The dust has settled....some perspective

[Wayne Arnold]

Lynch was terrible the week before in the VFL practice match. After watching his performance I thought he was no chance of playing. Even if he did play to keep the same structure, he and Witts in the forward line would have made us far too slow and immobile. I think we would have got burnt on the rebound even more so and forward pressure would have been less (if that's possible).

If you look at the players we had available, one of Clarke or Armstrong had to play. Clarke was useless but if Armstrong was picked the majority of posters on here would have been outraged. He may have performed better than Clarke but we'll never know. He is only slightly built so I think against a physical side like Fremantle, he may have been pushed off the ball too easily.

Given the unavailability of key personnel due to injuries, I'm fairly pissed at our fitness staff. We needed to be firing round 1 given our tough draw at the start of the season but with so many key outs, we are now already behind the pack.

 

[ppoiter]

We forced ourselves to start behind the 8 ball, and chased tail all night. Of course pointing out that Buckley ****** up is being a heretic, so I don't expect too much support on this.

No one cares if you say he screwed up, its when people say he cant coach and should never have been appointed that it gets tiresome

 

[piedpiper32]

This was absolutely my greatest frurstration too. It was the same 5 years ago when Sam Fisher would do the mopping up for Ross Lyon, now it is Johnson. How we left him loose, or allowed him to double team Cloke so often is beyond me. He tore us apart, and imo was the best player on the ground. Conversely we have nobody anything like him in our defense who can do the same thing. There is a big problem to start.

I feel we could get away with Nathan Brown as our full back, if he was supported by Ben Reid and we had a Michael Johnson type as the third man in (Maxy doesn't have it anymore). Maybe Scharenberg will be that man in 5 years time, but not in the next couple of years, and this is where we will struggle. Goldsack is too dumb to do it, Maxy has disposal and physical restrictions, and there really is nobody else. How often lately do we see the opposition key forward held down by his direct opponent while a COllingwood player lofts across and takes the mark? Never is the easy answer. UNtil our backline finds a quarterback type and a good third tall/zone off defender, we are going nowhere.

Langdon and Scharenberg both have the ability to play that loose man. Very early call given they have played one game between them, but both read the play well, have good disposal, and are good marks.

Langdon was the biggest positive to come out of the match. He made a couple of mistakes but his composure, skills, and ability to run out the game made for a superb debut. He also seems to have more time than others, a trait of many gun players.

Anyway not wanting to put too much pressure on them, but I think we are set up well in future seasons for quarterbacks from the back half.

As for this season if we insist on playing Reid forward, and with Shaw gone and the Seed out, we have pretty much zero creativity out of our back line.

 

[OniAu]

And on clearances

We won the clearances yes, but they were rushed and ugly quick, blind kicks 30m forward, or a chain of handbills for a 10m gain before causing another stoppage. The stats lie here, Freo's midfield torched us.

The O'Bree clearance, snap around the body without looking. Lands to an opposition hbf who clears the ball back over the midfielders heads

 

[Scodog10]

We chose to let Johnson run free and destroy us all game

Our terrible structures regularly allowed Fremantle to go coast to coast and score easily.

Our forward line structure was woeful

Our coaching group is substandard

1) We ran Goldsack with Johnson Harvey spoke about it in a post match interview. It was a player putting in a bad performance as opposed to the coaching group being under prepared.

2) Agree much of our defensive structure was too shallow when the Dockers were in possession in our forward half.

3) What did you expect? We spent an entire off-season preparing to have White and Reid partner Cloke up front. Sure we could have gone with Lynch, but from the game I watched that would have been akin to attempting to patch the Titanic with duct tape. Their defenders would just have peeled off anyway because he's no longer a forward threat.

4) That's a strong observation off the back of one game considering our midfield was the worst performed line on Friday IMO and the poaching of Burns was universally lauded.

 

[harry1990]

Can only go up from here considering we will probably be on the bottom of the ladder after round 1 finishes

 

[Checkside35]

The likes of Carey, Brayshaw, Lyon and a couple of others are bogans with microphones. Give them a voice and they'll inevitably tow the company line and sensationalise when they think they have to. They'll also go over the top when analysing parts of games of teams they despise. Two cases.
1) Pendles makes a comment about cheating. A few weeks later when we play GWS and they're winning, Brayshaw and Lyon spoke of nothing but cheating and emphasised it for impact.
2) Carey throws around the bruise free line which is absolute bullshit. Not just because it's my team but because the major problems on Friday night were structural and decision making errors. We had a crack when the ball was in close. I was disappointed in Luke Ball's response to Carey's criticism this morning. Churned out the usual crap about Craey being a star of the game....blah blah blah.

 

[Scodog10]

The likes of Carey, Brayshaw, Lyon and a couple of others are bogans with microphones. Give them a voice and they'll inevitably tow the company line and sensationalise when they think they have to. They'll also go over the top when analysing parts of games of teams they despise. Two cases.
1) Pendles makes a comment about cheating. A few weeks later when we play GWS and they're winning, Brayshaw and Lyon spoke of nothing but cheating and emphasised it for impact.
2) Carey throws around the bruise free line which is absolute bullshit. Not just because it's my team but because the major problems on Friday night were structural and decision making errors. We had a crack when the ball was in close. I was disappointed in Luke Ball's response to Carey's criticism this morning. Churned out the usual crap about Craey being a star of the game....blah blah blah.

In fairness to Ball he doesn't gain anything from giving Carey a clip back. All it does is keep us front and centre in the media when it might be best to fly under the radar for a bit.

 

[Checkside35]

In fairness to Ball he doesn't gain anything from giving Carey a clip back. All it does is keep us front and centre in the media when it might be best to fly under the radar for a bit.

Didn't have to give him a clip but something neutral or I don't necessarily agree with that assessment would have been sufficient. You give Carey too much credit for being a great of the game and he's likely to become even more egotistical and sensationalise.

 

[jerry springer]

We lost this game Thursday night.

All preseason we spoke about how cloke needs extra support, how we will play three talls forward. Reid and White get injured, instead of replacing like for like we changed the structure back to what we know doesn't work (2 talls up forward) and expected to be able to kick a winning score like that. When Reid and White went out, Lynch and Witts had to play along side Cloke and Grundy.

What did we get instead? Caff and Sack attempting to be tall forwards with Johnson not only beating them but peeling off onto Cloke, Witts and Grundy being expected to play as a main target without the actual forward ability or strength to do it....meaning Dawson could beat them easily and then yiu guessed it peel onto Cloke. Of course this lead to Cloke being completely nullified and even when we were winning ball in ten first quarter we couldn't put any damage on because our forward line was completely disarray.

There were other issues too; no keeffe, Clarke plays, Kennedy one of if not our best performed in preseason as sub, Langdon on Walters and Sinclair on Ballantyne meaning both had the wrong match up all night.

We forced ourselves to start behind the 8 ball, and chased tail all night. Of course pointing out that Buckley ****** up is being a heretic, so I don't expect too much support on this.

Bang on, the truth hurts around here too much. Buckleys has had 3 preseason's to get a semblance of a gameplan going. Mckenna has a had a far younger team and the Gold coast were far better drilled than our mob last season. So was Port Adelaide with a rookie coach. If I hear one more time that our team is too young I'll ****ing spew

For months Ive read people saying Buck's has the team he wanted now, "this is his list". Well guess what, those people are dead right. Its his team, he did the culling. its time to put up or shut up now. Friday night was pathetic. Our backline pressure is disgraceful,Our forward line setup is worse. Our kicking skills is deplorable. The players play with no emotion. there is no espirit de corp whatsoever. The same could be seen last season clearly

Its pretty easy to see that the players arent buying in to his plan. Buckley is getting paid a lot of money to coach Australia's biggest sporting team. results so far have been poor.

As i said though. the truth hurts

 

[Markfs]

We lost this game Thursday night.

We forced ourselves to start behind the 8 ball, and chased tail all night. Of course pointing out that Buckley ****** up is being a heretic, so I don't expect too much support on this.

No worries about support. We lost by heaps. You'll get a ton of support!

 

[cleomenes]

Looking at Gold Coast and GWS it could be a long cold winter for us and many others. However, our game showed up some weaknesses that have perhaps been masked over the last year. Heath Shaw and Cloke in their respective areas covered up a multitude of sins.
We do not have a side adapted to the grinding gorilla style of football that the latest AFL rules fiddle has created.
Far from helping Cloke, the manhandling reinterpretation is hindering him. He can be held with impunity while the third man marks now.
The shooting for goal continues to be our Achilles heel. It is such a confidence sapper when an inspiring run like Grundy's out of the middle yields only a point, and the simple set shot failures are worse. How can the coaches cure this? The fault here lies in the players' minds. Inaccuracy in front of goal rapidly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. A couple of weeks of it and the season will be gone, as it infects the field kicking. It did on Friday.
The spreading criticism made by many makes sense, but we do have to get the ball before it is worth spreading.
The lack of a great running and creating defender is a self inflicted wound.
Langdon looks like a big gain.
Kennedy must start the game.
Clarke is finished.
Toovey is a way from fitness and form, as is Sinclair. We are expecting a lot of them in this case.
Pendlebury needs some physical protection during the game.
Goldsack will have to show something soon or he is gone.
Lumumba is fine.
Elliott cannot pass accurately.
Sidebottom's game would have looked good if he had kicked straight.
Young must be regretting leaving Hawthorn: he runs to the right places, and nobody gives him the ball.

 

[Bay Pie]

Given our players seem to be drawn to the ball like moths to a flame we absolutely should be winning contested possessions, clearances, and tackles. The problem is it isn't as effective as it should be when everyone is crowded around the ball and there is hardly anyone on the outside to release to.

There has to be a balance between getting numbers to win 50-50 ball, but also having enough options outside the contest to release away. Fremantle seemed to have that balance a lot better than us so were a lot more damaging when they could get the contested ball or clearance.

I am not sure if this numbers to the ball is a game plan or we just have too many guys whose instinct to hunt the ball all the time is too strong, but in any case it needs to be rebalanced.

This is what I saw plenty of. We'd have more numbers around the contest and we when won it, it'd generally be a quick kick forward to Freos spare man.

We have chosen to get more numbers to the contest. Unfortunately we aren't winning it at a high enough % for it to be worthwhile, as when we don't win it! the spare man for Freo gets an easy HB receive and scoots into space

 

[TradeDraft]

Kids

Got to remember also we are playing a lot of kids and looks like we will continue to. Frost, Langdon, Kennedy, Witts and Grundy dont have a heap of footy behind them.

All of them looks like the could be the Good. Espically Langdon,Kennedy and Grundy. They just need games pumped into them

 

[THATSGOLD]

Yes. And no. Injuries and inexperience are an excuse to a limited extent. But every single player in the starting 22 should be putting in effort. About 4 players only put in the required effort for the whole game. You don't lose by that much when you are all pulling in one direction together.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Exactly. 22 players out there regardless. They are not good enough. Simple.

 

[THATSGOLD]

Its taken me a couple of days to digest that loss.

I wasn't surprised we lost but I was just surprised at after the showing in the first we could just crumble when the game went up a gear.

Injuries

Said it before I just think its shocking that 15 blokes aren't available for selection. Sure Reid and White would have helped Cloke but guys like Seedsman (ball use), Blair and Dwyer (chase, tackles and hard ball gets) would have also been pretty handy.

Certainly would have given a better effort than guys like Young, Goldsack and Clarke who had stuff all influence on the night. IN a game where you have 83 tackles, Clarke and Young had 1 between them!


Running the 'other way'

As much as we laud our mids something is not right. We draw level at contested possession, win tackles and clearances (I think) and yet they have 15 more inside 50's. That tells me we were really haphazard about clearing it and got done on the rebound. Add to that twice we were 'gutted' up the middle from a point being scored where they got goals. For me that is just not running hard enough in the middle and off HF.

That might be a bit rough given last year we were good at restricting pop fwd 50 entries. Certainly weren't in this game.

Defence

Look Frost and Brown were ok and Langdon was good. The others were average but to be fair Sinclair and Toovey were under done. The issue for me is there are not a lot of players to come back that help us in defence. Goldsack or Lumumba may have to go back I reckon or you get a Sidebottom.

Coaching Staff

I am a bit perplexed with Buckley. Our best is good enough and certainly showed that in final rounds last year. He clearly had them firing for game time but something went very wrong and that cant all fall at his feet. Our first qtr was absolutely good enough and if Beams, Ball and Sidebottom had kicked better we would have been 3-4 g up.

Kids

Got to remember also we are playing a lot of kids and looks like we will continue to. Frost, Langdon, Kennedy, Witts and Grundy dont have a heap of footy behind them.

Summary

It wasn't good but I think Pendles was right, we just didn't cope with the pressure and we didn't execute well. The other facets of the game were ok to good. We are young and we had a lot out against the perm favs so lets wait another week or two for mine.

They have 8-10 players that come come in to the side if needed. We have the same. They still destroy us if we play them 10 times out of 10 no matter who comes in.

 

[Optimax]

Bang on, the truth hurts around here too much. Buckleys has had 3 preseason's to get a semblance of a gameplan going. Mckenna has a had a far younger team and the Gold coast were far better drilled than our mob last season. So was Port Adelaide with a rookie coach. If I hear one more time that our team is too young I'll ******* spew

For months Ive read people saying Buck's has the team he wanted now, "this is his list". Well guess what, those people are dead right. Its his team, he did the culling. its time to put up or shut up now. Friday night was pathetic. Our backline pressure is disgraceful,Our forward line setup is worse. Our kicking skills is deplorable. The players play with no emotion. the is no espirit de corp whatsoever. The same could be seen last season clearly

Its pretty easy to see that the players arent buying in to his plan. Buckley is getting paid a lot of money to coach Australia's biggest sporting team. results so far have been poor.

As i said though. the truth hurts

The more this team became "his" the worst the results have been, it's a cold hard reality that we have gone backwards and it has been very very quick fall.

Sadly we still have some excellent players, that in their backs alone should be able to get us into finals. On exposed form from preseason until now, it just won't happen.

 

[Checkside35]

This is what I saw plenty of. We'd have more numbers around the contest and we when won it, it'd generally be a quick kick forward to Freos spare man.

We have chosen to get more numbers to the contest. Unfortunately we aren't winning it at a high enough % for it to be worthwhile, as when we don't win it! the spare man for Freo gets an easy HB receive and scoots into space

We saw this last year and when it comes to manning the spare, coaches will attempt to create another. When the extra numbers around the contest worked, we beat sides like Sydney and Geelong, Richmond, smashed Carlton and Essendon. Against the contenders it's of course going to be harder but do you completely abandon it after a year and a bit or do you persist? The younger mids need to be better at positioning at the contest and then know where and where to run once we get our hands on it, that creates the space that we were lacking on Friday night. Freo and Hathorn have shown us how to do it. Need to watch their tapes as well.

 

[Snoop Dog]

They have 8-10 players that come come in to the side if needed. We have the same. They still destroy us if we play them 10 times out of 10 no matter who comes in.

Who are their 8? Sylvia was fit as was Clarke. Gumbleton?

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

I struggled to get angry given that I knew we'd get pumped once I heard Reid and White were out.

It's a snowball effect.

No Reid, no White, which means Cloke is going to get double and triple teamed again
Boys lose a bit of confidence, which then affects their kicking
Umps have a shocking first quarter which gets them down even more
All of a sudden they stop running and the pressure drops off
Freo get a sniff and turn it on

Rest is history

You add Reid and White from the start and it's a different ball game.

 

[Shaneprice97]

I struggled to get angry given that I knew we'd get pumped once I heard Reid and White were out.

It's a snowball effect.

No Reid, no White, which means Cloke is going to get double and triple teamed again
Boys lose a bit of confidence, which then affects their kicking
Umps have a shocking first quarter which gets them down even more
All of a sudden they stop running and the pressure drops off
Freo get a sniff and turn it on

Rest is history

You add Reid and White from the start and it's a different ball game.

2 players in our 22 who where arguably 2 of the most important
They can kick goals(bags aswell) aswell as releasing Cloke from being triple teamed to allow him to kick goals.

 

[OniAu]

I struggled to get angry given that I knew we'd get pumped once I heard Reid and White were out.

It's a snowball effect.

No Reid, no White, which means Cloke is going to get double and triple teamed again
Boys lose a bit of confidence, which then affects their kicking
Umps have a shocking first quarter which gets them down even more
All of a sudden they stop running and the pressure drops off
Freo get a sniff and turn it on

Rest is history

You add Reid and White from the start and it's a different ball game.

Just really adds to the point, from here on in we need very minimal injuries to probably our top 15 players. If cop 3 or 4 to any of these guys, then we are going to struggle all season.

id say both Reid & White (despite being just joining our list ) are well in truely in our top 15 most important players to the team without a doubt.

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

2 players in our 22 who where arguably 2 of the most important
They can kick goals(bags aswell) aswell as releasing Cloke from being triple teamed to allow him to kick goals.

They just add an immense amount of structure and take away Fremantle's.

You put Reid and White down there and suddenly Freo can't swarm back there as easily, you put doubt in their minds even for just a second by the 3 big boys being there, and it then opens the door for the small forwards and mids to do damage while the distraction is on.

It just changes EVERYTHING simply having those 2 down there. All of a sudden the backs stand a little taller seeing what's happening at the other end. As I said, snowball effect. Dwyer, Thomas, Blair, Fasolo, Marley etc etc are just gravy on top.

 

[Scodog10]

I struggled to get angry given that I knew we'd get pumped once I heard Reid and White were out.

It's a snowball effect.

No Reid, no White, which means Cloke is going to get double and triple teamed again
Boys lose a bit of confidence, which then affects their kicking
Umps have a shocking first quarter which gets them down even more
All of a sudden they stop running and the pressure drops off
Freo get a sniff and turn it on

Rest is history

You add Reid and White from the start and it's a different ball game.

That says a lot about where we're at. The fact that two players is the difference between a 12 goal loss and a competitive effort is really poor and just illustrates the difference between our best and worst.

For instance take McPharlin and Pavlich out of Fremantle's line up and give us Reid and White and I'd still back them in because they would just work harder to help each other out. Which is exactly what we didn't do after 1/4 time.

 

[Greening Magic]

On a brighter note, I work with a few Sydney and Richmond supporters who needed their text messages from Friday night returned over the past 24 hrs. That helped my perspective.