What did we do all Summer???

[Catsace]

Just wondering as an outsider, given Vezpremi played pretty well in the pre-season, why was he not selected? He has a heap of talent, and not sure if it was injury or otherwise that stopped him being a regular at Sydney, but i reckon you have to play him and see what he can bring.

Collingwood just seemed to have taken everything to new levels with their 'runball' and their pace and ability to pressure all sides means it's going to be hard to beat them if other sides don't counter-act against it. The point brought up that the Pies had 16 tackles amongst three forwards to the Dogs zilch among your key forwards is illuminating.

But you may have to just bite the bullet with some younger players, such as Roughead, Vezpremi, even Ayce Cordy who hasn't played a game yet. This time last year Dawes was a big, hulking bloke who had played just a dozen games and showed a glimpse or two. Now he appears to be a superstar! Geelong's in a similar boat to you with regard to age as well, the Dogs had a great run out of your draft class of 1999, but like Corey, Chappy, Enright, Mooney and Ling they are approaching 30 and need to be evaluated in terms of their chances of taking your forward. Can Gia improve at this stage of his career?

But can a young bloke like Vezpremi, Roughead and many others. Odds are the younger bloke will have a higher ceiling. Plus, it might pay to develop all you can (as we need to at Geelong) while the Pies are smack bang in the Myers shopfront window. Because i doubt one can beat the Pies with players who have been there and done that, they have improved exponentially over the last 12 months.

 

[bigdog54]

I do understand that the analysis here is not based just on rd 1....but let me put it to you this way.

After reviewing all the stats on last year, like you have on here and after a summer of planning, of identifying our issues and implementing changes and so on, we role into the season. We front the a hot bomber outfit a team we struggled with last year, new coach, home crowd. We don't have our first rate backline, we don't have Lake. Cooney is healthy and playing a gallop or two short of his best fitness. We go into the game with 4 new players, two who make their debut. To top it off we make a selection error with the ruck and 1 or 2 other selection errors.

Let's say you are David Smorgan.

Do you after rd one sack the coach? Or do you even discuss it?

Lets say you are Rodney Eade.

Do you drop the likes of Boyd because he had a 50% disposal efficiency? Do you drop some other senior players because they didn't work hard enough. Do you drop senior players from a forward line because they failed to apply pressure? Do you make wholesale changes?

That's my point. Sure there are some issues and they need to be addressed, but after just one game of this season, one attempt at the plans made over summer can you really make the sort of calls as I listed above?

....what do you do about it? What would you do if you were in charge....I mean really in charge.

The coaches, the players need to be allowed to sort things through based on a number of weeks. We surely can't expect to go too far, based on one game under the circumstances.

But I'm all for making some very hard calls in 3 or 4 weeks if things have not improved...then will have a much better feel for what has to be done. In fact...let's revisit after we play Collingwood in rd 6. by then we will have had a couple of very winnable games a tough trip to Freo and the bench mark team. I reckon we'll know a lot more about how this years plans are going....and a couple more efforts like sunday from the selectors, coaches and players and it could get interesting.

The point a few have made on here is that its not based on one game. Weve seen the same things for 12 months now!

Claiming that our backline was undermanned, cooney under done and so on,really is just glossing over the cracks. Even with lake, a fit cooney, hargrave, gilbee etc we still wouldve been beaten convincingly.

Im dissapointed with supporters that use round 1, injuries etc as an excuse. The fact is these are just that excuses. Yeah I luv the dogs aswell, but face it we arent up to it on the field or in the box.

 

[TempleKelvington]

The point a few have made on here is that its not based on one game. Weve seen the same things for 12 months now!

Claiming that our backline was undermanned, cooney under done and so on,really is just glossing over the cracks. Even with lake, a fit cooney, hargrave, gilbee etc we still wouldve been beaten convincingly.

Im dissapointed with supporters that use round 1, injuries etc as an excuse. The fact is these are just that excuses. Yeah I luv the dogs aswell, but face it we arent up to it on the field or in the box.

Yeah I understand all that....but my point is...after 1 game of this season what are we supposed to do about it? Do you really believe, that this week is the time to make massive changes? I agree with the issues....I just believe that it's silly to over react at such an early stage. It's a very long season....and I actually believe there were some genuine reasons for the loss...perhaps not the margin.

Let me tell you now, after the Collingwood game in 5 weeks, if the Match committee, coaches and players have served up another performance like Sunday....I'll be leading the charge....by then we'll have much more perspective.

 

[TempleKelvington]

what did they say?

All I heard was "Helloooooo Frank Walkerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" so I turned it off!

 

[CousinOfModra]

I was at the game on Sunday.

You guys were B-grade. I normally fear you guys and feel any lead we have can be pegged back, but I was cracking the champagne at half time. No spirit in that group and unless some drastic happens David Smorgan's pass mark is not going to be achieved.

Barry Hall was a major dissapointment especially watching Dempsey steal the ball from in front of him and set up a goal. I guess that shows the Doggies lack of hunger. No one would have dared run in front of a leading Barry Hall five or six years ago, especally not someone as lightly built as Dempsey.

Back to the drawing board.

 

[INSIGHT]

Good post.

One thing I would like to see is Liam Jones to go back to Willi and tried as a defender . I think he will make the grade much like Reid of pies stuggled as a forward and now is a good defender. I know he has only played a handful of games but he does not look a natural forward like Grant.

Tommy Williams will always be an average player tries hard but just does not have the marking or clean ball skills to bea top player where Jones does having marking skills and is cleaner with his hands.

 

[Fossie 32]

I was at the game on Sunday.

You guys were B-grade. I normally fear you guys and feel any lead we have can be pegged back, but I was cracking the champagne at half time. No spirit in that group and unless some drastic happens David Smorgan's pass mark is not going to be achieved.

Barry Hall was a major dissapointment especially watching Dempsey steal the ball from in front of him and set up a goal. I guess that shows the Doggies lack of hunger. No one would have dared run in front of a leading Barry Hall five or six years ago, especally not someone as lightly built as Dempsey.

Back to the drawing board.

That looked bad but he was actually not moving much when Dempsey chipped in front of him so its not like he pulled up from a lead and let someone take the mark. Nor that he was lacking in hunger.
More like the ball should have come in in front of him - happened a few times that the ball wasn't delivered to him properly if at all and he still got 2 goals and robbed of another. [Crap in the back decision].

 

[CalWard Is Money]

Getting rid of Gia was based on one game. Last season he was the leader for goal assist amongst 600 players. Yes he had a bad day on Sunday.

You need to look into your stats a bit deeper especially goal kicking. Yes we did kick less goals over the past two years, but so did the rest of the comp as defense became a new trend. We still managed in 2009 and 2010 to be in the top three for goals. We have also changed our game plan slightly over the past two years to be more defensive and were one of the top for defense in 2010, ie conceeding least goals. I agree from that Geelong game in 2010, it has me a little worried, ie the way we conceeded so many goals. This is mainly due to our unaccounatble midfield not putting on any pressure.

Overall I like your analysis. I think we need two Bob Murphys, who I consider in the top three in importance for our team.

Once again do you really think i would put that much time and effort into dissecting the numbers if i was going to base my thoughts on one game???

My thoughts on Daniel Giansiracusa have been pretty much the same for the last three years. I don't know where you got your goal assist statistics from but the one I use has him ranked equal 25th in the AFL for GOAL Assists with an average of 0.9 per game.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_player_rankings?year=2010&rt=LA&st=GA

Interestingly enough Andrejs Everitt was ranked equal 41st with 0.8 Goal Assists per game. What happened to him again???

Gia is an extremely smart player. He has carved a 200 game career out of being able to suck his player up the ground to the contest and then slipping out the backdoor for a cheap possession. So he should bloody well lead the comp in assists (which he doesn't). I'd love for someone to do the statistics on how many times his direct opponent has started a scoring chain from defense because he has left the contest.

I was just watching a bit of AFL 360 on Fox and Robbo, David King and Mark Maclure have absoultely given it to he doggies. Robbo likened Gia to Blake Caracella and emphasised the fact that he basically has no role to play in the modern game. I couldn't agree more.

 

[CalWard Is Money]

I do understand that the analysis here is not based just on rd 1....but let me put it to you this way.

After reviewing all the stats on last year, like you have on here and after a summer of planning, of identifying our issues and implementing changes and so on, we role into the season. We front the a hot bomber outfit a team we struggled with last year, new coach, home crowd. We don't have our first rate backline, we don't have Lake. Cooney is healthy and playing a gallop or two short of his best fitness. We go into the game with 4 new players, two who make their debut. To top it off we make a selection error with the ruck and 1 or 2 other selection errors.

Let's say you are David Smorgan.

Do you after rd one sack the coach? Or do you even discuss it?

Lets say you are Rodney Eade.

Do you drop the likes of Boyd because he had a 50% disposal efficiency? Do you drop some other senior players because they didn't work hard enough. Do you drop senior players from a forward line because they failed to apply pressure? Do you make wholesale changes?

That's my point. Sure there are some issues and they need to be addressed, but after just one game of this season, one attempt at the plans made over summer can you really make the sort of calls as I listed above?

....what do you do about it? What would you do if you were in charge....I mean really in charge.

The coaches, the players need to be allowed to sort things through based on a number of weeks. We surely can't expect to go too far, based on one game under the circumstances.

But I'm all for making some very hard calls in 3 or 4 weeks if things have not improved...then will have a much better feel for what has to be done. In fact...let's revisit after we play Collingwood in rd 6. by then we will have had a couple of very winnable games a tough trip to Freo and the bench mark team. I reckon we'll know a lot more about how this years plans are going....and a couple more efforts like sunday from the selectors, coaches and players and it could get interesting.

Outstanding post TK and i fully comprehend where you are coming from. After Round One is definitely NOT the time to panic and plenty of sides have bounced back from poor starts to the season to make an impact in finals. What concerns me the most is the almost blind faith Rocket has shown in guys who have now had three chances to push us into a GF and failed.

I think what was produced on Sunday was piss poor and if i was in charge i would be making a statement. Just ripping into them and us coming out and belting Brisbane and the Gold Coast won't suffice this time.

Daniel Cross and Daniel Giansiracusa are two 'leaders' who are severely flawed in the modern game. I love Daniel Cross so much as an athlete and what he has done to get the best out of himself and part of me would want to say to him "forget about the attacking side of your game, go back to your roots and go out on the weekend and make sure Simon Black doesn't get a kick. The next week go to Rischitelli and do the same." but does he deserve that chance? plenty will categorically say yes, but let me ask you this, if a player has gone full circle in his career and is back to where he started and is obviously not going to improve anymore as a player does someone else then deserve that chance?

I have no doubt that Crossy could go back to tagging some of the slower midfielders and do a great job but what about the progression of someone like Sam Reid? Surely he should be next in line to follow some of the greats around and learn the midfield craft.

Same with Gia, we could look at all the good things he does and ignore the things he does not so well and get to another finals series and have him have no impact again OR Brodie Moles could be given the same opportunities afforded to Gia. What did he do wrong in Rnd 22 last season that got him dropped? He is relatively quick, breaks tackles, is good by foot, knows where the goals are and averaged 4 tackles a game...

So that's what i would do mate, a few adjustments in making Murphy and Picken play forward. Sherman on the ground and up forward from the opening bell. Jones to have a spell and a second ruckmen brought in. One or both of Cross and Gia dropped as a statement that if you do not bring your 'A' game then absolutely no one is exempt from the axe.

 

[Missy Maxi]

why do so many people put so much emphasis on rd 1? It's worth 4 points just like rd 2 and rd 18.

There have been years where we won in rd 1....2008 and 2009 I think, did it matter, did we win the flag? Last year we got towelled up in rd 1 also, and we had a better side in and we had come off our best pre season ever. And we made the prelim.

This year we had far from our best team, we had 2 blokes debut, another 2 playing their first games for us. We had a so so pre season, our best player was playing only his third proper game for the year. Almost an entirely new back line including missing our second best player. We played the form team of the pre season, other than the Pies. We even struggled against this mob last year when they were rubbish. They had the home crowd, Hirds first game and so on. It was always going to be a hard ask to win. I was pretty sure once we decided on one ruck that it was the last straw for us to have any chance.

We gifted them at the selection table and with our match day tactics. I still don't know what they were thinking......

Yes we lost...yes we have some issues...especially some of our good players....but come on...it's long season we need to be playing our best when it really counts. I firmly believe we will get better as the year goes on. And so....I will say it again.....it's now round 2.

What does it matter? It's only Round 1???????
It DOES matter because we may miss the finals because we didn't put in any effort to a game like this because it was only Round 1......that will come back to bite us like so many other half hearted efforts of previous years. Why not play every game to win!!! That's what it's all about. No point getting better as the year goes on if we are down the bottom of the ladder is there!!!! Oh wow look at us....we are getting better with each game. What a load of rubbish. We have had 6 months to come up with game plans and be ready for Round 1, I'm sorry but with that performance our team has a loser attitude and if that continues we are going nowhere.

 

[yebiga]

Going in with a single Ruckman last week against Essendon is a sign that this coaching panel is clutching. For those who were there, you would recall that in the 1st quarter we came out and got in front and each time Hudson took a breather Essendon would catch up.

From the second quarter on, our midfield was left bewildered. When the Bombers pile on the goals, we could do nothing. The lack of cohesion and passion from the dogs was astonishing. Clearly, against a fast midfield like Essendon's, some of our players are left flat footed in the oppositions wake. The way we were slaughtered in the midfield was frightening.

I know it is round 1 and we may well get back on track but unless Essendon is a top 4 team and we just got ambushed, there is a lot to be concerned about.

We will have a better idea after this week. But I am already thinking, we need to right this year off as development and get as many games as possible into Jones, Wallis, Cordy, Liber, Vez, Djerkera, Schofield, Roughhead, Reid etc, etc.

There is not much more to get out of Gia who has been a great servant. Cross as others have stated has huge limitations. We have had a good run at it for 3 years and fallen short. I fear that unless the side is recast somewhat there will follow a slow but relentless decline.

I would give it no more than this week - unless we can smash an undermanned Brisbane it is time to act. I will not be surprised if we really struggle across the line.

 

[Chicago1]

Summer? Mine is coming up, at last! Our winter was cold and snowy.I'll be watching Cubs games, visiting theme parks to ride roller coasters and watching(listening) to the Doggies all summer long. Of course, I'm still here in Melbourne for 12 more days so I have a couple more matches and trainings to go to.

 

[lindsay_bulldogs]

Once again do you really think i would put that much time and effort into dissecting the numbers if i was going to base my thoughts on one game???

My thoughts on Daniel Giansiracusa have been pretty much the same for the last three years. I don't know where you got your goal assist statistics from but the one I use has him ranked equal 25th in the AFL for GOAL Assists with an average of 0.9 per game.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_player_rankings?year=2010&rt=LA&st=GA

Interestingly enough Andrejs Everitt was ranked equal 41st with 0.8 Goal Assists per game. What happened to him again???

Gia is an extremely smart player. He has carved a 200 game career out of being able to suck his player up the ground to the contest and then slipping out the backdoor for a cheap possession. So he should bloody well lead the comp in assists (which he doesn't). I'd love for someone to do the statistics on how many times his direct opponent has started a scoring chain from defense because he has left the contest.

I was just watching a bit of AFL 360 on Fox and Robbo, David King and Mark Maclure have absoultely given it to he doggies. Robbo likened Gia to Blake Caracella and emphasised the fact that he basically has no role to play in the modern game. I couldn't agree more.

Spot on there. Great post. This type of game style was us in 2006. It doesn't win finals. Beating your direct opponent does.

Outstanding post TK and i fully comprehend where you are coming from. After Round One is definitely NOT the time to panic and plenty of sides have bounced back from poor starts to the season to make an impact in finals. What concerns me the most is the almost blind faith Rocket has shown in guys who have now had three chances to push us into a GF and failed.

I think what was produced on Sunday was piss poor and if i was in charge i would be making a statement. Just ripping into them and us coming out and belting Brisbane and the Gold Coast won't suffice this time.

Daniel Cross and Daniel Giansiracusa are two 'leaders' who are severely flawed in the modern game. I love Daniel Cross so much as an athlete and what he has done to get the best out of himself and part of me would want to say to him "forget about the attacking side of your game, go back to your roots and go out on the weekend and make sure Simon Black doesn't get a kick. The next week go to Rischitelli and do the same." but does he deserve that chance? plenty will categorically say yes, but let me ask you this, if a player has gone full circle in his career and is back to where he started and is obviously not going to improve anymore as a player does someone else then deserve that chance?

I have no doubt that Crossy could go back to tagging some of the slower midfielders and do a great job but what about the progression of someone like Sam Reid? Surely he should be next in line to follow some of the greats around and learn the midfield craft.

Same with Gia, we could look at all the good things he does and ignore the things he does not so well and get to another finals series and have him have no impact again OR Brodie Moles could be given the same opportunities afforded to Gia. What did he do wrong in Rnd 22 last season that got him dropped? He is relatively quick, breaks tackles, is good by foot, knows where the goals are and averaged 4 tackles a game...

So that's what i would do mate, a few adjustments in making Murphy and Picken play forward. Sherman on the ground and up forward from the opening bell. Jones to have a spell and a second ruckmen brought in. One or both of Cross and Gia dropped as a statement that if you do not bring your 'A' game then absolutely no one is exempt from the axe.

Agree with your moves there. Except with Wood out we still need Murphy back. Accountability has been lacking from our leaders and they should be setting the example. It's great to attack as long as your winning the ball but if not its time to man up.

 

[minters]

What does it matter? It's only Round 1???????
It DOES matter because we may miss the finals because we didn't put in any effort to a game like this because it was only Round 1......that will come back to bite us like so many other half hearted efforts of previous years. Why not play every game to win!!! That's what it's all about. No point getting better as the year goes on if we are down the bottom of the ladder is there!!!! Oh wow look at us....we are getting better with each game. What a load of rubbish. We have had 6 months to come up with game plans and be ready for Round 1, I'm sorry but with that performance our team has a loser attitude and if that continues we are going nowhere.

ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY PERFECT SUMMATION!!!! COULDN'T HAVE WRITTEN IT ANY BETTER!!!!

 

[CalWard Is Money]

Bump...

There are those of us who could see this coming as far back as half way through last season...why couldn't anyone in charge of our club see it.

Even in the dark old days I was rarely embarrassed by this football club (except for the rhode years) because we always had that bit of shit in us.

When we had crap sides we used to play the good sides and as my old man used to say "bring 'em down to our level"...that was insipid tonight.

Roos cleaned up Eade's mess at Sydney and won them a long awaited flag, perhaps he could do the same for us???

 

[Sharkey66]

A lot of the deficincies in the side were (suposedly) addressed with all our boom recruits this year.How many are actualluy getting a game?. Sherman and Libba are the only ones.Another stuff up?

 

[Kelvin31]

What did we do all summer?

Injuries aside.....
Our stamina and fitness to run out games needs to be addressed. More money must be spent on the football and conditioning departments to bring us up to the level of the "big" clubs

 

[wian]

What did we do all summer?

Injuries aside.....
Our stamina and fitness to run out games needs to be addressed. More money must be spent on the football and conditioning departments to bring us up to the level of the "big" clubs

so much for the fancy whitten oval development, dubbed the best in the league , with all the mod cons and elite training facilities -

They are obviously not using them

 

[Kelvin31]

so much for the fancy whitten oval development, dubbed the best in the league , with all the mod cons and elite training facilities -

They are obviously not using them

Yep.
Fact is all AFL clubs now have the "best training facilities bar none" ..blah blah blah.
I'm questioning our fitness/conditioning staffing and personnel (or lack thereof) compared to other clubs.

 

[inyourfacedunk]

They are obviously not using them properly

FTFY

It's one thing to have great facilities. It's another to use them to their full potential. I think something is wrong with the staffing, as injury management has always been a problem, and this is an extension of strength and conditioning.