Autopsy Round 9, 2022: Hawks chewed on by Tigers

[Sizzlesilk]

Sorry, but I am not sure what point you are trying to make here.


Please point out where I was flinging crap. Dont worry, I'll wait....

You clearly have some issues dealing with people politely dude, I guess some of us get more emotional after a loss than others so I'll put it down to that.

I really hope Worpel finds some touch and I am all for keeping him in the side to do that.

We are on the same side mate, perhaps you need to cool your jets.

You were clearly not on the game day thread then with numerous posts telling him to ** off, ** player, Junk, get in the bin etc etc.

If you think that’s appropriate from a supporter base to a young player not selecting himself and with issues that have hindered his performance you are certainly the keyboard warrior I describe.

I’d much prefer to criticise people tapping on a keyboard than a kid pulling on our jumper.

 

[stonehawk]

North - Lynch injured in 2nd quarter, Reeves rucked to exhaustion with little support. Had the better of Goldstein and Xerri when fresh.
Port - Reeves/McEvoy rucked out the game. Port dominated around the clearance as we played an extreme version of our counter-attack.
Carlton - Reeves/Nash. Reeves rucked to exhaustion - Reeves dominated taps in middle, but was out-muscled by Pittonet around the ground. Nash was woeful.
St Kilda - Reeves/Nash. Nash was much more competitive, and Ryder/Marshall are good ruck division.
Geelong - Reeves injured in 1st quarter. Kosi/Nash pinch hitting. Geelong don't have any rucks either.
Sydney - Lynch/Nash. Lynch rucked to exhaustion. Nash injured late. Ladhams got better and better, dominating the 4th quarter.
Melbourne - Lynch/Callow. Lynch rucked to exhaustion, spent time on bench injured. Callow is an undersized KPP, just a jumping bag in the ruck. Gawn had his way with Lynch after half time.
Essendon - Lynch/Callow. Lynch rucked to exhaustion, spent time on bench injured. Thrashed Draper in first half, then Draper extracted revenge in the second half.
Richmond - Lynch/Kosi. Lynch rucked to exhaustion (1st half), Kosi took most of 3rd quarter and start of last. Richmond didn't get the obvious ascendency as per Sydney, Melbourne and Essendon games but still comfortably on top. Again, Lynch spent time on bench for treatment.

You can line-up a pretty strong correlation between when the opposition got a run on each week, with either injury, or the performance of our ruck (Reeves/Lynch) slowly deteriorating as they tire. Lynch has a strong propensity to get a knock late in the 2nd/early 3rd quarter. Perhaps with fatigue he starts to lose some awareness of his surroundings?

We will face a new challenge once Reeves is fit - two rucks who can win the position for 1/4 to 1/2 a game, can we make them work together? This will require more run from other players (less rotations), and likely the rucks to rest forward - will that crowd out and impact on the Lewis/Kosi/Gunston trio?

100% agree that our ruck situation is a key reason we keep getting run over. Lynch is trying his heart out but when he tires the opposition takes over. Makes it hard to win clearances. Here are our hit out stats for the last 6 weeks:

Richmond 60:22
Essendon 41:23
Melbourne: 42:22
Sydney 40:27
Geelong 47:26
Saints 33:25




Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[hk89]

It's interesting, on one hand we did suffer more thrashing but on the other hand I would argue our player and list development was far more advanced during this period. In 2005 we had 3 AA selections in Hodge, Croad and Everitt. Williams lead the Coleman halfway through the season and Roughead, Lewis and Franklin were developing nicely. Our core players during this time i.e. Hodge, Mitchell etc was also a lot younger. By the end of 2006 with 4 big wins in row, talk of finals for 2007 was no longer deemed unrealistic. Compared to now, I agree the performances are more competitive, certainly less 60 point+ thrashings, but if I had choice of which list I would want the 2005-06 takes this battle every day of week.

I think it is easy to forget the gnashing of teeth that was happening at the time. Especially in 2004 before we drafted Roughy and Franklin. Even in 2005, I think there is a lot of rose-coloured glasses being applied. Franklin kicked 21 which was very decent for his first year in the system, and he definitely had star quality even that early, but to put it in context, Kozi played his first senior game last year, and kicked 27. Roughy kicked 6 in his first year from 16 games, although from memory might have spent time in defense? Lewis didn't play any games in his first year, and didn't kick any goals in second year, but only played 2 games. Played only 12 games in his third year, and kicked 20 goals from those 12. Now I'm not at all saying Lewis and Kozi are more promising than Lance and Roughy were at the time (I don't think they are), but their development has actually been very good, and if they continue to build on where they are now, they'll be a lot better than I was expecting either of them to be (especially Lewis). Yes, Hodge got AA in 2005, after 4 years on the list, but plenty questioned if we'd made the right pick , given he averaged under 16 disposals a game for all of his first 3 years. Jordan Lewis played 19 games in his first year, and was very decent. It is a bit tricky to compare his numbers to Jai because Jai didn't come in at the start of the season last year, but comparing Jordan's 2005 to Jai's 2022, Jai's numbers are better.

It is very easy to say using hindsight you'd prefer the 2005-06 list after they won a flag 2 years later, and then 3 more flags in a row with a big chunk of the young players in that group a few years after that, but at the time it wasn't as easy to see we were heading for 4 flags, and plenty of people posting on here were doubtful we were on the right track. Development trajectories are hard to predict, but we have quite a few very inexperienced players on our list, many of whom are very talented , but will need time to reach peak performance given their lack of games under the belt. We had more than half our best 22 on the weekend with under 50 games (12 players), compared to only 4 for Richmond, but despite that huge gap in experience, put up a decent effort (in terms of actual games, we averaged 74, and Richmond 135.

Personally, I'm optimistic of where we are at, I don't think we've messed up any of our recent high picks, although I'd concede it is perhaps too early to tell on a couple of them. We messed up a few first rounders back during our last big list build. I'm not saying this list is as talented as what we had after the 2004 draft, but I'm not greedy. I don't need 4 flags from every finals winning team Hawthorn builds, and I think it is quite possible for us to turn what we have now into competitive finals winning unit. Another point I'd make is that I suspect that we have a more even spread of talent now than we had in 2004/2005. There is no denying the top end talent that list had, but I think I trust our bottom 6 in the current team more than I did the worst players in the 22 back in 2004. Looking at our thumping at the hands of North in round 17 2004 , I see names like this in the best 22:
Tim Clarke, Nathan Lonie, Nick Ries, Simon Beaumont, Ben Kane, Steven Greene, Mathew Ball. Some loyal servants there, but hard to say that was a talent laden bunch. Then there were others who had been good at some point like Hay, but long past their best by then. I'd put Holland in that basket too. Like Holland, Lekkas retired the next year too. Then some semi decent, but definitely not star qaulity players such as Graham, Brown, Joel Smith.

Sorry, but I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that that list was in a lot of trouble , and that we actually deserved the two priority picks we got at the time. Yes, we had Mitchell, Hodge, Bateman , Croad and Williams, but until the priority picks (one of which we stuffed up) allowed us to get Roughy, Lewis and Franklin in the same year , it is probably arguable that the 2004 list had a good deal less to work with than the 2022 list because the bottom half of the best 22 in 2004 was somewhat of a basket case, and IMO way worse than the bottom half of our 2022 list.

What I'm most concerned about is that by the time we fix the midfield which I expect to take a minimum 2-3 seasons to sort out, then the defence and forward line will need fixing especially as McEvoy, Gunston, Breust, Wingard and maybe even Sicily (30 in 2025) etc start to decline or outright retire.

Yes, we'll have to replace a few players over the next 3 years, all clubs have turnover, if anything we'll be about average in that regard given we've already churned the majority of our 30+ aged players in the last 4 or 5 seasons, bringing us back to the pack in regards number of old folks on our list.

Wingard is still only 28, and could easily play in a Hawthorn finals winning team. We won a flag 4 years after the 2004 season, with IMO a worse starting point (especially if you count from the end of the season, and exclude the draft haul that year).

 

[Paul Kersey]

RE the DGB commentary...

I 'member lots of Hawthorn supporters being very critical of one J Roughead when he was about 12 games deep into his career.

My view is we've got to get young Denver to 50 games. And it probably behooves us to do that as quickly as is feasible. Between now and then, I'm just looking for little things - glimpses - in the hope that we're good over the longer term.

He’ll be a gun IMO.

 

[smeltitdeltit]

Cornes saying we need another 4 to 5 years to bolster our mid field to where it needs to be.

 

[Buttonsticher]

Cornes saying we need another 4 to 5 years to bolster our mid field to where it needs to be.

Cornes doesn't get the comedic accolades he deserves

 

[extractasam]

I will say, 3 Tigers goals (Graham, Nank, Dusty) were complete 1 in 100 shots. They miss those and who knows what happens come the end of the game when Worpel kicks that absolute belter.

Considering the ball was being walked out of centre bounces they hurt us even more.

 

[Roger Rogerson]

Newk gets tackled, takes a while and makes a legal handball = HTB
Seconds later TLynch gets tackled, makes no attempt then tosses it out = Ball up
Nankervis grabs the ball at a centre bounce, tucks it in, gets tackled and makes no attempt = Ball up
That last was a big play with less than two goals margin and minutes left

Yep I was going nuts about it at the ground.

 

[cryptor]

Ultimately not an unexpected result given our season so far. Plenty to like, just as much not to.

What I think is a really good sign is that we're able to get out to these leads and/or get close to reeling them back in when they get out. The more pessimistic among us will say it doesn't matter if we still end up coughing up the lead or letting it blow out late. But the thing is this is a developing side and over time we'll see more of our best footy and less of our worst. It's not as simple as "well we were great in this quarter, why can't we just do that for the whole game?". Even at our peak during the threepeat years we were never "perfect". We just played our best footy more often than our worst, and usually more often than our opposition, and our best was very good and our worst was typically not that bad either.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

Something we need to realise is that with the state of our midfield (not just lack of quality but we literally have very few pure midfielders on our list to select each week) we are going to need a lot, and I mean a lot, to go right in the other parts of our game to win.

Yesterday we got pulverised in the middle and yet were not without a sneaky chance to pinch the game late due to our forward and back lines performance.

Essentially every match we go into this year (apart from maybe North) we will be playing with a midfield handicap which really does make it hard to string more than the odd win here and there.

Given that I think Sam is doing a great job with this side as I challenge anyone to name any other coach who could do better with the midfielders he has at to work with.

 

[Mercy Seat]

Something we need to realise is that with the state of our midfield (not just lack of quality but we literally have very few pure midfielders on our list to select each week) we are going to need a lot, and I mean a lot, to go right in the other parts of our game to win.

Yesterday we got pulverised in the middle and yet were not without a sneaky chance to pinch the game late due to our forward and back lines performance.

Essentially every match we go into this year (apart from maybe North) we will be playing with a midfield handicap which really does make it hard to string more than the odd win here and there.

Given that I think Sam is doing a great job with this side as I challenge anyone to name any other coach who could do better with the midfielders he has at to work with.

We’ve got holes all over the ground, but that’s just the nature of a rebuild.

The mid needs a lot of work, but you’re painting it as one of the worst mids of all time. We’ve got a brownlow medalist, rising star and youngest pc medallist of all time in there, plus some gun kids. I think they’re hopelessly out of form, plus massively hamstrung by not really having a decent ruck option, plus a few other factors such as illness. I still think we can get plenty more out of them this year.

 

[Yardie]

Something we need to realise is that with the state of our midfield (not just lack of quality but we literally have very few pure midfielders on our list to select each week) we are going to need a lot, and I mean a lot, to go right in the other parts of our game to win.

Yesterday we got pulverised in the middle and yet were not without a sneaky chance to pinch the game late due to our forward and back lines performance.

Essentially every match we go into this year (apart from maybe North) we will be playing with a midfield handicap which really does make it hard to string more than the odd win here and there.

Given that I think Sam is doing a great job with this side as I challenge anyone to name any other coach who could do better with the midfielders he has at to work with.

I think we need to wait until we are able to play two ruckman before we can truly understand how bad the midfield is running. First quarter against the Cats we had Reeves killing it and had like 10-25 disposals before the cats touched the ball at the start.

 

[TylerDurden]

Guys. We lost the hitouts 22-60. What midfield on earth could benefit from that?
Also Nank has had 8 clearances. Was one of the great ruck dominations. Unfortunately, our rebuilding midfield are up against it before a ball is bounced, until the ruck cavalry arrive. And who knows when that will be.

 

[TylerDurden]

I think we need to wait until we are able to play two ruckman before we can truly understand how bad the midfield is running. First quarter against the Cats we had Reeves killing it and had like 10-25 disposals before the cats touched the ball at the start.

On point.

 

[ahhhhhh]

We’ve got holes all over the ground, but that’s just the nature of a rebuild.

The mid needs a lot of work, but you’re painting it as one of the worst mids of all time. We’ve got a brownlow medalist, rising star and youngest pc medallist of all time in there, plus some gun kids. I think they’re hopelessly out of form, plus massively hamstrung by not really having a decent ruck option, plus a few other factors such as illness. I still think we can get plenty more out of them this year.

Or maybe Worpel and Mitchell just aren’t very good any more? I think we need to stop making excuses for what has been in the bottom three (arguably the worst) midfield for the last 3 years and move one.

 

[Kanga Commando]

Or maybe Worpel and Mitchell just aren’t very good any more? I think we need to stop making excuses for what has been in the bottom three (arguably the worst) midfield for the last 3 years and move one.

Pretty sure we are worst for centre clearances this year... Makes me feel sorry for the deluge on the backs.

 

[ahhhhhh]

Pretty sure we are worst for centre clearances this year...

We are, but even ignoring individual statistics I can’t remember a game in recent memory where our midfield has looked on top.

Im very glad we’ve got Newcombe and Nash in there now who show some defensive intent, but we have a long way to go.

 

[TheFourPillars]

We are, but even ignoring individual statistics I can’t remember a game in recent memory where our midfield has looked on top.

Im very glad we’ve got Newcombe and Nash in there now who show some defensive intent, but we have a long way to go.

Newcombe is actually playing the receiver. His time is spent mostly on the outside

 

[Simon Crawshay]

We’ve got holes all over the ground, but that’s just the nature of a rebuild.

The mid needs a lot of work, but you’re painting it as one of the worst mids of all time. We’ve got a brownlow medalist, rising star and youngest pc medallist of all time in there, plus some gun kids. I think they’re hopelessly out of form, plus massively hamstrung by not really having a decent ruck option, plus a few other factors such as illness. I still think we can get plenty more out of them this year.

The thing is though that's it not so much what form our mids are in (although you are right some like Worpel are really out of form) but the fact that we have drafted so few midfielders up untill the last couple of drafts.

So other teams like the Doggies have surplus mids that they try to squeeze into the backline whereas we try to squeeze half back flankers into the midfield (which is much harder to pull off).

And it's not just this year. When was the last time you can actually remember our midfield dominating a game in the way Mitchell, Hodge, Lewis, Sewell used to?

It's also not that I consider our midfield to be the worst of all time (although it's plainy not great) but that other teams seemed to have put a heck of a lot more resources into their midfield to compete in the modern AFL whilst we were drafting half back flankers at every opportunity.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

Guys. We lost the hitouts 22-60. What midfield on earth could benefit from that?
Also Nank has had 8 clearances. Was one of the great ruck dominations. Unfortunately, our rebuilding midfield are up against it before a ball is bounced, until the ruck cavalry arrive. And who knows when that will be.

Our three peat midfield used to carve sides up with Taylor, Renouf, Bailey etc in the ruck so I don't think it's all due to our ruck woes.

In saying that a Gawn or Darcy wouldn't hurt right about now!

 

[The hands of stone]

Cornes saying we need another 4 to 5 years to bolster our mid field to where it needs to be.

I now feel very confident the midfield will be sorted in 2 years

 

[Roger Rogerson]

I think we need to wait until we are able to play two ruckman before we can truly understand how bad the midfield is running. First quarter against the Cats we had Reeves killing it and had like 10-25 disposals before the cats touched the ball at the start.

I walked away from yesterday with the same thought. Plus it's stuffing up our KPs development too pushing them into the ruck. Our backline won't know itself once our midfield starts breaking even. The positive is the stress that the backline is being put thru should fasttrack their understanding of each other.

 

[Cyril says]

Pretty happy with what I’ve seen from Sam Mitchell - has outcouched more talented lists most weeks.

We’re getting run over - that’s a young midfield running out of gas.

Gotta feel for young guys esp Worps - it’ll get better and I hope he sticks with us and the fans get off his back.

 

[westhawk]

Cornes doesn't get the comedic accolades he deserves

Looking at his latest haircut he should. Not only does he sound stupid, he looks stupid aswell. The bloke is just a clickbait tosser.

 

[The hands of stone]

Still a fair bit of the season to play out .

I want to see how we look with Reeves/Lynch getting an extended run at it . Lynch is basically getting fitness in game.
It could really change things in the midfield ( may not but could )

CJ back also potentially releases another mid rotation for us .
Also want to see our 'rebounders' all get an extended run of games which hasnt happened yet .

A lot can happen from now before end of season .