Autopsy The surprisingly mature post loss discussion.

[Citydog]

Just wondering why why continually kick the ball on top of our players heads? Either we have no movement or skills are poor, or is it a combination of both. Big Toyd was constantly having to go up against 4 or 5 and pushed out of the way, what happened to kicking it to space?

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[TMoney22]

Anyone see what Jones did to Dahlhaus behind the play in the centre? Dahl was down for a bit

 

[dogwatch]

I have to say I was pretty stunned by that performance. I was sure we would bounce back after being embarrassed by Sydney last week. The fact that we didn't is both instructive and worrying.

Melbourne did play well but really they should not be a 10 goal better side than us even in our current trough.

We were slow, flat-footed, reactive, hesitant, fumbly, lacking in confidence, uncertain of our plays, outmarked, outrun, outmuscled and Melbourne just looked more determined all day.

We looked like a bunch of kids thrown together on the park for the first time. All of them tried to varying degrees but at no stage did we look cohesive or like a TEAM. Just a bunch of handy individual footballers. I wasn't at the ground but can anyone tell me who was providing leadership out there ... off the ball, before the first bounce, in the huddles, in traffic, at the throw-ins, at the kick-ins ... anywhere?

As Bev said in last week's apologia (or was it this week's? they were so much alike I can't remember) the problems are many, not just one.

Issues with confidence can change from good to bad and back to good again quite quickly, so in that sense a better performance could come as soon as next week, but even if confidence returns, is it enough?

I worry about deeper-seated issues like lack of effective on-field leadership, poor skills, lack of pace, mental fragility under pressure, poor opposition analysis and being tactically outwitted week after week. I'm also as mystified as everyone else why so many of our best players are down on form.

I just hope it's not as serious as it appears to me right now. If it is we are certainly done for 2017 and need to start work right away on making 2018 successful.

 

[bobby2]

That't what i took from it too. He was flat as a tack and looked like he had no answers.

That was tough watching at the game. First half i can't recall a half like that where not a single thing went right. I was all for recalling the honeybadger, have to reward 2's form, but today proved why Bevo hasn't promoted him, that miss in the goal square i feel will be the final nail in his career, game was over when it went up the other end and tin ass Watts goaled after the siren. How anyone didn't touch that is beyond me, another example of poor decision making for 5 guys not to be standing on the goal line. 2nd half heads dropped, turnovers were chronic and they got their tails up and buried us as good teams should.

Bugg posting that pre-game shows no one fears us, would anyone do that to Hodge, Mitchell, Lewis etc at Hawthorn? No chance. If they did the whole hawks team would have buried Bugg all day, Wood at least went at him pre-game, but why wasn't the whole team into him all game to make a statement. He would have walked off the ground laughing today.

Have so much to fix, will take the whole clubs and all the leaders to make a stand and turn it around (not just Bevo). Look forward to us breathing absolute fire v Norf and showing what this club is about.

A whole team going at him all game to make a statement just sounds like the bull shit faux toughness that Norf tried on bont last year. And for what purpose? It's not like putting Tom bugg off his game would have any impact on the result.

We are not hawthorn, and our best form was built upon an unerring toughness at the ball, not the man. We played a clean game, and it worked for us.

Who gives a **** what tom bugg puts on Instagram? Wood running around decking him doesn't achieve anything, and he let himself down when he gave away that goal with an act of utter stupidity. He is better than that. This whole team is better than that.

 

[Northernsoul74]

Just wondering why why continually kick the ball on top of our players heads? Either we have no movement or skills are poor, or is it a combination of both. Big Toyd was constantly having to go up against 4 or 5 and pushed out of the way, what happened to kicking it to space?

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Delivery is poor but I'm over excuses for Toyd not taking marks. He's a unit, almost the biggest guy on the ground.

 

[Citydog]

Delivery is poor but I'm over excuses for Toyd not taking marks. He's a unit, almost the biggest guy on the ground.

Not really an excuse for Toyd just an example of what's happening in there.

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[dogwatch]

Melbourne were actually older and more experienced than us.

They probably were last year too but we won the flag and they finished out of the 8.
It's no excuse.

 

[the dog's kennel]

On an unrelated note, let me add one thing that I love about the Dogs fanbase.

There are 200 posts in this thread tearing apart every aspect of that game and yet not a single person has mentioned the umpiring. In the first half we really didn't get the rub of the green. Now I NEVER blame umpires, and I won't start now. That was NOT the reason we weren't scoring. It was more a frustrating addition to our self-imposed problems. But as we were starting to suck at the beginning of the 3rd I was dreading coming to the board and having to deal with weak deflecting posts having a go at the umpires.

But instead every single person has focussed their ire where it belongs - on our poor play.

That provides me with the tiniest of silver linings. Maybe not even silver - can you have a pewter lining?

 

[Northernsoul74]

Not really an excuse for Toyd just an example of what's happening in there.

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There are plenty of rubbish teams and rubbish players who can mark the ball consistently. Toyd appears unable to do this based on current evidence. You could easily name 30 players who mark better than him.

 

[the dog's kennel]

Anyone see what Jones did to Dahlhaus behind the play in the centre? Dahl was down for a bit

It was a hip and shoulder but it landed in Dahl's upper chest, not his chin. Fairly innocuous - I doubt he will get anything for it.

In fact I'm not 100% sure Dahl didn't flop for a free. He really flew from a tiny bump. But it's possible it just took him by surprise at the wrong moment - his head was turned at the time.

 

[Substance]

They probably were last year too but we won the flag and they finished out of the 8.
It's no excuse.

We won a flag before our peak. I hope we are still on track to peak in 2019/2020/2021. Bevo will need to find a way to make Hunter, Dahl, Macrae, Wallis, Libba and co more dynamic players. They handball too much.

 

[Northernsoul74]

On an unrelated note, let me add one thing that I love about the Dogs fanbase.

There are 200 posts in this thread tearing apart every aspect of that game and yet not a single person has mentioned the umpiring. In the first half we really didn't get the rub of the green. Now I NEVER blame umpires, and I won't start now. That was NOT the reason we weren't scoring. It was more a frustrating addition to our self-imposed problems. But as we were starting to suck at the beginning of the 3rd I was dreading coming to the board and having to deal with weak deflecting posts having a go at the umpires.

But instead every single person has focussed their ire where it belongs - on our poor play.

That provides me with the tiniest of silver linings. Maybe not even silver - can you have a pewter lining?

Because it made no difference to the result. Umpiring was poor but we were so bad.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I just want to see a bit of pace injected into the team. Some of our skills are going to be crap, but it was the fact that when we were moving the ball forward, our failure of our players ahead of the ball to get separation from their direct opponent. Losing Jong didn't help in that regard (for all his negatives, he does have pace and ability to use that pace to separate himself from this direct opponent in transition, whilst he obviously doesn't use the ball well, at least he injects a bit of pace into our ball movement)

Play JJ as a small forward, and when Murph returns, play him there as well - that solves the pace angle. It also means that we can play both Williams and Boyd, should he return for some more games down the track, back in the half-back line.

Boyd and Roughy do a lot of work ahead of the ball for a team that seems to want to go sideways and wide more than direct. The amount of times that we win a free kick or a ground ball in the corridor, whereas Boyd is one-out in the forward line, but by the time we go sideways, Boyd's now got three defenders blocking space and hang off him, surely must infuriate him more than it does me.

As much as the defence fell apart in the 2nd half, that was just us losing concentration a bit - ultimately, when the game was still in the balance (ie were were still within 2 goals deep into time on in the 1st), the reason that we lost wasn't so much that our defence or ball winning wasn't up to scratch, it was our ball using - the very fact we failed to kick a goal until it was almost time-on into a second, our style and quality of ball movement was so horrendous that I'd expect it to be the worst in the league. So we really need to examine our decision making with the ball (look to go quicker and more direct, no diagonal kicking wide), our structure (the extra number shouldn't be the option wide, they should be there for overlap run through the corridor), and if we don't have the pace I50 to get to space, actually use Boyd's marking ability - I reckon he only had a genuine marking chance about 5-6 times in the game, and half of them would have been in a massive pack. Lets actually back him in to take some marks one-out (or win free kicks that should have been paid) and see what happens. Can't go any worse than what happened today.

 

[dogwatch]

Anyone see what Jones did to Dahlhaus behind the play in the centre? Dahl was down for a bit

Shoulder to the head or jaw I think.
They showed a replay of it briefly - got the usual "nah, nothing in that" from the commentary team. Didn't seem overly forceful but Dahl went down quickly and he's not a stager like some others in the team.

 

[the dog's kennel]

Delivery is poor but I'm over excuses for Toyd not taking marks. He's a unit, almost the biggest guy on the ground.

yeah, I have to say I'm getting a little sick of watching Toyd getting outplayed in marking contests by players that are my size (175 cm)

 

[Norm De Guerre]

Our woes lay squarely at the feet of our mids, rucks and coaching department with their set-ups who are yet again getting completely smashed at the contest and murdered on the spread. When they did get hands to the ball they were getting swamped by their opponents who were consistently harder and hungrier at the ball carrier resulting in blind and panicked hand passes to teammates in even worse positions. Teammates who would already have an opponent sweating on them that more often than not would see a turnover and the ball being swept at speed to the other end of the ground and into an open forward line.

When kicking they invariably want to take the easy route (in stark contrast to Melbourne's relentless driving of the ball long and forward) of chipping it 25 metres sideways by foot. Assuming they hit a target, its something that slows things down to a treacle like pace and allows their opponents to flood back through the midfield in numbers and set up another line of defence, where once again they can ramp up the pressure waiting for yet another turnover from a team devoid of confidence and well...you can guess the rest. All of which is nullifying any chance of us playing the free flowing run and carry game that won us a premiership a mere 9 months ago.

Whilst I am potting the mids, I want to make special mention of that fact that It just boggles my mind that Lachie Hunter has returned to the shitty floaty kicks of yore ones that barely cover 35 metres and only sometimes hit the target. Im also kinda tired of his weird attempts at a spoil where he just jumps up in the air and flails his arms about like a drunken octopus or a giant inflatable tube man with holes in it. It makes him look ridiculous and more often than not completely puts him out of the contest.

I wouldn't want to be a forward or backman in this side for quids, its a completely thankless task at the moment.

Im not looking forward to subjecting myself to the replay.

 

[the dog's kennel]

Because it made no difference to the result. Umpiring was poor but we were so bad.

Oh I agree. But there are supporter bases (i won't name any but I'm sure you can think of at least one ) that would be raving about the umpiring in their autopsy thread, even with a result like this.

 

[Dogs till i die]

We didnt make any adjustment to their line up on the back of the square at every centre bounce.

It was 5 on 1 or 6 on 2 as we started both our half forwards on the side of the square, they streamed through the middle on so many occasions and not one response over the four quarters.

Left us wondering too.

Was frustrating to watch and we didnt do anything to adjust. Their 4 across the back of the square all got to the congestion at the ball near the centre circle before we did. Our inability to get a clear and decisive centre clearance over their heads ensured this tactic was effective all day. Was worrying from the box that we didnt adjust to negate this tactic.

 

[olimauldon]

yeah, I have to say I'm getting a little sick of watching Toyd getting outplayed in marking contests by players that are my size (175 cm)

This! I agree 100%, he's 200 cms and about 100 kgs but seems to get bumped out of contests way to easily, seems like the opposition just need to make contact with him and its almost a sure thing for the ball to come to ground. Also he needs to start sticking some grabs, seriously, to often the ball seems to just bounce from his hands.

 

[Super Hans]

Why did 2013 Easton Wood rock up today?

 

[Johnny_Dogg4]

On an unrelated note, let me add one thing that I love about the Dogs fanbase.

There are 200 posts in this thread tearing apart every aspect of that game and yet not a single person has mentioned the umpiring. In the first half we really didn't get the rub of the green. Now I NEVER blame umpires, and I won't start now. That was NOT the reason we weren't scoring. It was more a frustrating addition to our self-imposed problems. But as we were starting to suck at the beginning of the 3rd I was dreading coming to the board and having to deal with weak deflecting posts having a go at the umpires.

But instead every single person has focussed their ire where it belongs - on our poor play.

That provides me with the tiniest of silver linings. Maybe not even silver - can you have a pewter lining?

We ain't nothing like those flog salty swans fans

 

[olimauldon]

Can someone tell me why bugg got a free kick in the second straight after they kicked a goal ? Was on the other side of the ground and someone said he was punched in the face ?

Wood dropped an easy mark that resulted in a goal, Bugg went and pushed Wood in the back, Wood remonstrated but Bugg the dog flopped and hit the ground. Could literally see Bugg watching out of his peripherals to see if Wood would push him back. Shocking call by the ump though.

 

[Super Hans]

Thought Wallis was good today. Our midfield balance was out of whack with him and Libba playing together for the first time in yonk. Hardly noticed Dahl or Macrae.

 

[Super Hans]

Oh and a shoutout to Tom Bugg. If you're gonna be an absolute tool you'd wanna back it up. He comes from the Toby Greene school of being a campaigner. Only difference is Greene's a gun.

That hit on Wood from behind only to dive when it came back made me sick.

 

[Pannalstaroz]

Honeychurch must never play again. I find this hard to write but literally everything he did today was wrong, ineffective or stupid (or a combination). His decision making is garbage and then his execution on said shit decisions is shitter. Mitch you've played more games than my with only slightly more ability. I salute you.