Mega Thread Round 5 Vent/Toast/Roast thread

[Rochford54]

I agree with Nate. This Bulldogs team is not very good and is playing to a game plan that it does not have the talent to extract the result it desires. No question of determination or effort, just lacks the skills required at this stage. As for Higgins, if he is as goods as he thinks he is, how come he made the same mistake twice when kicking from 50 out on set shots. He is a douce bag. Nothing more nothing less.

 

[the dog's kennel]

Our disposal by foot has been on a downward trend since 2011. Surprise. We lost Leon Cameron to the Hawks. Meanwhile they become one of the best by foot. I'm not saying Leon Cameron should've been coach. But for chrissakes can we get someone in that can teach the boys to kick. Macca keeps saying its the basics that cost us but where is the solution.

Sorry, this could not be more incorrect.

Our disposal by foot has actually been on a downward trend since 2008. The days of our team being super precise passers is long gone. Ever since the 07-08 pre-season we've progressively become an increasingly inside team - tougher, harder and also less skilled. That progression has now continued to the point that we're not even nailing 3m handpasses.

We simply need Howard, Tutt & co to step up and replace Eagleton, Aka, Gilbee etc. cause it's a personnel thing as much as anything.

As for the Hawks, they have been a highly skilled team since 2007.

 

[the dog's kennel]

To those advocating tanking, the great thing about this year is we don't need to.

There is simply no way we are going to come higher than 14th. And we'll probably end up 15th. We are a mediocre team in a particularly strong 2012 competition. Teams like Brisbane and Richmond will be playing for 13th - and they are well above us.

So what's the point of tanking, and dicing with the ONE thing our team has going for it (spirit), simply to upgrade our Number 5 draft pick to a Number 3 draft pick?

We'll be getting plenty of great players in this draft, regardless of our efforts. Let's keep the boys having a dip, cause in 3-4 years we'll be needing that attitude (see Melbourne).

 

[TheHellene]

Yep and we will take the 5 best shortest players in the draft coz the only substandard thing about us is our recruiting !

 

[LondonBulldog]

Butune, you should know by now I'm no troll, and you obviously missed my point and dont get to Willy games.

The point was by promoting Austin you are delaying the chance to promote Campbell or JJ (until injuriedtoday) who were clearly the best two players on form who could help our team.

Austin is not the far ahead on our backmen. In fact he had 6 goals kicked on him the easter weekend down torquay constantly being outmarked. Also did some good things that day but in man on man deals is average. Haven't given up on him but should not have been promoted ahead of the other two just because they felt we needed a back for 1 game. Short sighted poor decision in my view.

Whoever came in for Lake last week was not going to be the difference between us winning and losing.

 

[josh the gent]

Butune, you should know by now I'm no troll, and you obviously missed my point and dont get to Willy games.

The point was by promoting Austin you are delaying the chance to promote Campbell or JJ (until injuriedtoday) who were clearly the best two players on form who could help our team.

Austin is not the far ahead on our backmen. In fact he had 6 goals kicked on him the easter weekend down torquay constantly being outmarked. Also did some good things that day but in man on man deals is average. Haven't given up on him but should not have been promoted ahead of the other two just because they felt we needed a back for 1 game. Short sighted poor decision in my view.

Whoever came in for Lake last week was not going to be the difference between us winning and losing.

The thing is with Austin, is that he's clearly a class above when playing VFL. Most Carlton fans will tell you that he would have been a player at Carlton, had it not been for injury.

Give him time and I think he'll come good. He just needs a clear uninjured run at games, and we should be looking at a pretty useful backman.

Morris isn't going to be around forever, and Austin is roughly his size...

 

[tonydean]

There are 3 games left for the season we have a realistic chance of winning. They are:

Gold Coast at Tio in a few weeks.

Port and Brisbane in consecutive weeks at Etihad about round 14 or so.

Stating this, we win between 3-5 games for the year and have 2 picks in the top 6-7 in this years draft!

 

[TempleKelvington]

The thing is with Austin, is that he's clearly a class above when playing VFL. Most Carlton fans will tell you that he would have been a player at Carlton, had it not been for injury.

Give him time and I think he'll come good. He just needs a clear uninjured run at games, and we should be looking at a pretty useful backman.

Morris isn't going to be around forever, and Austin is roughly his size...

I agree with you on Austin in as much as he needs more of a run at it before we can make the call. He has missed a lot of footy. I also agree we need to be on the look out for guys that in a year or 2 can play that Hargrave/Morris role. Austin is about the right size. Panos is another who I feel can step up to that role. Easton Wood also. The other one who I think is now in calculations is Grant. I mentioned this in another post. I am warming to Grant as a defender, quick, tall and a really good mark. His field kicking is actually ok. Could play small or tall.

Hooper is also going through a transition of sorts. I'd like to see him given a chance at AFL level as a defender.

On my wish list after last weeks game for this year is to see the following.

Grant played as a defender for entire games (and for as many games as possible).

Hooper and Panos also as defenders.

Tom Hill given his chance as a forward not too worried about him rucking at this stage.

I would also like to see Pearce and Talia Debut. JJ was in that category also so i hope his knee is not too bad.

I am excited about Campbell. But if I'm honest for this year I want to see Cords and Roughy get as many games into them as possible. Campbell promotion would limit that. But if he keeps playing well hard to not give him his shot too.

 

[nicko77]

As a lifelong dedicated Bulldogs fan who drove down from Sydney (so desperate I am to see my beloved Dogs play) I feel I should gives some of my observations from observing the game at close quarters, given how frustrated we all are at what we are seeing week in and week out.

Firstly, for those wondering why set shots were missed kicking to the left of screen, there was acually a breeze which was affecting kicking in general to the left of screen and pushing it wide to the boundaries. It wasn't obvious from ground level but noticeable only the low punching balls hit targets over the whole day.

First quarter: Worst quarter of football I have seen in a long time, won our share of ball but completely stagnate, no run or spread, very hesitant to take risks and run the ball through the middle of the ground and no marking targets up forward (mind you it's hard to mark the ball when it's kicked on your head all day). Also turned it over a lot with bad footskills. Generally lifeless performance. Chip and stop, chip and stop the whole quarter until we turned it over. Only positives were that Wallis and Cordy were playing well and winning their positions. Lake was very disappointing, dropping the head, clearly frustrated that he wasn't playing the way he would like. I gave him a spray twice over the fence about attacking the contest and running, I'm glad to say his confidence grew as the game wore on.

Second quarter: Very good, dominated clearances, better spread, no coincidence this happened once more pace was brought around the ball and guys like coincided with getting more pace around the ball, as Griffen, Cooney and Sherman really started to break the lines and build on the inside work of Boyd, Cross, Minson and Wallis. GWS at times had all 18 players within about 70m of goals trying to stem the tide. Grant and Higgins particularly impressive with their work around the forward half in this quarter, they're general leading and attacking of the ball was good, Jones getting killed (still) by Davis. We got hurt on the counter a couple of times by Cameron albet against a player who was clearly out of his depth playing last line of defence in Austin. With a Morris or even Williams I think the body pressure would have been sufficient to move him in the contest and it would have been an even more dominant quarter.

Third quarter: More of an arm wrestle, against the breeze, just workmanlike. A lot of possession but couldn't really run the ball through the middle, looked a bit slow. I thought the defence generally tightened up a fair bit, still struggling with Cameron as we did all day and Curtley Hampton got over the back of the contest a few times and hurt us. GWS were kicking with a 2+ goal wind under normal circumstances and really didn't do much damage or enter their forward 50 much. They had plenty of bodies behind the ball as per usual but their defence stood pretty tall also. I'm not sure what Murphy was doing but he let some young bloke frustrate him after quarter time, often his opponent had back to the play tugging and niggling him off the ball. Davis by this stage had completely destroyed Liam Jones, who could hardly lay a hand on the ball.

Final quarter: Pretty disapponting that we couldn't finish them off a bit more, just a lack of energy really at the end, and a couple of players were tried in some different positions, like Grant who did ok. Davis went forward for them which let Jones off the hook and he fought back hard, although Izzy Folau had no idea how to defend him and had taken a heavy knock to his shoulder earlier in the match.

Overall i think our contested ball is very good, right up there to be competitive with most sides in this area, but we definitely lack leg speed and skill by foot with this high possession game. We also don't run hard enough to create options after taking posession, it looks very disjointed and that players aren't sure when and where they shoudl be running to when we have possession. End result is generally, very slow ball movement, leading to a lot of difficult one on ones for our young key forwards. The defence is badly missing some key players affecting the structure. Murphy was tagged all day, Veszpremi was ok but nothing special, Addison and Wood are playing far more defensive roles with the injuries. Lake looked rusty.

In attack we look undermanned and need a leading full forward target, Grant's got to be a third tall/ half forward leading higher up the ground for minel. Cordy and Jones still very raw and need to get stronger still, which will happen over time, but both can play. Scoring goals generally looks difficult and the slow ball movement makes it hard for players like Higgins, Cooney and Gia to get involved (although I though Higgins and Cooney actually were two of our best players). Going to be a long year, we'll scrape a few more wins IF we can get some more cohesiveness in our ball movement because we are winning our share and have some fantastic inside players, but the young guys definitely need to learn they have to work harder off the ball to create options and space and geenrate more run from the back half and centre of the ground to give some more space for our forward to lead into.

Roughead was hardly given any on ball time this week, played deep in defence and needs a good run on the ball.

 

[dogwatch]

I was there too and agree with your comments, Nicko. Well thought out.

Jones was interesting and quite rightly got criticised for his first half but I thought he had a go in the second half and took 2 or 3 great grabs.

Someone with his contested marking ability is gold and we really need to nurture him. He is not as exciting this year because he is the main target (sometimes the only target) in the forward line. Last year we went for Hall and defenders gravitated to him. This allowed Jones to crash the pack and take some great grabs. Now he's got 2 or 3 defenders around him and he's being bodied while the ball is still crossing the centre line.

Things will improve for Jones when we have another viable and dangerous marking target (say Hill, Cordy - if he can start holding onto them - or Campbell) and maybe some leadup targets as well like Higgins, Gia, Grant or perhaps Panos. This will force the defence to divide their attention instead of focussing on Jones.

 

[Butane]

Butune, you should know by now I'm no troll, and you obviously missed my point and dont get to Willy games.

The point was by promoting Austin you are delaying the chance to promote Campbell or JJ (until injuriedtoday) who were clearly the best two players on form who could help our team.

Austin is not the far ahead on our backmen. In fact he had 6 goals kicked on him the easter weekend down torquay constantly being outmarked. Also did some good things that day but in man on man deals is average. Haven't given up on him but should not have been promoted ahead of the other two just because they felt we needed a back for 1 game. Short sighted poor decision in my view.

Whoever came in for Lake last week was not going to be the difference between us winning and losing.

Fair enough. I think we do need to be mindful of playing to many younger/experienced players all at once. Depending on injuries and which teams we're playing I can see us rotating younger players through.

I really do need to get down the Willy games. Reading reports and listening to it on radio isn't the same. Can't wait till there are games at the Willy oval again so I can walk my dog down.

 

[Ant_]

Thanks for your write up Nicko