Autopsy Round 2, 2023: Sydney torch Hawthorn

[Alite]

Question:

If someone had of asked you a month ago if you'd take a loss to the Swans in Round 2 with 4 less inside 50's and 15 less contested possessions , but we'd have Day get 26 disposals and 7 clearances, Newcombe get 26 and 5, Worpel 22 and 6 with Ward and MacKenzie also getting games in the middle..... Would you have taken that?

Um… YES …. 100% … well said.

This loss was not concerning. The youngest team against a pressure team that made the GF last year on a small ground. …. What other result would anyone think would happen.

there were many positives:
CMac was good.
Day was good in a new position
Worps was good (missed no targets…for mine that makes him better than last week)
Blank is good.
breust was lazy but we forgive him
Frost: I‘d say he was either badly coached or he f-Ed up.
Greene: failed to do what he does for fun… a horror day. likely his worst day a an AFL player.
Kozi: ineffectual but on this day I cannot say it was his fault. Was competitive.
Nash: I liked his game. Not creative but certainly had a presence.
Newc: typically combative. In a better team he would be huge.
Amon: did his job
Impey: was better than many
Bramble: Was supposed to be our slingshot With CJ. Did not work.
CJ: missed a lot of marks… but got to a lot of marks.
Breust: a bad night.


The baby is there and kicking… and the bath water should be put on your plants.

It was a bad loss by a young team against a quality pressure team who will likely be in the top 4.

Game played, lessons learned… move on

 

[chopflop]

Small sample size but Worps is 4th for contested possessions, 5th for centre clearances and 10th for overall clearances in the league. Hopefully he can continue on with his good start.

In a side getting flogged, it's a great start.

 

[Alite]

In a side getting flogged, it's a great start.

Is this a positive or a negative comment. I am slow… I need the 5 year old expiation.

 

[FB19]

VFL Match Replay, R1: Sydney v Box Hill

The Swans and Hawks clash in round one of the 2023 Smithy's VFL Season

www.afl.com.au

That was so helpful as I could go to the replay without seeing the score, as I’m in the UK that’s fantastic wonder if you could do each week?

 

[FB19]

Um… YES …. 100% … well said.

This loss was not concerning. The youngest team against a pressure team that made the GF last year on a small ground. …. What other result would anyone think would happen.

there were many positives:
CMac was good.
Day was good in a new position
Worps was good (missed no targets…for mine that makes him better than last week)
Blank is good.
breust was lazy but we forgive him
Frost: I‘d say he was either badly coached or he f-Ed up.
Greene: failed to do what he does for fun… a horror day. likely his worst day a an AFL player.
Kozi: ineffectual but on this day I cannot say it was his fault. Was competitive.
Nash: I liked his game. Not creative but certainly had a presence.
Newc: typically combative. In a better team he would be huge.
Amon: did his job
Impey: was better than many
Bramble: Was supposed to be our slingshot With CJ. Did not work.
CJ: missed a lot of marks… but got to a lot of marks.
Breust: a bad night.


The baby is there and kicking… and the bath water should be put on your plants.

It was a bad loss by a young team against a quality pressure team who will likely be in the top 4.

Game played, lessons learned… move on

There are positives for sure but I’m concerned about being this uncompetitive. I am not worried about wins but if we keep getting smacked it makes the rebuild harder on several fronts, especially our ability to retain and attract the players we need.

 

[Thrashor]

I was at the game yesterday and I have been going to the Swans Hawks at the SCG for the last 20 years. In that time we have always been a very well structured team. Yesterday we looked like a rabble. We also had no intensity. My Swans loving sister was complaining about our lack of intensity. I thought our backline was especially poor, especially CJ, Frost and Blanck, as all had some really really week spoiling efforts. That said I think the Swans are humming and can blow teams away early at the SCG. As much as it is easy to say drop half the team, they are not AFL standard, I think that is missing the point. The team needs to start playing as a team, know their structures, and bring a lot of pressure.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Surprised this post hasn't been deleted, Strapping Young Lad having kittens.

SYL has been anti Reeves since he was rookied. Why would he delete it?

 

[SpanishBrowne]

Tomorrow morning his message should be as simple as "E is for Effort"
That's all he wants, that's all we want.

The chance for that was after last week's game. We now need to see some changes and any kind of structure forward and back. Coaches actually need to put in an E for Effort as well.

 

[dermott]

I don’t think in 47 years of supporting the Hawks have i ever seen a more uncompetitive team, not in the Crawshay years or the first years of Clarkson. We are being let down badly by our senior players with so many unforced errors, lack of intensity, broken tackles, dropped marks and undiscipline.
We will have our lowest ever finish and most probably finish last with a percentage barely over 50%.
All great teams are built on defence not on some notion that all out attack, especially when you skill level is so poor, will lead us to the promised land.

A bit of oneupmanship, but I have been following the Hawks for over 70 years during which time they have won 13 premierships. Way more than any other team during that period.

If winning premierships is the goal we have only had 13 good years in that time.

However most of us enjoy following the team every year regardless of our ladder position. In fact, I have gone on record as saying I love watching the team when we are rebuilding, watching the kids develop into Hawthorn champions. Even during the dark days when we are getting belted you can see the green shoots and hope for better days.

Frankly I expected us to struggle for a few years as Mitchell rebuilds in precisely the same way we did with Clarkson. If the current pain enables us to be a contender in 2026 I am up for it as that is preferable to floating around the middle of the ladder for years on end like some teams that lack the intestinal fortitude to make hard decisions.

We have been down before and rebuilt. We will do it again. Be critical when it is warranted but be patient. We will get there.

 

[Billyc]

81 points can't be acceptable, surely!!? No sugar coating this, players did a bit of talking about giving better stronger effort yet lost all cohesion when Opposition moved the ball in play. Maybe others ok with trouncings and I'm ok with a few bad losses and a bottom four finish but the first two weeks are a train wreck .

It’s our worst start to a season since 1950. Everyone knows we are rebuilding and need to patient etc but let’s also be serious. This is a disastrous start.

 

[hawk for 37]

This team will not be competitive until they lock in the key posts. Currently we have one lock at FF. He is always injured.
A team with no locks at FB, CHB and CHF is doomed.
People talk about 2005 being bad. We had just recruited 2 Hall of Famers…
No HOFers key positions have been recruited yet..

 

[TylerDurden]

I was at the game yesterday and I have been going to the Swans Hawks at the SCG for the last 20 years. In that time we have always been a very well structured team. Yesterday we looked like a rabble. We also had no intensity. My Swans loving sister was complaining about our lack of intensity. I thought our backline was especially poor, especially CJ, Frost and Blanck, as all had some really really week spoiling efforts. That said I think the Swans are humming and can blow teams away early at the SCG. As much as it is easy to say drop half the team, they are not AFL standard, I think that is missing the point. The team needs to start playing as a team, know their structures, and bring a lot of pressure.

The no intensity bit is the concern. I'd like to know why?

 

[The hands of stone]

Small sample size but Worps is 4th for contested possessions, 5th for centre clearances and 10th for overall clearances in the league. Hopefully he can continue on with his good start.

Has been a huge positive given the calls to cast him aside after the first 'praccy' game

 

[theiaofseed]

It’s our worst start to a season since 1950. Everyone knows we are rebuilding and need to patient etc but let’s also be serious. This is a disastrous start.

Measured against what?

 

[jerry_atrick]

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.

 

[Blackhawk42]

Lost disposal count by just 22.

57 tackles to 56.

Won the hitouts by 12.
Won the clearances by 8.

The effort and technical aspects were there. I'm surprised by these stats as I read through them.
The perceived pressure and unforced errors are probably the biggest factor now I really think about. That and the structure defending a rebounding attack which has looked non-existent two weeks in a row.

If we played Collingwood this week they probably would have scored over 200 points.

 

[jerry_atrick]

The stats may be there, but how they were sometimes lacidaisically played was worrying., When the Swans turned it over, there was no one to be seen within Koo-Wee of them. Swans lowered the intensity as well when the game was in the bag... Stats can sometimes be misleading.

 

[Billyc]

Measured against what?

Combined losses of first two rounds

Do you still think our current defence is better than the threepeat defence ?

 

[theiaofseed]

Combined losses of first two rounds

Do you still think our current defence is better than the threepeat defence ?

I never said threepeat and I never said it was better

I said it had the makings of a better defense than our 2012-14 team and YES.

 

[kirbatron]

Rebuilds of this nature are not for the faint hearted....

However I'm sure the team expected us to be a bit more competitive than this. our system is awful.

I had us getting around the 6 W - hard to see this right now - a competitive effort against North is what I am hoping (yes it has come to that)

A. competitive. effort. against. north.

 

[TylerDurden]

Rebuilds of this nature are not for the faint hearted....

However I'm sure the team expected us to be a bit more competitive than this. our system is awful.

I had us getting around the 6 W - hard to see this right now - a competitive effort against North is what I am hoping (yes it has come to that)

A. competitive. effort. against. north.

I'm the same. I just can't see how we're going to score at present. Lewis is that big of a loss.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

It’s good Sydney put the cue in the rack last 10 mins or it would have been 120 points not 81.

 

[theiaofseed]

It’s good Sydney put the cue in the rack last 10 mins or it would have been 120 points not 81.

and if we didn't in the third quarter it would'nt have blown out either, fun game to play.

 

[Lickmesocks]

Question:

If someone had of asked you a month ago if you'd take a loss to the Swans in Round 2 with 4 less inside 50's and 15 less contested possessions , but we'd have Day get 26 disposals and 7 clearances, Newcombe get 26 and 5, Worpel 22 and 6 with Ward and MacKenzie also getting games in the middle..... Would you have taken that?

I know we are looking for any positive we can find but an 80 point loss and kicking 4 goals in perfect conditions, no I wouldn’t take that.

 

[Tanami]

Its round 2 and what's been highlighted is a severe lack of effort.

Why ?

The established players have set a very poor example to the kids.

I find this troubling.......did we make the right call on Capt and leadership group ?

Are they just to comfortable?

Wasn't a fan of Sicily being made Capt.

Too laconic for mine.

I want to see intensity and concentration and accountability.

Its round 2 and there seems to be no genuine excitement or intensity ?

With Big Boy gone and Gunston maybe the era of elder statesman who demands effort has also left the building.