Autopsy Round 7, 2024: Positives and Negatives vs Free Kick Gold Coast

[ziad]

If Oscar can get fit then a 3 pronged fwd line of Oscar, Jake the snake and JD could be fun to watch and JD would surely benefit

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That gives us only one tall froward and he isn't really tall.

 

[BeornJ]

Positives:
I ran into Josh Kennedy at the Geraldton Pool (daughter had a friend's bday there) and I asked him for a score update.

Negatives:
The update was at the end of the third quarter

 

[Eastcoasteagle]

Not related to this game but I was trying to look for stats on Cripps when a few things stood out to me about Darling.

For the 2024 season amongst Key Forwards in the AFL he is top 10 in the following stats:

• 4th for tackles inside 50.
• 5th for tackles.
• =8th for pressure acts.
• =6th for spoils.
• =8th for defensive half pressure acts.
• =5th for rebound 50s (admittedly this is only 2).
• =5th for ground ball gets.
• =6th for forward 50 ground ball gets.
• =10th for contested marks.
• =7th for score launches.

That's a lot more than I thought I would find him in. The contested marks really surprised me, feels like he hasn't taken more than 2.

He's hardly a star anymore but they're decent enough numbers for him on the way down from his lofty peak. It paints the picture of a defensive player putting in the hard yards but lacking in offensive output.

It would be nice if he could do a little more on offence but I dare say he's doing more than meets the eye to help players like Waterman shine at the very least.

If he could get more marks on the lead I think that opens up the offence side for him completely by either generating shots or being involved in a new way for score involvements. Not sure how stuffed his body is though and whether he can improve this at all. With 35 i50s today and most of them being crap it would be a struggle.

He might be on a fast decline but I feel like he does more grunt work than people realise. It will be interesting to see what he's playing like when Allen comes back and whether he keeps his spot.

Interesting insights, and good to see. As I felt yesterdays game he looked like he dropped off again and was back to his first few games form where he looked poor. Sydney, Tigers and Freo I really liked his intensity and he was really competing hard and he would've had a stack of 1%'s in those games that really helps the young guys.

Hopefully write it off as a bad game for him.

 

[BeornJ]

I don't think tenuous is the right way to describe it, more fledgling. If anything it highlights how short the attention span is of a standard AFL supporter and how fickle the AFL media is. After a couple of wins against average opponents suddenly all is swell again and we can forget about how much we stank in the first 3 rounds and over the past 3 years and we're on a linear upwards run. This obviously isn't so and it'll more like small improvements with setbacks.

Still a lot of spots on the list that need to be addressed.

This is a very reasonable, intelligent and well thought out response.

.......are you okay?

 

[Bender_]

This is a very reasonable, intelligent and well thought out response.

.......are you okay?

...

Positives:
I ran into Josh Kennedy at the Geraldton Pool (daughter had a friend's bday there) and I asked him for a score update.

Negatives:
The update was at the end of the third quarter

And how was his reaction to seeing your head pop over the toilet cubicle wall to ask him for the score update?

 

[Sammy J]

That would easily have been a 10 goal plus loss last year or earlier this season. They only got away in the last 5-10 minutes and the score line flatters them.

Thought the backline held up very well, under a lot of pressure from volume of inside 50’s. Harry Edwards was very good, arguably the best game I’ve seen him play at the level. Gov continues his excellent campaign, likewise Hough was also solid.

Waterman continued his rich vein of form. Unbelievable how good he has been lately. Forwards in general capitalized on low supply and kicked well.

Midfield didn’t have the power to go against GC’s engine room, which were also assisted by whistle happy umps. Bailey got a bath by Witts, games like this we miss Flynn and his experience/size/physicality. Hopefully he’s not far off.

I took some positives from that performance. Hopefully we can give the Bombers a run for their money this weekend with some handy ins.

 

[BeornJ]

...



And how was his reaction to seeing your head pop over the toilet cubicle wall to ask him for the score update?

Well..... do you remember his reaction to kicking the winning goal vs Richmond at Optus?

 

[Reminiscence]

Couple of observations being at Sundays game:



General:

- Maric played the HHF sacrificial winger side, which I really dislike. He’ s an elite balluser and I feel he’s wasted sitting on an island out there where the ball rarely comes to him

- Sheed/LEdwards off HFF felt pretty wasteful.

- Hough made some excellent decisions that didn’t pay off. Peeled off at the right time, just didn’t impact the groundball which led to easy goals. It’s a good sign that he knew when to leave his man, just needs to clean up the other stuff.



Positives:

- I was really impressed with Ginbey’s work ethic to get back in defence. While he wouldn’t have been seen on TV, he covered a lot of ground to cover our defense. Might have been 3rd quarter where he sat under a ball and got annihilated, but that wasn’t the first time he had worked that hard to assist.

- Heckler yelling for razor ray to suck a big fat one

- J. Train had a really strong and solid game – worked really hard and got rewarded for effort

- Harry Edwards filled in very nicely for Barrass. Was really solid defensively.

- McGovern’s game sense is second to none. Just reads the ball and the general play so well, its super impressive to have seen in person.

Negatives:

- Midfield got annihilated and it started from Witts dominating Bailey in every contest. Big year of development for Batman as Bailey really was disappointing.

- Darling works his ass off, but his best is clearly behind him. He also has terrible hands.

- If Petrucelle was as smart as he was fast, he would be an insane player. Has zero awareness and is extremely frustrating as a player. Was in the centre bounce a fair bit and did nothing – rather Simmo give these opportunities to Ginbey.

- For a ‘hard-working’ player, Cripps is pretty lazy for me this game. Had very little impact, very little gut running.

- Ryan had zero impact.

 

[Doashuey]

I'd really want Ginbey to be challenged.

I would have loved him to have run with role today with Matt Rowell and just tell him to shut him down. He is competitive and athletic enough to really hone his defensive side of the game and build on it from there. Then again maybe it old school way the game is played nowadays.

Ive seen a few suggest this. I reckon Rowell is not the sort of player that can be shut down with a standard tagger. Especially yesterday where any sort of contact against him was being rewarded with a free. He gets the bulk of his possessions inside the contest and usually has one or two blokes hanging off him and manages to burst through or dish hands. Those sort of players cant be shut down with a 'run-with ' player unless they are allowed to scrag and block- something that resulted in a whistle every time today.
I don't mind the idea of Ginby doing a tagging role but to get the benefit of learning running patterns etc, it needs to be with a more balanced or outside midfielder that gets possessions in space.

 

[Bender_]

- For a ‘hard-working’ player, Cripps is pretty lazy for me this game. Had very little impact, very little gut running.

Oh boy

 

[UseR2006]

The thing that bugged me about Rowell is that when he tries to get out of traffic unlike yeo who is all hip strength and moving through stoppage or Reid who has the fend off and swivel to ditch a tackle, he would thrash about swinging his elbows around wrecking people until they dropped off.

One of these days he'll collect someone flush with an elbow and do serious damage. He did it near every time.

And because he does this tackles slip and he gets frees for it. So much so he leads the comp for frees for.

 

[HoneyBadger35]

funny how we took the piss out of the Freo board blaming umps last week but do the same thing here.

Umps were quick to call frees but our mids were obviously hyper conscious of Witts’s dominance and were worried about the Suns mids capitalising on that.

Suns stoppage/contested setup is elite - said it last year and it remains the same.

But when we do it it’s cute!

Just made for a frustrating watch. Play that game again with neutral umpiring, the Suns still win because they absolutely dominated the ruck and got to set up how they wanted as a result. But **** it’s deflating to see Yeo collared time and again, or three or four HTB non calls then they ping a weird one.

Standard of umpiring across the board is woeful and the league seemingly has no issue or certainly not enough to fix it, so this will only get worse.

 

[Bender_]

The thing that bugged me about Rowell is that when he tries to get out of traffic unlike yep who is all hip strength and moving through stoppage or Reid who has the fend off and swivel to ditch a tackle, he would thrash about shipping his elbows around wrecking people until they dropped off.

One of these days he'll collect someone flush with an elbow and do serious damage. He did it near every time.

And because he does this tackles slip and he gets frees for it. So much so he leads the comp for frees for.

Yeah he does that thing that you can do in NBA Jam when you basically lean forward and shake your upper body like a dog after a bath and it sends the opposition flying.

 

[Balls In]

I don't think tenuous is the right way to describe it, more fledgling. If anything it highlights how short the attention span is of a standard AFL supporter and how fickle the AFL media is. After a couple of wins against average opponents suddenly all is swell again and we can forget about how much we stank in the first 3 rounds and over the past 3 years and we're on a linear upwards run. This obviously isn't so and it'll be more like small improvements with setbacks.

Still a lot of spots on the list that need to be addressed.

The concern is coming out of a rebuild with a team that sits you 6 -12th for years. Fremantle for example. The difference between that sort of rebuild and one that can pitch a team at the pointy end of the ladder is immense. We are still at least half a dozen top line young players short and as we improve the chances of us getting those players declines.

 

[FKASC]

Yeah he does that thing that you can do in NBA Jam when you basically lean forward and shake your upper body like a dog after a bath and it sends the opposition flying.

He’s on fire

 

[Bender_]

The concern is coming out of a rebuild with a team that sits you 6 -12th for years. Fremantle for example. The difference between that sort of rebuild and one that can pitch a team at the pointy end of the ladder is immense. We are still half a dozen top line young players short of that imo.

I don't think we're finishing higher than 14th mate, and that's as rosy as it gets for us. Add on top of that some free agents and trades and I think we can build the list pretty well rather than be stuck in middling team limbo like Cockburn and Essendon.

 

[Bender_]

He’s on fire

GC's been playing the tank game so Rowell can get big head mode.

(Sex life)

 

[KERRPOW]

interesting thought.

You'll prob get hammered for bagging Ryan but I agree.

He's an icing on the cake type.

Feel like he rarely gets big tackle numbers either

Hasn't played for ages so hopefully he can build into the season and make an impact

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TBH he's the type of player we should be looking to trade as he would be worth some value to a team in premiership contention.

 

[Bacchus]

TBH he's the type of player we should be looking to trade as he would be worth some value to a team in premiership contention.

I agree that Ryan is an icing on the cake type of player but I get the impression that he is not someone who would want to move from WA.

I cannot see him going well in a big city like Melbourne or Sydney.

 

[FKASC]

I agree that Ryan is an icing on the cake type of player but I get the impression that he is not someone who would want to move from WA.

I cannot see him going well in a big city like Melbourne or Sydney.

Nek minut joins Williegod at port

 

[Cuzz09]

Yeah I could picture him at Port dominating

But not in a Vic side

Also, doubt he really has any currency ATM

If he has a big 2nd half of 24 then it's win win

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[flyinghi64]

Missed the game live, playing golf badly, but watched replay in the evening.
Must say I loved BW start to the game. We won the first clearance out of the center and Yeo was good enough to get the ball to BW who somehow got past him so quickly he put a lead on from the forward line to take a great mark and kick the first goal.
Hang on a minute?????

I will give it a pass considering the personnel missing and the amount down on form.
My god Yeo does some heavy lifting.
Just missing one of Barrass or Gov just destroys our defensive structure so much and I think that alone cost at least 3-4 goals.
Ryan will be better for the run but if he performs the same next week he can join his mates Gaff and Sheed back in the WAFL.

Umpires this year have been atrocious. They seem to pick one team and look after them.
Carlton will attest to that this week. We got a good run with them last week but this week we were on the wrong side of the ledger.

 

[Bacchus]

Nek minut joins Williegod at port

Yeah, maybe, PA didn’t want to pay much for young Willie who is easily best 22 for them.

Willie has far more associations with Adelaide than Ryan has.

 

[Keys]

funny how we took the piss out of the Freo board blaming umps last week but do the same thing here.

Umps were quick to call frees but our mids were obviously hyper conscious of Witts’s dominance and were worried about the Suns mids capitalising on that.

Suns stoppage/contested setup is elite - said it last year and it remains the same.

Last week the free kick count for us was 16-17

This week the free kick count for us was 18-30

Now I get the free kick count doesn’t necessarily have to be even or that the majority of those given to the suns weren’t there. Rowell was being held at stoppage but I see Kelly receive similar treatment in other games and he gets donuts

Yeo was taken high yesterday a couple of times with no free kick. Bailey Williams pushed clear in the back in the marking contest that Mac Andrew took a big mark from 4 deep. Etc etc

Didn’t change the result but made it far easier for them

 

[Bender_]

I'm more on the side of needing experience/leadership on every line in at least one player, and this is where my questioning of Sheed's inclusion becomes a little grey

Midfield we have covered with Yeo and Kelly.
Forward we have Cripps, Ryan and Waterman.

Does having Sheed in help the younger and more inexperienced players on these lines?

I don't want to salt the earth of our older players by any means, but it felt like bringing in Sheed and Ryan for the same game was a bit of a $credits$ type selection and Johnstone would've been better for the run.