Autopsy Well, that happened vs Doggies

[shimaburnsgrieg]

That's fair.

Puts a sword to the premise we were really right in it.

The coaches collectively gave our players 6/30 votes. And I agree with 'em.

Also NFI why Richards was a cheap trade, he was always a jet.

KC - what are you getting at here? Richards was drafted by the Dogs - a top 20 pick. A 6' 2" mid that can run and kick - as you say ...always a jet.

 

[LB2Snake]

ROOS’ SHAKY DEFENCE - Jay Clark

There might be a lesson in the GWS Giants’ evolution for North Melbourne.

When the Giants had the most talented midfield in the game thick with high draft picks, balance became an issue.

A team of superstar midfielders who are all high-end offensive players can get caught out the other way.

At GWS, coach Adam Kingsley took over and reset the culture to create the top pressure team and maybe the most desperate outfit in the competition.


In two years it has been an extraordinary turnaround.

At North Melbourne the challenge looks similar as Alastair Clarkson tries to get the Roos to pop in the same way Hawthorn rose up in his third year in charge.

But they won’t win anything without a complete commitment to the defensive aspects of the game from a crop of talented young players including superstar playmaker Harry Sheezel.

He was caught out at times against Western Bulldogs on Saturday night, and he wasn’t the only one.

Having top-end talent is one thing, but successful midfields have to be all-round units.

Expect new recruit and Sydney great Luke Parker will also play a significant role in this awakening for North Melbourne as part of the maturation as a football side.

And the next few months are crucial as Luke Davies-Uniacke makes a decision on his future, even with Roos’ officials still very confident he will re-sign.

The Kangas were smelling blood against a depleted Western Bulldogs on Saturday night and had a crack in their third-quarter charge.


What a player Nick Larkey is booting five goals and only one behind, Paul Curtis has a Steve Johnson-style trick bag and the resilient Charlie Comben continues to grow helping shut-out superstar in the making Sam Darcy.

But the Roos need to rise up and tick past six to eight wins this year otherwise Clarkson will become a big story.

He has helped stabilise a club which was in all sorts two years ago but the tide has to turn somewhat this season.

On the scoreboard, and also in the defensive actions of its highly talented midfield group.

We do not look tough enough to create that sort of culture

 

[Samsquanch]

We do not look tough enough to create that sort of culture

Maybe we need to change the logo on the jumper...

 

[DuckYeah]

Maybe we need to change the logo on the jumper...
View attachment 2252936

Lol we arent humming like a Ford GTHO.. maybe when we win 5 in a row we can opt for the super roo

 

[Chip Scab1]

This is a weird one. I felt he came across very down to earth and likeable, bit of a Crocker type. But this allegation has popped up on this forum before.

Any idea what the dislike stemmed from?

Rubbed people up the wrong way apparently, I just didn't like him because of his looks and results.

It's Colby I'm commenting on mate.

This place went after Heppell for less.

Refuse to accept there's anything wrong with that. Should be mandatory.

 

[Caracas]

Riddle me this. Apparently, a legendary coach cannot get our men’s team to run both ways and tidy up their skills and there are even calls for him to be sacked. At the same time, Crocker has managed to coach a bunch of players to be the most cohesive unit in the history of the women’s game.
Edit: Tongue-in-cheek emoji.

 

[ferball]

Riddle me this. Apparently, a legendary coach cannot get our men’s team to run both ways and tidy up their skills and there are even calls for him to be sacked. At the same time, Crocker has managed to coach a bunch of players to be the most cohesive unit in the history of the women’s game.
Edit: Tongue-in-cheek emoji.

Straight swap you reckon?

 

[King Corey]

KC - what are you getting at here? Richards was drafted by the Dogs - a top 20 pick. A 6' 2" mid that can run and kick - as you say ...always a jet.

Eek I was being racist.

Was thinking of Baker..

 

[Themanbun]

We also just don't get any easy goals that result from our system.

Everything is too hard earned

The 'system' we saw from the Bulldogs was this:

• holding space from the stoppage and working it to a receiver who has space to deliver inside forward 50

And

• spreading fast and hard AF when we turned it over to them

Both of these things our lazy midfielders absolutely refused to do.

The only shit thing about our system was playing the extra mid at the contest and giving them a spare, but the things that worked for the dogs would've worked for us if our blokes could be bothered.

It's a hard truth but it is what it is.

 

[My Left Foote]

I heard the same. But the question can be asked, how does one get through a number of interviews for the most important job at the club without this becoming apparent to anyone on the panel

It’s the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk, became very negative very quickly when things didn’t work out as planned and it all went downhill very quickly from there.

 

[ferball]

So I watched the first quarter and I reckon Zurhaar cost us up to five five goals.

Definitely four.

Two behinds, both when he had better options closer to goal if he was quick ... or he could have kicked straight.

Larkey kicked a point because Zurhaar kicked a long kick into the pocket instead of over his head in front of goal.

Jy tackled Gallagher and gave away a free. Bailey Dale kicked a goal from Gallagher's hand off under zero pressure while Zurhaar was standing there scratching his arse less than 10m away.

Finally if Dale was his man then Cam failed to go with him and Dale won the ball after Larkey droped (another) mark on the wing. Dale won the crumb, our players all ran goal side, Bulldogs held their space and then the ball got to Naughton in front of goal. This one is dependent on whether or not Dale was his man but it appeared that way for most of the quarter.

Bloody hell. I didn't really expect that.

A few other things to note. Tom Powell's kicking was worse than Simpkin's ... was terrible. I remember he was poor in the first but he must have improved after quarter time. Simpkin had a couple of other sketchy kicks, tho one was probably a good option given the circumstances.

Colby McKercher was very good. Maybe one or two errors, ie kicking long to the goal line instead of using another player by hand, but very good in traffic and certainly wasn't a cat at that point.

 

[Caracas]

Straight swap you reckon?

Imagine that. Back to soup at the breaks!

 

[Caracas]

One thing I have to say. I find it very hard to accept that us great unwashed on Big Footy can recognise that our players are absolutely lazy and refuse to run both ways because they just can’t be bothered. However, this fact seems to be completely missed by four time premiership coach, Clarkson. At least, he never seems to mention it. As they say - unlikely… There’s more to this. That’s why we have Rick18.

 

[Themanbun]

One thing I have to say. I find it very hard to accept that us great unwashed on Big Footy can recognise that our players are absolutely lazy and refuse to run both ways because they just can’t be bothered. However, this fact seems to be completely missed by four time premiership coach, Clarkson. At least, he never seems to mention it. As they say - unlikely… There’s more to this. That’s why we have Rick18.

Clarko in his maturity has very much evolved to a clip privately, praise (or minimise) publically approach. Take what he says with a grain of salt. He won't be polishing those efforts turds behind closed doors.

 

[Possession]

One thing I have to say. I find it very hard to accept that us great unwashed on Big Footy can recognise that our players are absolutely lazy and refuse to run both ways because they just can’t be bothered. However, this fact seems to be completely missed by four time premiership coach, Clarkson. At least, he never seems to mention it. As they say - unlikely… There’s more to this. That’s why we have Rick18.

I have no doubt that he's making them very aware, I'm more concerned by why they're ignoring him.

 

[McKuursma]

There is an issue with running back the other way (AFL tracker consistently reflects higher avg speed running fwd than back and has for a while), but a large part of this is a function of how our game plan reflects our list build. We are clearly a ball-winning clearance side (sometimes manifesting in blindly dumping the footy to take territory and achieve primary objective), which means we need to build around being a front half side and half the contest at minimum (Darling)/trap it in once it gets there. Konstanty, Darling and Hansen Jnr pushing up having solid games reflects this.

Unfortunately, what it means is that teams who set up/are good on rebound or transition can pull us apart if we turn it over or fail to hold it up up-field, because our bias is trying to press front half. It's not necessarily about work rate if we're caught out of position in the first place on a shit turnover. A little bit Postecoglou-like but not as extreme. If you look at our defence we don't really have a choice, because we don't have a Lever/May or Battle/Barrass/Sicily to really build from, and especially when you consider the attrition we've dealt with through our D50 for Clarko's entire time at North. The challenge is to get good enough at our one wood for it to not matter, which also means when we control enough of the footy we will be able to put teams to the sword. We saw this in parts on Saturday but when we didn't dictate the game (1st qtr, last qtr generally) it meant we couldn't get our game up and running, and when we did we didn't take our chances. That's footy and something we need to be better at to win consistently.

I saw enough to suggest we have an identity and a defined game plan/strategy to grow into. The next stage of development will almost certainly involve building the back half (Wawson/Whitlock/FA). I'd also suggest we're probably not ready to beat a Melbourne with Trac and Clarry because they're effectively set up to move it from the back half in the event they don't win the clearance. But if we do manage to win (or even push it, relative to context on the day) then I would be pretty bullish on us over-achieving this year

 

[lockheed]

So the improvement is going from bottom 2 with a % of 63, to bottom 2 with a % of 80.

At least we get another high draft pick.

You mean that Richmond gets another high draft pick

 

[Caracas]

There is an issue with running back the other way (AFL tracker consistently reflects higher avg speed running fwd than back and has for a while), but a large part of this is a function of how our game plan reflects our list build. We are clearly a ball-winning clearance side (sometimes manifesting in blindly dumping the footy to take territory and achieve primary objective), which means we need to build around being a front half side and half the contest at minimum (Darling)/trap it in once it gets there. Konstanty, Darling and Hansen Jnr pushing up having solid games reflects this.

Unfortunately, what it means is that teams who set up/are good on rebound or transition can pull us apart if we turn it over or fail to hold it up up-field, because our bias is trying to press front half. It's not necessarily about work rate if we're caught out of position in the first place on a shit turnover. A little bit Postecoglou-like but not as extreme. If you look at our defence we don't really have a choice, because we don't have a Lever/May or Battle/Barrass/Sicily to really build from, and especially when you consider the attrition we've dealt with through our D50 for Clarko's entire time at North. The challenge is to get good enough at our one wood for it to not matter, which also means when we control enough of the footy we will be able to put teams to the sword. We saw this in parts on Saturday but when we didn't dictate the game (1st qtr, last qtr generally) it meant we couldn't get our game up and running, and when we did we didn't take our chances. That's footy and something we need to be better at to win consistently.

I saw enough to suggest we have an identity and a defined game plan/strategy to grow into. The next stage of development will almost certainly involve building the back half (Wawson/Whitlock/FA). I'd also suggest we're probably not ready to beat a Melbourne with Trac and Clarry because they're effectively set up to move it from the back half in the event they don't win the clearance. But if we do manage to win (or even push it, relative to context on the day) then I would be pretty bullish on us over-achieving this year

I see things in a similar light. I refuse to believe that a Clarkson-coached side wouldn’t be putting effort in…

 

[Themanbun]

I see things in a similar light. I refuse to believe that a Clarkson-coached side wouldn’t be putting effort in…

If they were putting in the required effort he wouldn't have baked them at quarter time.

Within the first minute of the game we saw:

• a ball returned poorly to a free kick and absolutely no attempt to get the ball to Logue quickly so the Bulldogs didn't have a chance to set up
• Paul Curtis pull out of a chase on our goal line
• Jack Darling opt to stand 5m in front of the Bulldogs player instead of pressing and pressuring him (he may have been expecting Curtis to not pull out of his chase)

That Bulldogs player on our own goal line then hit a player of theirs, standing all on his own, dead set middle of the corridor on our 50 arc, the most dangerous score launch position on the ground.

I said it at the time that I worried the energy levels weren't there and then they proceeded to do similar stuff until the quarter time break.

He's a very good coach but he's not immune to his side's doing this stuff, which is why he gives a spray when needed.

 

[Supreme_Chancellor]

At three quarter time, only trailing by 7 points, the game was calling for our leaders to stand up and take it by the scruff. If our boys were fair dinkum, we would've kicked the first 3-4 of that quarter instead of the Dogs. There just isn't a killer instinct, a hatred of losing and a will to win.

 

[justroyal]

At three quarter time, only trailing by 7 points, the game was calling for our leaders to stand up and take it by the scruff. If our boys were fair dinkum, we would've kicked the first 3-4 of that quarter instead of the Dogs. There just isn't a killer instinct, a hatred of losing and a will to win.

Spot on.
And that happened last year time and time again. So we’ll be sold improvements, but not showing intensity to win it tells me there’s been none

 

[Event Horizon]

Noble got us at our absolute lowest ebb.

I genuinely think he coached ok in 2021 and seemed to usually be fairly sound in his communications.

Shit went south into 2022 no doubt.

A parallel world where we get pick #2, take Callaghan and hit 2022 with much less draftee expectation and angst, might've been interesting.

Not speculating we'd have been premiers but incremental improvement from 2021 might've been more likely.

Instead we had a sideshow of trying to manage a reluctant young star and all his quirks on top of a rookie coaching already trying to right the ship.

Let's not forget that Cunnington was a HUGE factor in the good run we had in the second half of 2021. There was a time when we couldn't win a game without Ben, and he's one player who we haven't really replaced. At his best he was probably the best player we've had over the last 10-15 years.

Cunnington at his best would have won us extra 3-4 games last season and could have dragged us over the line against the Dogs last week.

 

[Supreme_Chancellor]

Spot on.
And that happened last year time and time again. So we’ll be sold improvements, but not showing intensity to win it tells me there’s been none

We are the definition of insanity. Someone or something needs to break this cycle, or we'll be sitting here in 2027, 2028 talking about a top 3 pick again.

 

[King Corey]

Let's not forget that Cunnington was a HUGE factor in the good run we had in the second half of 2021. There was a time when we couldn't win a game without Ben, and he's one player who we haven't really replaced. At his best he was probably the best player we've had over the last 10-15 years.

Cunnington at his best would have won us extra 3-4 games last season and could have dragged us over the line against the Dogs last week.

1000%.

I don't think Cunnington is still rated highly enough.

Except for pace he was fantastic at all facets of the game. Agree we haven't replaced him.

 

[King Corey]

Was that you siting a few rows behind me on Saturday KC?



It might have been DuckYeah come to think of it.

Hand on heart you'll never hear me yell that a player is soft at a game.

I'm way too aware of my own wussiness to ever go there.