Autopsy Round 2, 2023: Sydney torch Hawthorn

[Cousin of Daicos]

Bullshit.

He didn't 'literally' offload 'every' bit of experience, we kept a few over 28s, Wingard, Breust, Frost.

We also brought in a 26 year old Amon and a 24 year old Meek. Why?

Sam wants us to improve as quickly as possible. I can tell you that NONE of his actions were motivated by a desire to be near to bottom for a few more years.

Stop listening to Damien Barrett, you'll be better for it

No worries mate. You wanna take all this as some weird attack on Hawthorn, no stress.

I have no idea what Barrett has been saying.

This was all me late last year after trade period. I have mates who support Hawthorn and we've spoken about it at length. Hell, one of them had the same thoughts so he's just sitting back enjoying watching the kids develop.

Might need to revisit this little exchange after Tassie comes in and see where Hawthorn is during that period

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

 

[Lickmesocks]

Hawthorn has never ever been a club that is happy to finish bottom and take pick 1 and I can’t imagine with Mitchell’s ego he will allow it to happen. We always come home with a couple of “soft wins” late in seasons and end up moving down to pick 4-7 region.

This could be a reality we are facing again.

Is Harley Reid potentially Luke Hodge as some have suggested. If so and the club believes this then we need to get him and whatever top end talent we can find. Second or third last on the ladder or bottom and the spoon and pick 1?

Rob McCartney said watch out for us in the second half of the season in his podcast. Let’s hope if we have our eyes on this kid long term we know what we are doing in the back half of the season.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

 

[toomanysquibs]

You know what's scary

Average age of Sydney's 22 was 24 years 9 months and Hawks 24 years 3 months.

Sydney are a bloody young side, huge future ahead.

And yeah the 2017 loss to the Suns in Round 3 was a joke, doesn't make our start to the year this season ok though.

Age is irrelevant to a point.

IF you had a team full of 24 year-olds and they all had 50-100 games under their belt, and they played like us that would be one thing.

But how many of our young players are even at 50 games yet?

Not many, if any at a guess.

Our team this week had 12 players with fewer than 50 games - Day, Newcombe, Ward, Reeves, Jiath, Bramble, Kosi, MacKenzie... even Greene et. al.

Most of them are as close or closer to 0-10 games than they are to 50.

Newcombe had played 29 prior to this season.

Hell we have players 24 and older who haven't played 20 games yet. Greene is older than 24, and doesn't have double digits.

The whole age profile thing is pretty meaningless, games together is far more relevant.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

IF you had a team full of 24 year-olds and they all had 50-100 games under their belt, and they played like us that would be one thing.

But how many of our young players are at 50 games yet?

Not many, if any at a guess.

14 of our 22 on Sunday haven’t played 50 games and many in our midfield have barely played 10 games together, particularly in these roles.

 

[H00t]

Holy hell that paints an ugly picture for the dogs.

Only 15 points for doesn’t look good for us, but it’s also what we’ve been witnessing as we just can’t chain long enough possession chains together

 

[Billyc]

It’s very hard to quantify where the breakdown is without sitting in the review with the players and coaches.

On face value the new midfield is coming along quite well in that it’s not being belted at the stoppages, but there’s clearly other things that are a work in progress.

Definitely some positives in terms of ball winning in the contest and at stoppages. But ball use and defensive work in the middle are problems

 

[TassieGrown]

I just hope that the board and the coaching staff ( as well as us as supporters) don’t panic at these (really bad!) results and rush into a free agency spending spree at the end of the year in an attempt to shore up our performances. I am not sure I can think of any struggling team that successfully turned its fortunes around by bringing in FAs. As someone posted earlier we might only be able to attract players looking for a payday the way we are going at the moment, when the FA moves that tend to work out best involve players going to already- good clubs looking for success. These losses are not fatal to our chances of becoming successful again in a few years but blowing our war chest on the first available ‘name’ players just might be.

100% agree, we need to batten down the hatches and stay the course. Build from within and hand pick any free agents that will improve the list but not overpay. We are 2 games in to a rebuild that is going to take time, no one is happy with what we have dished up in the 1st 2 weeks but it is what it is, no point rushing the build we have to trust that behind closed doors that the coaches and administrators hold there nerve.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Bullshit.

He didn't 'literally' offload 'every' bit of experience, we kept a few over 28s, Wingard, Breust, Frost.

We also brought in a 26 year old Amon and a 24 year old Meek. Why?

Sam wants us to improve as quickly as possible. I can tell you that NONE of his actions were motivated by a desire to be near to bottom for a few more years.

And your quote was "I would bet good money that Mitchell wants to spend the next few years racking up Top 5 picks"

Stop listening to Damien Barrett, you'll be better for it

Mitchell won't have a choice, by design or not we'll be bottom 6 for another few years.

 

[toomanysquibs]

Mitchell won't have a choice, by design or not we'll be bottom 6 for another few years.

Really? Seems a shade pessimistic. I'd guess we're back to competing to play finals by the end of 2025.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Age is irrelevant to a point.

IF you had a team full of 24 year-olds and they all had 50-100 games under their belt, and they played like us that would be one thing.

But how many of our young players are even at 50 games yet?

Not many, if any at a guess.

Our team this week had 12 players with fewer than 50 games - Day, Newcombe, Ward, Reeves, Jiath, Bramble, Kosi, MacKenzie... even Greene et. al.

Most of them are as close or closer to 0-10 games than they are to 50.

Newcombe had played 29 prior to this season.

Hell we have players 24 and older who haven't played 20 games yet. Greene is older than 24, and doesn't have double digits.

The whole age profile thing is pretty meaningless, games together is far more relevant.

I do agree at times, talent is more important than age, Arsenal for eg is top of the EPL with the youngest side in the league.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Really? Seems a shade pessimistic. I'd guess we're back to competing to play finals by the end of 2025.

Depends on what key position players we find, the midfield will probably be ready, but we need to find some decent talls between now and then.

 

[eldorado]

Might need to revisit this little exchange after Tassie comes in and see where Hawthorn is during that period

How we are after Tassie comes in has NOTHING TO DO with Sam Mitchell wanting to finish near the bottom for the next few years.

 

[SSSSSS]

You know what's scary

Average age of Sydney's 22 was 24 years 9 months and Hawks 24 years 3 months.

Sydney are a bloody young side, huge future ahead.

And yeah the 2017 loss to the Suns in Round 3 was a joke, doesn't make our start to the year this season ok though.

Never mind the age look the average games played.

93 for Sydney and 61 for Hawthorn. North clocked in at 101 (almost 2 seasons ahead of the Hawks in experience).

The Sydney team are on average a season and a half ahead of the Hawks across 22 players.

Imagine pumping an extra 30 games into Newk, Ward, McKenzie etc.

Sydney are where we hope to be in 2-3 years time.

 

[toomanysquibs]

Depends on what key position players we find, the midfield will probably be ready, but we need to find some decent talls between now and then.

I think we're two bookends away from being a competitor, I guess we do need to get a bit lucky there.

But I think we have the small forward firepower on the list already, the wings and flanks too.

Might be changes here and there, but depending on what turns up this year, who develops and how good our mid season drafting is... it can happen quickly with the top end talent we have rolling in.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Never mind the age look the average games played.

93 for Sydney and 61 for Hawthorn. North clocked in at 101 (almost 2 seasons ahead of the Hawks in experience).

The Sydney team are on average a season and a half ahead of the Hawks across 22 players.

Imagine pumping an extra 30 games into Newk, Ward, McKenzie etc.

Sydney are where we hope to be in 2-3 years time.

Yep will be huge.

 

[eldorado]

Mitchell won't have a choice, by design or not we'll be bottom 6 for another few years.

Oh, what a surprise, unmitigated pessimism from you. Knock me over with a feather.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Oh, what a surprise, unmitigated pessimism from you. Knock me over with a feather.

Just realism mate, but call it whatever makes you feel better.

 

[toomanysquibs]

No worries mate. You wanna take all this as some weird attack on Hawthorn, no stress.

I have no idea what Barrett has been saying.

This was all me late last year after trade period. I have mates who support Hawthorn and we've spoken about it at length. Hell, one of them had the same thoughts so he's just sitting back enjoying watching the kids develop.

Might need to revisit this little exchange after Tassie comes in and see where Hawthorn is during that period

The problem with this thinking, is that it's just plain wrong.

To prove that point, we're at round 2 and you're writing off our season because we got rid of 'too much experience'. To prove it further, you admit to thinking this prior to the season and current year actually starting.

Why not wait till the season is nearly over, or we can't win more games than we did last season?

Far better chance of being right.

 

[SSSSSS]

Never mind the age look the average games played.

93 for Sydney and 61 for Hawthorn. North clocked in at 101 (almost 2 seasons ahead of the Hawks in experience).

The Sydney team are on average a season and a half ahead of the Hawks across 22 players.

Imagine pumping an extra 30 games into Newk, Ward, McKenzie etc.

Sydney are where we hope to be in 2-3 years time.

Based on this I'm guessing we are in for 2 years of bottom 4 at a bare minimum (if we extrapolate our two games to be the norm - I think it's too quick to consider it a trend at this point our next game will give us a lot more information as to what to expect over the next 20 games). Depending on if we can snag in some experienced FA we might be able to have a smoother landing.

Spiraling out of control at the moment but this is probably the season we had to have. Bandaid is well and truly ripped off.

 

[Louis Litt]

Wow! That was painful to watch. I may postpone my planned return from the UK until next year ;-)

Let's not forget, we have lost McEvoy, Shiels, Gunston, Mitchell, and O'Meara since last season. That is a fair amount of senior talent to lose, and Sam (and the coaching staff) have gone for draft/young rebuilds. He will live or die (from a footy coaching career perspective) on that decision, or if it turns out the wrong approach, not changing tack quickly enough.

So, from where we are, we certainly weren't expected to win today. Despite, by early in the second quarter, we were apparently applying pressure greather than the league average, it was little more than a training run; the lack of intensity from fellas like Kozzie, Frost, Sic, Impey, et al, who at least applied decent intensity last year was worrying.

The game exposed the lack of senior leadership. Moore and Nash, excepted, the rest of the senior players are not even close to leadership material. Where is the leader who can influence the young-uns to lift? Who is co-ordinating on field? There is a gap that has to be filled, otherwise, our younger list will take a lot longer to hone their craft, and we don't want the "there are green shoots appearing" acceptance of lower margin losses as wins, aka Brendan Bolton.

I am not a big fan of Sam as senior coach, but willing to back him in. In his defence, our on-field personnel (or lack thereof) issues largely pre-date his tenure. However, we looked rudderless on field, with no real game plan. Positionally, we are headless, tail-less, and only have a semblance of a spine thanks to the mids starting to fire. But, I would say if we are consistent with the last two performances, he will be under pressure well before the next season.

And who cares what happened in the pre-season. They are practice matches that the top teams don't throw the kitchen sink at. Having a good pre-season match performance rarely indicates where a team will go when the real games start.

Jerry Atrick - oout of interest who would you like to see as coach?

 

[Sixpence]

Just realism mate, but call it whatever makes you feel better.

Realism, sure. Just like Bradkli was being realistic when he said our threepeat just papered over the cracks.

 

[Sixpence]

The problem with this thinking, is that it's just plain wrong.

To prove that point, we're at round 2 and you're writing off our season because we got rid of 'too much experience'. To prove it further, you admit to thinking this prior to the season and current year actually starting.

Why not wait till the season is nearly over, or we can't win more games than we did last season?

Far better chance of being right.

Not to mention, we could have kept all of Mitchell, O'Meara and Gunston and still gotten smashed by Sydney and Essendon.

 

[Louis Litt]

Once the final siren has sounded,you only need to say quietly to yourself..
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..
HARLEY REID.

THere in No Way , No Way we are finishing bottom - avoided at all costs - its not in our DNA - No Way