Review vs Melbourne & the Maggots review/rant megathread

[Ant_]

I think Tutt has cemented his spot in the team, ran all night and went hard into the contest. Happy with our defence considering how undersized we were. Libba was massive tonight, I thought Crameri worked himself into the game after a rough start. Tom Williams was gutsy to stay out there and kick goals, I doubt we'd have won down to one rotation.

Happy to get the win

 

[_M_16_]

Relived that we were actually able to win a game late for once, after throwing away two or three other chances.

I will admit, I was almost falling asleep during that game, particularly the first half. It was so dour, and lacked the excitement, even for a close game with a late finish, the game as a whole sucked all the excitement away.

Our manning up was terrible, unless we are playing some kind of zone based game plan, which doesn't make sense as one of the cornerstones to playing a tough contested style football, is manning up tightly and giving your opponent not room to breathe. I don't think it is a coaching instruction, but I want to know, how effing hard is it to man up on your guy? Every week it is the same old story, teams have lose players everywhere, and we are constantly standing off our man, that he has a 5m head start into a marking contest. Last season, when we manned up well, we were so much better, we constantly had some teams under pressure

Our inside 50 count for the game, on a very spacious ground, was atrocious, would have been only in the mid 30's until the final 10 minutes surely. We only ended up with 42 forward 50 entries for the game

Jamar smashed Minson, 53 hitouts, and 70 for the entire team for Melbourne. Though we were even in the clearances, I am still concerned about our form in the ruck, and the fact we haven't truly smashed any team in the clearances yet

We got beat in the contested ball, again

Someone mentioned on the game day thread, which was closed to soon haha. That they were happy with 107 tackles for the game.

So am I, but most of our tackles look like we are in a "don't hurt each other, just hug each other training drill" Would love to see much more anger and intensity, you want your opponent to know they have been tackled, so much that they will not want to come near you next time

All that being said, a win is a win, just glad to be on the right side of a close game for once. Glad to see Williams come back on the ground and have an impact, thought he was gone for a few weeks after he limped off

Not going to go through the good and bad players this week, been an emotionally draining week for me, was to tired to focus on the match properly

 

[Some Idiot]

Bad
-Jones will get 2-3 weeks.
-We lost the contested ball (don't really care so much because the tackles made up for it big time).
-Dickson and Williams injured.

That's all right now

 

[Scary_Foot_9]

Tutt.

 

[King Harold]

We got the result and at the end of the day that's all that matters.

Cross gave Macrae a lesson that I'm sure he'll learn from.

Didn't you stay for the last quarter ?

 

[W W Biscuit]

Macrae (despite being tagged by Boyd for the entire game) 10 tackles

I knew there was something seriously wrong with our game plan, but this is ridiculous.

 

[Dav1d]

Didn't you stay for the last quarter ?

hm? Am yet to watch the game, couldn't do it

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

Tutt.

About time for that podcast segment I reckon mate.

 

[Ant_]

Bad
-Jones will get 2-3 weeks.
-We lost the contested ball (don't really care so much because the tackles made up for it big time).
-Dickson and Williams injured.

That's all right now

Hunter had a shocker as well

 

[LukasTheGreat]

Didn't you stay for the last quarter ?

You're right, Macrae did have a good last quarter but Cross beat him for 3 of them which is still a lesson.

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

One note on the coaching: we HAVE to ****ing stop playing Murphy on the dangerous smalls. He needs to be able to get free and attack, NOT sit there defending JKH/Winderlich all day. Picken needs to go on these guys.

 

[Scary_Foot_9]

Libba, Griff and J-Mac all with double figures tackles.

and Boydy.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Have to say I lost a little respect for Nat Jones after this game.

The media, for the last 12 months or so, have been talking up about this player who's a great leader, ferocious on the ball, underrated how he plays for a bad team.

What I saw was a player playing for frees and disappearing when the game was on the line. Oh, and getting stuck into Picken for laying a fair tackle.

 

[Zgope1]

An ugly game of footy but a great win. Melbourne defended really really well and we managed 93 points despite that.

Backline was really good considering how inexperienced it is. 2 key defenders with less than 3 games experience playing key back. Will only help us in the long run having Stringer and Roberts get experience in games like that.

Macrae really lifted which you've gotta be proud of. Had an old professional champion teach him a lesson but he really lifted to have an impact late.

Forward line wasn't that bad it was more that melbourne covered people like Macrae, Dahl and Hunter well which meant we struggled to move the ball in there well. We had to hail mary to their numbers a lot.

More posting to come but though i'd leave it on this note:

- the channel 7 commentary team on saturday nights are a bunch of unprofessional flogs and they disrespected our club tonight by ignoring that they were playing in the game too.

You cant blame dogs fans for believing in a conspiracy when the commentators are supporting a team for which the AFL bought the coach.

 

[dogzrule]

bit of a lame win.

Cooney is finished; decent 4th quarter, god awful for the first 3. We should try & engineer a trade at the end of the season..

Yeah we should do that and sign nuff nuffs like Williams and Higgins onto long term deals cos they got a couple of kicks in an absolutely shit game against the worst team of the last 5 years

 

[Scary_Foot_9]

It sounds like I made a wise choice with the mute button this evening.....

 

[Ant_]

Have to say I lost a little respect for Nat Jones after this game.

The media, for the last 12 months or so, have been talking up about this player who's a great leader, ferocious on the ball, underrated how he plays for a bad team.

What I saw was a player playing for frees and disappearing when the game was on the line. Oh, and getting stuck into Picken for laying a fair tackle.

Nothing in that, though he did give Williams a cheapy in the bread basket

 

[Ant_]

Happy to see Crossy play well tonight

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I knew there was something seriously wrong with our game plan, but this is ridiculous.

Whoopsies, meant Cross

 

[_Mike_]

Again, Wood had a fairly good game. I'm glad to see he is putting in effort this season

 

[fronkalicious]

I don't see how anyone can watch us play this year and not think that something's wrong. That was a poor performance. End of story.

We lack heart, we lack run, we lack composure, we lack skill. We've gone backwards this year and have had a very cushy draw. I'll get smoked for this post no doubt, but I just don't care. The football we play is so god damn bad. Our fundamentals are terrible.

We are so down on confidence. Pretty shattered at the state of the club and the list unfortunately. The run in the last 6 weeks last year was fools gold.

 

[King Harold]

You're right, Macrae did have a good last quarter but Cross beat him for 3 of them which is still a lesson.

Cross let him right off the leash in the last quarter , Macrae was one of the big reasons we got over the line.
But ok maybe he learnt something I guess.

 

[LukasTheGreat]

One note on the coaching: we HAVE to ******* stop playing Murphy on the dangerous smalls. He needs to be able to get free and attack, NOT sit there defending JKH/Winderlich all day. Picken needs to go on these guys.

JKH was playing a defensive forward role on Murphy, not the other way around.

 

[_M_16_]

Yeah we should do that and sign nuff nuffs like Williams and Higgins onto long term deals cos they got a couple of kicks in an absolutely shit game against the worst team of the last 5 years

Higgins has actually had a few good games this season, a bit harsh to make that call on the basis of one game, or because you might hold grudges from way back. On this method, might as well drop Macrae for his poor game, I mean even though he was in our better 5 players in most games this year. Not sure what season it is, but Higgins hasn't been in the worst half of players this season

But I get where you are coming from

On Cooney though, it was always going to be interesting to see if he could play out a full season, if the new treatment would allow him to play well with minimal issues. Maybe we are starting to see him slow down again? Hopefully it is a form thing and not a knee issue

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

JKH was playing a defensive forward role on Murphy, not the other way around.

I realise, but there are ways around that. He was getting very little support. Defensive forward roles are rare because they're easy to manipulate in your favour. We didn't even try. We sat Murph on Winderlich et al last week and didn't try to change anything this week so I imagine we were content with it. I don't agree with it.