What went wrong and how do we fix it for the run home?

[Mattrox]

North did play well today. However, we can play much better.

I do not think only one factor contributed to our bad play.

Selection issues seem to be part of it. We are going to need to get that right very soon. Pets in the green vest? Was he sick? Who should actually be starting, and in what position.

Bad general play? Missing set shots at goals really takes the wind out of the sails. I missed the forst half due to my son's football, so some one can add more ponits on this.

Recovering from man flu? Were players under-done due to illness? The team as a whole seemed flat.

There were some passages of play that were good. But we couldn't put it all together.

Begin the discection.

 

[The Sloane Ranger]

need to get it right at team selection

 

[The Karma Bus]

We have been getting opened up when the opposition win the ball.. Every game it has been pretty well how the opposition have got back in the game or simply won the game.. Whether it's that we push up too far, don't react quick enough in a defensive way, don't have enough speed to react.. The other team win the ball and skip ahead of us to the offensive side and nearly play piggy in the middle the rest of the way down the field.. Easy easy goals have been scored against us..

 

[Elite Crow]

It's a concern that other teams have exposed recently.

If we don't win the contested ball to our advantage we lose the uncontested ball because the opposition are sweating off us. They then run the ball quickly to more loose players because we don't man up tightly enough in defence.

When Jacobs isn't winning the ruck and feeding our midfielders we struggle.

How do we fix it?

Don't have all our players trying to win the contested ball at clearance.
Have some speedier players on the outside of the contest.
Man the **** up in defence, especially when the oppositon has the ball in our attack and can still find loose players on a fast break.

 

[Mattrox]

We have been getting opened up when the opposition win the ball.. Every game it has been pretty well how the opposition have got back in the game or simply won the game.. Whether it's that we push up too far, don't react quick enough in a defensive way, don't have enough speed to react.. The other team win the ball and skip ahead of us to the offensive side and nearly play piggy in the middle the rest of the way down the field.. Easy easy goals have been scored against us..

So do you think that a selection issue to get more pace on the ground to get to the holes or a game plan issue.

 

[The Karma Bus]

So do you think that a selection issue to get more pace on the ground to get to the holes or a game plan issue.

I think we need more speed, no doubt.. But we just don't seem to react quick enough when we lose the ball.. Is that fatigue even? Who knows.. Too many hunting the ball? But especially when i can watch the game live, i notice our mids are not charging off defensively after the opposition as hard as the opposition is charging off to run the ball away..

 

[hugecannon]

We seem to want our defenders to play one on one, or they constantly end up playing one on one, but the majority of them can't defend one on one. Martin is terrible defensively, as is Jaensch, Shaw is still learning and Doughty is ok defensively but woeful offensively we need to get a better balance back there.

 

[Team DJ]

Petrenko as the sub
Doughty to old and slow
Martin is a Chris Schmidt type. Very good SANFL player. Crap AFL Player
Smack is still well off it
Shaw wasnt able to maintain the form of last week. Early knock may have caused this.

 

[Crowked]

Couldnt play worse than that if we tried. Completely non-competative across the ground. Forget North being good, they're a 10th to 14th. team. We were pathetic all day. No intensity, no tackling, no run, poor skills all day long. If we played Collingwood or West Coast today, we would have lost by 20 goals +.

Selection this week will be interesting. We got several wrong for today. Pets in the vest was crap. He's always high intensity, something we didnt have at all today. McKernan is a liability IMO. One of the dumbest footballers ever to wear our colours. Handed the momentum to North almost single handedly in the fist quarter. I wouldn't play him again. Vince is a front runner and shouldnt have his gold pass. McKay is over rated on this board and should be in the gun this week too among others. We have good players playing well in the SANFL. Its time to give more of them their chance and put more pressure on those in the team.

 

[hugecannon]

Petrenko as the sub
Doughty to old and slow
Martin is a Chris Schmidt type. Very good SANFL player. Crap AFL Player
Smack is still well off it
Shaw wasnt able to maintain the form of last week. Early knock may have caused this.

I think Martin has something to offer at this level but not as a defensive player in this team at the moment. If we still had Bock and Bassett in our defense we could probably get away with him or Jaensch as an attacking flanker but our defense is struggling as a unit at the moment and if you can't defend one on one you'll get exposed again and again.

 

[Geoffa32]

As others have said it the inability to stop the next possession after losing a contested ball.

North are a good running quick ball movement side. St kilda did the same thing last week in the fourth quarter.

North having Tarrant, Petrie and Thomas take their chances at the end of this quick ball.movement.did.not help.

 

[Team DJ]

I think Martin has something to offer at this level but not as a defensive player in this team at the moment. If we still had Bock and Bassett in our defense we could probably get away with him or Jaensch as an attacking flanker but our defense is struggling as a unit at the moment and if you can't defend one on one you'll get exposed again and again.

Ehhhhh,

Jaenschs disposal is much much better then martins. Hence why i kept him.

 

[mattymac]

Our goal kicking is shithouse. Legitimately horrendous. Walker and Callinan are the only ones who give me any confidence at set shots.

Lack of defensive accountability. Its all fine when our crash bash contested style comes off, but when it doesn't our opponents rebound like a training drill and find free men in their 50 all the time.

Lack of a plan B. Yet to see Sando come up with some inspired move to get us out of a hole or stop an opposition charge. He is a good workmanlike coach and twice the coach Craig was and does the basics very well and its early days of course so he is still learning his trade, but I'd like to see some more proactive change ups when the chips are down.

Tippet spraying 50% of opportunities when our mids do the hard work to get it to him. This has to stop. Spraying sitters doesn't just hurt directly on the scoreboard. Its amateurish. Spray simple shots = opposition doubts you're the real deal and gets a big morale boost. Anyone who's played footy knows how much of a boost you get when opposition forwards continually let you off leaving the door open for you. Those early misses today when we should've put an immediate stamp of authority on the game really hurt us. Tippet simply has to be more professional with his "goal kicking".

 

[CrowAboutIt]

Ehhhhh,

Jaenschs disposal is much much better then martins. Hence why i kept him.

Jaensch didn't do anything impressive today. Constantly beaten 1 on 1 and really didn't add any attacking flair which is why he is supposed to be there..

Also thought wright went missing once again. I know there's a lot of love for him on here but IMO if he isn't going to tag, eg him on Harvey VB on Wells, then there's no point to him

 

[Elite Crow]

Jesus, you want to know why we lost? I just had a look at the possession count. We were smashed. Our midfielder numbers besides Thommo, Danger and Sloane were all below 20 and most of them under 15 possessions.

 

[CrowAboutIt]

Ehhhhh,

Jaenschs disposal is much much better then martins. Hence why i kept him.

Jaensch didn't do anything impressive today. Constantly beaten 1 on 1 and really didn't add any attacking flair which is why he is supposed to be there..

Also thought wright went missing once again. I know there's a lot of love for him on here but IMO if he isn't going to tag, eg him on Harvey VB on Wells, then there's no point to him

 

[hugecannon]

Ehhhhh,

Jaenschs disposal is much much better then martins. Hence why i kept him.

I agree with Jaensch over Martin and I don't think we can play both in the same defense as they struggle defensively.

 

[BACCS]

Lack of a plan B.

Did Craigy start coaching again? Lack of a plan B is the biggest myth in footy, all teams have more than one game plan to use if things aren't going well.

And also, goalkicking is shithouse across the league, it isn't just us. We had some bad misses today, but it also didn't help the ****ing spud Lindsay Thomas decided to kick straight. **** me, you knew our day was in the shitter when that started happening.

Also, we are still equal 2nd and could move back there with a win next week, which I think we will after such a poor display today. Bit early to start going all doom and gloom.

 

[BACCS]

Jaensch didn't do anything impressive today. Constantly beaten 1 on 1 and really didn't add any attacking flair which is why he is supposed to be there..

Also thought wright went missing once again. I know there's a lot of love for him on here but IMO if he isn't going to tag, eg him on Harvey VB on Wells, then there's no point to him

Wright didn't play great today, but he's also been brilliant over the past month especially. Amazing how quick posters are to knock players only on their most recent game and ignore previous form.

 

[Vader]

I strongly suspect that our lack of run, from the 10min mark of the first quarter onwards, had a lot to do with the flu. I also suspect that there were a lot more players feeling "under the weather" than the club was willing to let on. With all our midfielders gasping for breath, the North Melbourne players had a field day. I almost feel sorry for Martin & Shaw, who both had their shortcomings cruelly exposed. They really didn't stand much of a chance given the way that North were delivering the ball, which is largely the fault of our midfielder group.

Missing set shots on goal just killed us every time we looked like getting the momentum. First Tippett & McKernan in the first quarter, both missing from close range and relatively easy angles (I can forgive Tippett missing from the tight angle - but missing from dead in front was inexcusable). Then McKernan & Wright destroyed our momentum in the 3rd quarter.

Lots of headaches for the selection panel this week. Do they dump Pets completely, or give him another week in the vest? What about Jaensch, Martin, McKernan, Porplyzia and Shaw, all of whom stank it up to high heaven.

 

[footballl]

Conceding 3 goals in the last 90 seconds before quarter time changed the game completely. Instead of going in to quarter time 4 points down, we went in 22 points down. North kick a couple early in the second and suddenly we are chasing the game all day.

Speaking of which, I didn't see the free kick off the ball to Tarrant that led to the second goal as I was at the game, can anyone talk me through it?

 

[Moonwatcher]

Conceding 3 goals in the last 90 seconds before quarter time changed the game completely. Instead of going in to quarter time 4 points down, we went in 22 points down. North kick a couple early in the second and suddenly we are chasing the game all day.

Speaking of which, I didn't see the free kick off the ball to Tarrant that led to the second goal as I was at the game, can anyone talk me through it?

North player on the ground at about the 50 m mark. Crow player basically walks up to him and treds on him. The picture shown wasn't zoomed in so hard to tell what actually happened. Think it was walker but can't really remember.

 

[Moonwatcher]

Not sure about the flu having an impact or that North played well. This game was pretty much identical to the last three encounters between the two sides. Don't think we had the flu those times.

 

[Elite Crow]

I strongly suspect that our lack of run, from the 10min mark of the first quarter onwards, had a lot to do with the flu. I also suspect that there were a lot more players feeling "under the weather" than the club was willing to let on. With all our midfielders gasping for breath, the North Melbourne players had a field day. I almost feel sorry for Martin & Shaw, who both had their shortcomings cruelly exposed. They really didn't stand much of a chance given the way that North were delivering the ball, which is largely the fault of our midfielder group.

Missing set shots on goal just killed us every time we looked like getting the momentum. First Tippett & McKernan in the first quarter, both missing from close range and relatively easy angles (I can forgive Tippett missing from the tight angle - but missing from dead in front was inexcusable). Then McKernan & Wright destroyed our momentum in the 3rd quarter.

Lots of headaches for the selection panel this week. Do they dump Pets completely, or give him another week in the vest? What about Jaensch, Martin, McKernan, Porplyzia and Shaw, all of whom stank it up to high heaven.

The issue is the flaw in our game has been exposed a little too often lately to put it all down to the flu.

As for Pets, as I've shown in the Pets is Sub thread, he doesn't deserve to be dropped. Midfielders who played a whole game and got less than 15 possessions should be in the gun.

 

[CrowAboutIt]

Wright didn't play great today, but he's also been brilliant over the past month especially. Amazing how quick posters are to knock players only on their most recent game and ignore previous form.

I've been thinking it the last month. He has been playin his part but apart from when he tags he doesn't do much. Yes he kicked the match winner vs freo but apart from that n stopping opponents I haven't seen much. If he isn't going to tag I'd rather a player that will have a consistent 4 qtrs rather than one that will bob up every now and again