combined, whilst contributing twice as many disposals, 3 clearances, 3 inside 50s and 2 marks.
Flynn/B.Williams combined for 2 clearances and 2 inside 50s for the entire match. They did not manage a single mark between them. One of the things I was most looking forward to from Flynn was his contested marking ability. At GWS, he averaged amongst the most contested marks per game in the competition - most disappointingly, this remains to be seen at West Coast.
It needs to be remembered that this is against an opponent who had been kept out of the Bombers squad since ANZAC Day by a player who is turning 36 this week.
The whole point of a ruck duo is to wear down the opposition and capitalise on dominance in the latter stages. Lycett and Vardy are a great example of doing exactly that against individually superior opponents in 2018. If Flynn/B.Williams together can't outlast an opponent like S.Draper, it brings into question the purpose of going in with two rucks at all.
One ruck would of course allow for the selection of an additional runner to support the midfield (although you wouldn't put it past the selection committee to put in another key forward instead). After spending three quarters watching the lack of pace from Gaff and Sheed get pantsed by a team that had won just once in its last 32 matches, adding Ryan on-ball provided the catalyst to turning the direction of that match around completely.
Thankfully, it seems something was learned from that, as Ryan and Brockman both spent significant time in the middle against the Bombers, and provided a spark to a depleted midfield. The problem of course was having never played a full game in the centre before, how long could they be expected to maintain their output before dropping off, and who would be coming in to take over from them when that happened?
At three quarter time West Coast were +11 in contested possessions. At the end of the match that figure was even.
As could be expected, the effort waned (Ryan 2 last quarter disposals, Brockman 4, Petruccelle 4, Jones 2, Ginbey 1), Essendon with a dominant ruck took over the middle and the outcome was sealed.
Why on earth was the substitute another marking forward? It was exceedingly obvious that the team would need additional running power, yet that was ignored in what remains a bafflingly consistent move.
As for the used sub, Hutchinson, I still don't know how he is going to fit in. Don't get me wrong, I rate him highly, but the club already has Maric, J.Williams, A.Reid and Culley as developing marking forward options under 22 years of age.
In a squad that has a gaping age-profile hole in the midfield and distinct lack of options to provide pace from the defensive half, a mid-season selection of M.Murdock or L.Beecken would have made more sense from a list management perspective and provided ready-made support to areas of need.
This was a winnable match. The selected squad was older than Essendon and had a similar amount of games experience. It was far from a team of kids out there.
With wiser selection, the Bombers would not have been able to exploit their defensive half transition game anywhere near as effectively. Likewise, with better rotational support, the midfield would have no doubt continued its output beyond three quarters and avoid being overrun so comprehensively.
That is why I am left with so much frustration after this match, and indeed the other recent losses to St Kilda and North, as many of the issues leading to those losses are preventable simply by selecting a team with greater mobility.
The question remains how long will it take those in charge to learn.
I found this game against Essendon to be incredibly frustrating.
I see it as the third match in succession where the team has lost a match that it should have won.
But it was a 30 point loss, how can you say the team should have won that?
Broke even in contests, won clearances, inside 50s and ground ball gets, and made more tackles and intercepts. That isn't the usual stat line of a five goal loss.
So what happened? This did:
Essendon were able to do as they pleased coming out of their own back half, finding open targets again and again, and running possession forward before the West Coast defence could setup effectively.
More than half of their total of 19 goals had sources in the defensive half of the ground.
And here is where the frustration starts to kick in.
How many key position players does a team require? In this match the Eagles had Allen, Darling, Waterman, B.Williams, Flynn, Maric, Barrass and McGovern, with Hutchinson as the substitute. That is clearly far too many and it should be of no surprise to anyone that a forward line containing so many talls struggles to prevent the opposition from rebounding possession at pace - apart from the selection committee it seems.
As we know, this has been an issue for many, many years now - here's something to back up that sentiment:
Just removing a couple of talls has the impact of reducing the defensive half goal source of opponents from one-half to one-fifth, which amounts on average to five less goals being conceded via that means per game.
What was that margin again...?
But there is more to it than just that.
An overly tall team tires early - especially so when a secondary ruck is sitting on the bench for large portions of the game, taking away a rotational spot from the rest of the team. That leads to negative outcomes on the scoreboard:
Speaking of the ruck, B.Williams spent 40% of the match off the ground; Flynn 33%.
With neither being able to offer any presence up forward, it is an entirely useless situation.
Even worse, despite competing alone against the Flynn/B.Williams combination, S.Draper was the dominant ruck of the final quarter, amassing as many hitouts as the other two combined, whilst contributing twice as many disposals, 3 clearances, 3 inside 50s and 2 marks.
Flynn/B.Williams combined for 2 clearances and 2 inside 50s for the entire match. They did not manage a single mark between them. One of the things I was most looking forward to from Flynn was his contested marking ability. At GWS, he averaged amongst the most contested marks per game in the competition - most disappointingly, this remains to be seen at West Coast.
It needs to be remembered that this is against an opponent who had been kept out of the Bombers squad since ANZAC Day by a player who is turning 36 this week.
The whole point of a ruck duo is to wear down the opposition and capitalise on dominance in the latter stages. Lycett and Vardy are a great example of doing exactly that against individually superior opponents in 2018. If Flynn/B.Williams together can't outlast an opponent like S.Draper, it brings into question the purpose of going in with two rucks at all.
One ruck would of course allow for the selection of an additional runner to support the midfield (although you wouldn't put it past the selection committee to put in another key forward instead). After spending three quarters watching the lack of pace from Gaff and Sheed get pantsed by a team that had won just once in its last 32 matches, adding Ryan on-ball provided the catalyst to turning the direction of that match around completely.
Thankfully, it seems something was learned from that, as Ryan and Brockman both spent significant time in the middle against the Bombers, and provided a spark to a depleted midfield. The problem of course was having never played a full game in the centre before, how long could they be expected to maintain their output before dropping off, and who would be coming in to take over from them when that happened?
At three quarter time West Coast were +11 in contested possessions. At the end of the match that figure was even.
As could be expected, the effort waned (Ryan 2 last quarter disposals, Brockman 4, Petruccelle 4, Jones 2, Ginbey 1), Essendon with a dominant ruck took over the middle and the outcome was sealed.
Why on earth was the substitute another marking forward? It was exceedingly obvious that the team would need additional running power, yet that was ignored in what remains a bafflingly consistent move.
As for the used sub, Hutchinson, I still don't know how he is going to fit in. Don't get me wrong, I rate him highly, but the club already has Maric, J.Williams, A.Reid and Culley as developing marking forward options under 22 years of age.
In a squad that has a gaping age-profile hole in the midfield and distinct lack of options to provide pace from the defensive half, a mid-season selection of M.Murdock or L.Beecken would have made more sense from a list management perspective and provided ready-made support to areas of need.
This was a winnable match. The selected squad was older than Essendon and had a similar amount of games experience. It was far from a team of kids out there.
With wiser selection, the Bombers would not have been able to exploit their defensive half transition game anywhere near as effectively. Likewise, with better rotational support, the midfield would have no doubt continued its output beyond three quarters and avoid being overrun so comprehensively.
That is why I am left with so much frustration after this match, and indeed the other recent losses to St Kilda and North, as many of the issues leading to those losses are preventable simply by selecting a team with greater mobility.
The question remains how long will it take those in charge to learn.
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