Autopsy The Good (lol!) The Bad and the Beveridge.

[_Mike_]

Lol, maybe we should have done preseason training with Oliver, he only trained for 4 weeks, looks fat and still out ran and out worked our mids.

The media is already fawning over how good Oliver was yesterday, failing to acknowledge how unbalanced our midfield is and the fact that Bevo is stubborn & doesnt use tags

 

[MaxiBont]

Says a lot about the performance yesterday that most people’s pre-season optimism was gone after a mere game.

Saw the same old problems and the same old lack of ability to adjust. Tiresome

 

[Freshwater]

And another thing: I should have realized that the day would be a disappointment when, at the ticket window, I was charged $3.70 on top of the $27 for GA. I was told it was a type of "venue fee" or "specific game fee" whatever that means. Maybe I just haven't been to the G for some time and didn't realize that extra charges apply!!

I thought exactly the same thing. How can you be charged $30- for a $27- ticket bought there in person?
Then Tony Schebecci told me on the loud speaker to take the train to save carbon as they turned the lights on on a sunny 30 degree day with a 1:00pm start!
Then they kept announcing it was the ‘peoples’ ground, pigs arse, it’s 80% members and corporates and the people have to sit in the nose bleed sections only.

 

[Norm De Guerre]

Unfortunately with JODs head knock and Gardners injury (not that Gardner is much chop himself) it leaves us with a very cooked Keath who takes 10 minutes and a couple of Endones just to get off the ground these days.

Rock and a hard place assuming JoD is not available.

To be honest when the game was actually in the balance I don’t feel it was our undersized backline that was the issue but GC have some big threats up there. Keath probably has to get the look in.

To be honest I’d rather just roll the dice and put Darcy back there as a way to get him into the team rather than watching Keath get eaten alive but that’s not going to happen.

Sure the blame doesn't lie entirely with the backline. As usual its with the coach/team and its inability to set up in a way that can stop teams streaming through the middle of he ground unimpeded. Something that was still happening when a lowly Hawthorn managed to pile on 5 goals during the pre-season practice game. Even though we managed to roll over them in the second half. It was not a good portent for the coming season and for me was setting off alarm bells for what we saw yesterday.

An underdone JO'D or a cooked Keath would've been helpful on the weekend. Burning Khamis' career on the alter of hubris was not.

As for this week. A creative coach would send Naughton back for a week or two and play Darcy forward until JO'D is fit to play.

Instead we will do the predictable and either go with the same line up and expect a different result or pick Keath.

Im expected the former.

 

[Shacf501]

Ive struggled to garner much enthusiasm for this season for different reasons than you DW.

From my perspective. Ive been apathetic about the coaching situation since the club as is its way squibbed their chance to do something about it by announcing a mealy mouthed review. That decision was clearly one designed to kick the can down the road and little more. It was a foregone conclusion when it was announced. Indeed the new appointments and structural changes had probably been pre-approved.

My issue is with the state of the list. Ive said this before, but it's reminding me more and more of Footscray sides of old. One where there is always an elite core of talent. But its one that has way too many middling role fillers and cast offs from other sides to be truly competitive.

Yesterdays train wreck only reinforced this feeling with me.

Im exactly the same mate, we have been members for 37 years and unfortunately my son who is now 27, has said he just doesn't want to go and watch the dogs play anymore. Loves his football, like my grandson does, so it's a sad day for me as a dad. Its ok to say you have to go through the good times and bad, but honestly, if we are truly honest with ourselves I think we are fairly realistic that you cant win every week, but to see no effort, no fight over and over and over again is quite demoralising. I think all supporters want to see is some kind of a game plan that makes for exciting football, some aggression and improvement and the development of some kids. We arguably have the best marking combo up forward in Naughton and Jamara, but continually we just bomb the ball in and let them get bashed around. We never get easy goals, very rarely you see our forwards ins pace leading up taking a chest mark like other forwards around the league do. Absolutely no run and no line breaking from our mids and half backs, its stale old footy and it sucks. Lobb has to go, he is stunting the growth of Darcy and yes he took a couple marks but honestly is bloody disappointing. Yes, we will win some games this year, but to serve that up in round one after all the media scrutiny and missing finals last year is very ordinary.

Dumb football, how many times do you want to lose the same way to Melbourne, like seriously. We bomb the ball in to one of the best back lines in the league, we get destroyed around the ball by their mids, what's changed ?????

Harmes, who didnt play well was getting bullied by ex team mates, verbally and physically. NO one stood up for him....NO ONE!

Do you think, Romero, Libba Senior or Dimma would have seen let that happen to one of their mates? Hell NO! Win lose or draw, fly the flag and show some balls... We have truly lost our identity.

 

[Unorth]

Sure the blame doesn't lie entirely with the backline. As usual its with the coach/team and its inability to set up in a way that can stop teams streaming through the middle of he ground unimpeded. Something that was still happening when a lowly Hawthorn managed to pile on 5 goals during the pre-season practice game. That was not a good portent for the coming season and for me was setting off alarm bells for what was to come yesterday.

An underdone JO'D or a cooked Keath would've been helpful on the weekend. Burning Khamis' career on the alter of hubris was not.

As for this week. A creative coach would send Naughton back for a week or two and play Darcy forward until JO'D is fit to play.

Instead we will do the predictable and either go with the same line up and expect a different result or pick Keath.

Im expected the former.

I just don’t expect Naughts to ever be sent back after we opted to use Lobb as Bruce cover last year vs GWS. Ideally I agree with that move for next week but it’s just something we refuse to budge on.

Which is funny because we’ve got Naughts locked up for the next 8 years, what’s he gonna do? And he should be ok with it considering the contract he’s been given.

 

[VitalDread]

The media is already fawning over how good Oliver was yesterday, failing to acknowledge how unbalanced our midfield is and the fact that Bevo doesnt use tags

Annoying that Harmes is a really good tagging and we didn't even use him for that role

 

[Dogs Rule]

Im exactly the same mate, we have been members for 37 years and unfortunately my son who is now 27, has said he just doesn't want to go and watch the dogs play anymore. Loves his football, like my grandson does, so it's a sad day for me as a dad. Its ok to say you have to go through the good times and bad, but honestly, if we are truly honest with ourselves I think we are fairly realistic that you cant win every week, but to see no effort, no fight over and over and over again is quite demoralising. I think all supporters want to see is some kind of a game plan that makes for exciting football, some aggression and improvement and the development of some kids. We arguably have the best marking combo up forward in Naughton and Jamara, but continually we just bomb the ball in and let them get bashed around. We never get easy goals, very rarely you see our forwards ins pace leading up taking a chest mark like other forwards around the league do. Absolutely no run and no line breaking from our mids and half backs, its stale old footy and it sucks. Lobb has to go, he is stunting the growth of Darcy and yes he took a couple marks but honestly is bloody disappointing. Yes, we will win some games this year, but to serve that up in round one after all the media scrutiny and missing finals last year is very ordinary.

Dumb football, how many times do you want to lose the same way to Melbourne, like seriously. We bomb the ball in to one of the best back lines in the league, we get destroyed around the ball by their mids, what's changed ?????

Harmes, who didnt play well was getting bullied by ex team mates, verbally and physically. NO one stood up for him....NO ONE!

Do you think, Romero, Libba Senior or Dimma would have seen let that happen to one of their mates? Hell NO! Win lose or draw, fly the flag and show some balls... We have truly lost our identity.

Spot on. We have lost our identity. I remember going religiously to the footy as a kid and you always knew that win, lose or draw, we would fight as hard as we could and give it everything. I don't get that feeling with this group.

There's a softness, a meekness, too easy to fold and concede, unwilling to fight or stand up for each other and a feeling they just don't give a s*** when it all gets too hard.

It's actually a chore to watch our games these last few years it's not enjoyable at all. I honestly got more enjoyment out of years when we really struggled but you could see that we were giving it our all.

It's pathetic really.

 

[fred cook]

Spot on. We have lost our identity. I remember going religiously to the footy as a kid and you always knew that win, lose or draw, we would fight as hard as we could and give it everything. I don't get that feeling with this group.

There's a softness, a meekness, too easy to fold and concede, unwilling to fight or stand up for each other and a feeling they just don't give a s*** when it all gets too hard.

It's actually a chore to watch our games these last few years it's not enjoyable at all. I honestly got more enjoyment out of years when we really struggled but you could see that we were giving it our all.

It's pathetic really.

I remember going religiously to the footy as a kid and you always knew that win, lose or draw, we would fight as hard as we could and give it everything. I don't get that feeling with this group.


That's how I felt after the West Coast loss the talent was there but just not the effort

 

[dogwatch]

Ive struggled to garner much enthusiasm for this season for different reasons than you DW.

From my perspective. Ive been apathetic about the coaching situation since the club as is its way squibbed their chance to do something about it by announcing a mealy mouthed review. That decision was clearly one designed to kick the can down the road and little more. It was a foregone conclusion when it was announced. Indeed the new appointments and structural changes had probably been pre-approved.

My issue is with the state of the list. Ive said this before, but it's reminding me more and more of Footscray sides of old. One where there is always an elite core of talent. But its one that is as shallow as one of my posts and has way too many middling role fillers and cast offs from other sides to be truly competitive.

Yesterdays train wreck only reinforced this feeling with me.

Yes, I see some of that too, and _Mike_ hinted at the same thing a few posts earlier. Probably just the other side of the same coin.

The thing is that most premiership sides have their middling role fillers - players you wouldn't have picked as premiership medallionists. e.g. us in 2016 and Richmond in their run of flags after that. So we know it can be done.

It's the melding together of the necessary role fillers with the elite and the A-grade core that is the missing ingredient. Bevo had that knack in 2015 and 2016 but he lost it after that.

It's not just the coach though, and our dissatisfaction with him might be blinding us to another deficiency. It's also the character of the team. I don't see enough natural leadership and hard-nosed determination on the field outside of Bont. He can't do it all on his own. We need more players like Matty Boyd, Picken and Morris providing onfield leadership and example. And some hard men too. We are too nice. Too bland. We may not have liked Hawthorn a decade ago but that toughness and determination helped drive them to a three-peat.

 

[hutchy31]

Everyone was mentioning how fast our 22 looked at team selection last week. We looked incredibly slow and unfit yesterday. Melbourne outnumbered us at every ground ball situation and seemed to work much harder in all areas of the ground.

When must be question our offseason preparations? Every year we start off absolutely terribly for the first couple of weeks until the players get some match fitness under their belts. I get Melbourne have already played a proper game but this is a consistent trend. The side is never ready for a round 1 contest.

I don't disagree. It was obvious from red time in the first quarter that we were a) slower to react, b) slower to make a decision, and c) physically slower when running across the ground late in quarters. You can put that down to Melbourne playing last week, which is a ludicrous decision by the AFL and didn't help, but tbh it'd probably be a bit disingenuous to blame that when we know we have consistently failed to show up in round one for a few years now. We ostensibly picked a quick/mobile back line then persisted with stupid, slow chip kick progression up the field.

So we have a team that is poorly selected, with no alignment of personnel to gameplan, that is poorly prepared for the season, and continues to play in the same, outdated way with obvious weaknesses that teams like Melbourne exploit time and time again. They know they don't need to come up with a plan B because the dogs will do what they've done since 2021 and keep their fingers crossed they kick straight and keep it a contest, and even if they do it probably doesn't matter because they're slower and not as fit. The players keep making exactly the same mistakes like all flying for the same ball, and evidently aren't told to stop or are told to stop and don't listen.

In what world is this a well-run footy department? It's honestly the worst in the comp atm. At least the bottom teams are rebuilding and have the excuse of not having enough competent players. We're deciding not to play established AFL players in the hope that VFL players end up improving despite years of evidence to the contrary, and then deciding to play in a way that actively hampers the selected side.

Coaching teams and footy departments in general need to give the team the best possible chance of succeeding, then it's up to the players to take the opportunities. This mob are effectively making it harder for the players to succeed with their decisions, and for whatever reason refuse to address deficiencies that have been obvious for close to 50 games now. In any other high performance environment heads would have rolled long ago.

 

[geoffjennings79]

The sad part for me is I no longer care as much as I once did. I’m not even angry any more.

Well said.

I think I'm past anger as well, just frustration leading to growing lack of care.

Which is a dangerous state for a club to have supporters in. ☹

 

[Proffessor]

He was asked to play a role on a guy who is exclusively a lead and mark player. One who is 100 mm taller and probably 10+ kg heavier than him. A role he is entirely unsuited to play.

Ive had my say about the various flaws in his game across numerous posts in this thread. However, it denies reality to think that the selection panel didn't set Khamis up to fail and that he wasn't on a hiding to nothing yesterday. Playing him on Brown was a decision that will probably define his career when he gets punted and we do what we should've done and bring in a genuine tall in his place next week.

That sort of thinking does no one any good, least of all Buku.
He should have realised days before the game that he might end up playing on Brown, and developed strategies on how to play him and maximise his own strengths.

Brown has been a fringe player at Melbourne because he is also a flawed player. Buku needed to focus on exploiting Brown’s flaws and mitigating his own.
This is high level professional competition.

You don’t get to choose your opponents.

 

[Libbaaaa]

Oliver getting standing ovations yesterday was pretty funny, so brave.

 

[Golden_6]

That sort of thinking does no one any good, least of all Buku.
He should have realised days before the game that he might end up playing on Brown, and developed strategies on how to play him and maximise his own strengths.

Brown has been a fringe player at Melbourne because he is also a flawed player. Buku needed to focus on exploiting Brown’s flaws and mitigating his own.
This is high level professional competition.

You don’t get to choose your opponents.

That's bullshit. Buku has never been a CHB and to ask him to succeed on someone 11cm taller than him is ludicrous. He's not Tom Stewart or James Sicily.

Our hands were tied yesterday given JOD wasn't deemed fit enough, Gardner is injured and Keath is underdone. Buku is a third tall and should be played in that role moving forward accordingly. Anyone who knows football would understand that.

 

[Foxman98]

That's bullshit. Buku has never been a CHB and to ask him to succeed on someone 11cm taller than him is ludicrous. He's not Tom Stewart or James Sicily.

Our hands were tied yesterday given JOD wasn't deemed fit enough, Gardner is injured and Keath is underdone. Buku is a third tall and should be played in that role moving forward accordingly. Anyone who knows football would understand that.

Buku isn't good enough to play as the 3rd tall,

The 2 you have named are elite intercept players who then start offence with their feet and carry Buku can't do that

 

[VitalDread]

Oliver getting standing ovations yesterday was pretty funny, so brave.

He also got them at the Footscray hospital last night

 

[CarnTheScray]

Im exactly the same mate, we have been members for 37 years and unfortunately my son who is now 27, has said he just doesn't want to go and watch the dogs play anymore. Loves his football, like my grandson does, so it's a sad day for me as a dad. Its ok to say you have to go through the good times and bad, but honestly, if we are truly honest with ourselves I think we are fairly realistic that you cant win every week, but to see no effort, no fight over and over and over again is quite demoralising. I think all supporters want to see is some kind of a game plan that makes for exciting football, some aggression and improvement and the development of some kids. We arguably have the best marking combo up forward in Naughton and Jamara, but continually we just bomb the ball in and let them get bashed around. We never get easy goals, very rarely you see our forwards ins pace leading up taking a chest mark like other forwards around the league do. Absolutely no run and no line breaking from our mids and half backs, its stale old footy and it sucks. Lobb has to go, he is stunting the growth of Darcy and yes he took a couple marks but honestly is bloody disappointing. Yes, we will win some games this year, but to serve that up in round one after all the media scrutiny and missing finals last year is very ordinary.

Dumb football, how many times do you want to lose the same way to Melbourne, like seriously. We bomb the ball in to one of the best back lines in the league, we get destroyed around the ball by their mids, what's changed ?????

Harmes, who didnt play well was getting bullied by ex team mates, verbally and physically. NO one stood up for him....NO ONE!

Do you think, Romero, Libba Senior or Dimma would have seen let that happen to one of their mates? Hell NO! Win lose or draw, fly the flag and show some balls... We have truly lost our identity.

In a similar boat, did not feel one emotion at the game yesterday. I knew what was going to happen, just kind of watched us play with no intensity or physicality, got frustrated but I knew what was going to happen. Being on level 4 and seeing the play made it even more frustrating. Will always support the team, but I’ll be cutting a fair bit off my membership next year unless enough change has happened to motivate me to stick .

 

[stefoid]

 

[Proffessor]

Sorry not having a go at you here but I just don’t see how anyone can watch yesterday’s game, along with the past two seasons, and still conclude that things are going ok.

If Melbourne’s strengths aligned with our weaknesses where was the attempt to neutralise that? We played right into their hands.

I didn’t see a team that was ‘trying hard’ yesterday, I saw a team that was repeatedly out worked by their opponents. I saw a team attempt to implement the same stale game plan that has achieved precisely nothing since 2021.

Develop trust and confidence as a unit? We’ve had essentially the same core for a while now. Bringing new role players into the fold shouldn’t be this difficult. That’s on the coaching staff for not being able to implement a strategy. The stupid mistakes leading to goals happens to everyone, where we can improve this is by having a stronger structure and plan to a) provide better options and b) minimise the impact of turnovers. Not every turnover has to lead to the other team walking into an open goal.

And if we want to start blaming umpiring for losses (especially 7 goal drubbings) we may as well fold the club right now.

I’m really pissed off I allowed myself to be so hopeful heading into 2024. Feeling flat as anything after yesterday. We have the best player in the game, the greatest player in our clubs history right in his prime and we are pissing it away

There were a lot of changes to yesterday’s team.

In no way could you consider it a settled unit. We had 5 debutants!

Let’s not get carried away with one loss, it’s a long season.

Melbourne are a strong team had a better lead in with it being their second game, playing on their home turf.

We weren’t horrendous and we should be better going forward.

 

[maddog37]

Well said.

I think I'm past anger as well, just frustration leading to growing lack of care.

Which is a dangerous state for a club to have supporters in. ☹

• denial.
• anger.
• bargaining.
• depression.
• acceptance.

 

[Dogs Rule]

Yes, I see some of that too, and _Mike_ hinted at the same thing a few posts earlier. Probably just the other side of the same coin.

The thing is that most premiership sides have their middling role fillers - players you wouldn't have picked as premiership medallionists. e.g. us in 2016 and Richmond in their run of flags after that. So we know it can be done.

It's the melding together of the necessary role fillers with the elite and the A-grade core that is the missing ingredient. Bevo had that knack in 2015 and 2016 but he lost it after that.

It's not just the coach though, and our dissatisfaction with him might be blinding us to another deficiency. It's also the character of the team. I don't see enough natural leadership and hard-nosed determination on the field outside of Bont. He can't do it all on his own. We need more players like Matty Boyd, Picken and Morris providing onfield leadership and example. And some hard men too. We are too nice. Too bland. We may not have liked Hawthorn a decade ago but that toughness and determination helped drive them to a three-peat.

Some people still wonder how we won the flag in 2016 and a large part of it was our leaders.

It was the likes of Morris, Picken and Boyd who would walk through walls. Morris played the finals with a broken back for crying out loud.

Anyone think any of our current team has that in them? They played with spirit and heart like they wouldn't be denied. With our current group I see a CBA attitude. Missing easy set shots, not defending, let the opponents dominate and walk all over you approach. Credibility has been or is being lost at a rapid rate and rightly so.

After being hammered two years in a row after the GF by Melbourne there was a chance to make a stand yesterday. We didn't and instead folded up and meekly surrendered in the end. Pathetic display.

 

[ScottyDogg]

There were a lot of changes to yesterday’s team.

In no way could you consider it a settled unit. We had 5 debutants!

Let’s not get carried away with one loss, it’s a long season.

Melbourne are a strong team had a better lead in with it being their second game, playing on their home turf.

We weren’t horrendous and we should be better going forward.

We weren’t horrendous? Did you not watch us let a flattering three goal game blow out to 45 points?

 

[doggies ftw]

I don't disagree. It was obvious from red time in the first quarter that we were a) slower to react, b) slower to make a decision, and c) physically slower when running across the ground late in quarters. You can put that down to Melbourne playing last week, which is a ludicrous decision by the AFL and didn't help, but tbh it'd probably be a bit disingenuous to blame that when we know we have consistently failed to show up in round one for a few years now. We ostensibly picked a quick/mobile back line then persisted with stupid, slow chip kick progression up the field.

So we have a team that is poorly selected, with no alignment of personnel to gameplan, that is poorly prepared for the season, and continues to play in the same, outdated way with obvious weaknesses that teams like Melbourne exploit time and time again. They know they don't need to come up with a plan B because the dogs will do what they've done since 2021 and keep their fingers crossed they kick straight and keep it a contest, and even if they do it probably doesn't matter because they're slower and not as fit. The players keep making exactly the same mistakes like all flying for the same ball, and evidently aren't told to stop or are told to stop and don't listen.

In what world is this a well-run footy department? It's honestly the worst in the comp atm. At least the bottom teams are rebuilding and have the excuse of not having enough competent players. We're deciding not to play established AFL players in the hope that VFL players end up improving despite years of evidence to the contrary, and then deciding to play in a way that actively hampers the selected side.

Coaching teams and footy departments in general need to give the team the best possible chance of succeeding, then it's up to the players to take the opportunities. This mob are effectively making it harder for the players to succeed with their decisions, and for whatever reason refuse to address deficiencies that have been obvious for close to 50 games now. In any other high performance environment heads would have rolled long ago.

I would literally swap our coaching department for any other in the comp, bar none. We are the worst run side in football and its just allowed to go on and on and on. Genuinely pathetic.

Hopefully Egan has the power to enforce some change

 

[Timewillcome]

This unnecessary contract extension for our coach is going to kill us all year. It is the only thing that saved him from being sacked last season, we cannot afford the payout. This guy has been a one trick pony since 2017.

I'd take a massive management cleanout and a on field rebuild over watching this unmotivated team and stale game plan fail week in, week out.

Very long season ahead.

English can pack his bags, happy to see him traded. The most overhyped player on our list.