Gameday - Tigers V Bombers

[leon]

That's my biggest concern as well. Jack's lost his ground-ball skills, and is incapable of stopping his opponent running off him so easily.

It's not his fault. He is near the end after a fantastic career and contribution to this great club. He was serviceable as 2nd forward to Lynch, but cannot do it on his own as a relatively small KPF at 34 years old. Dimma said tonight he is beaten up and sore. You can see he is really struggling, can hardly bend down, can't chase, just jogs around and is getting beaten up by the opposition defensive marking pack.

The club is to blame for this, for failing to adequately invest in a KPP succession plan, except for cheapies like Miller, Bauer and Bradtke. None of whom except Miller might make it. Re selection - Miller would have been handy to play tonight. Everyone knows that Dons' backs are excellent intercept markers and run it out well - especially Redman, then Ridley and Z-Thatcher. Their talls just knocked Ryan aside too, like Draper.

Losing Chol and CCJ was not their fault perhaps, but the obsessive selection of the same type of small (i.e. under 183cm or so), light flankers or SFs with what limited draft capital we have had, is to blame IMHO.
Our players keep bombing into F50 because no-one is quick on the lead, there's hardly any good mark except JR and they cannot see any other target. It's become a chronic problem.

 

[22nd Man]

all week I said don’t beat Essendon and we are back to where we before we played Cats.

 

[Little Ziggyadee]

Just watched the last qtr again
We are sooo unfit it's not funny.
Sampson Ross Dusty Cotchin Prestia and Pickett half hearted attempts to tackle or chase.
Some of our kicking is under 8's quality.
We can't even hit 20 meter leading passes.
Can we ask for a priority pick?
Our Team 'Harley Reid or Jimmy Toompas"
We know who they would select

 

[craig]

We are too busy getting Cotchin to 300

Its all we have left to look forward too this year in all likelihood.

 

[Ridley]

It's not his fault. He is near the end after a fantastic career and contribution to this great club. He was serviceable as 2nd forward to Lynch, but cannot do it on his own as a relatively small KPF at 34 years old. Dimma said tonight he is beaten up and sore. You can see he is really struggling, can hardly bend down, can't chase, just jogs around and is getting beaten up by the opposition defensive marking pack.

The club is to blame for this, for failing to adequately invest in a KPP succession plan, except for cheapies like Miller, Bauer and Bradtke. None of whom except Miller might make it. Re selection - Miller would have been handy to play tonight. Everyone knows that Dons' backs are excellent intercept markers and run it out well - especially Redman, then Ridley and Z-Thatcher. Their talls just knocked Ryan aside too, like Draper.

Losing Chol and CCJ was not their fault perhaps, but the obsessive selection of the same type of small (i.e. under 183cm or so), light flankers or SFs with what limited draft capital we have had, is to blame IMHO.
Our players keep bombing into F50 because no-one is quick on the lead, there's hardly any good mark except JR and they cannot see any other target. It's become a chronic problem.

Spot on Leon. This incessant need for drafting flankers is infuriating. Draft *smile* mids FFS!!! They can play on the flank if need be. Flankers can't play in the midfield.

And draft *smile* key position players when your 2 main guys are in or close to their 30s!!

 

[22nd Man]

I'm kind of stunned by I could see it coming at the game, in terms of the way it finished. The bounce for Grimes that went away from him, the bounce when Rioli was streaming towards the 50 (he should have used the players outside of him), the OOTF by Mansell to keep the door ajar, but I do have to say, for probably the smartest footballer I have seen play the game, that kick off the ground by Jack was the dumbest thing I've ever seen him do. Pick it up, get tackled, force the stoppage. Its not rocket science in the last minute of the game, the 1 thing that you cannot do is kick the ball out into wide open spaces. He may not have known Ridley was there, but it was a dumb low percentage play.

Whilst we weren't great, I wasn't impressed with the Bombers and the thing I thought coming away from the game is, regardless of where we are right now, we will win another premiership before they do. Whilst they may have outcoached is tonight, Brad Scott is teaching them a gameplan that will not win finals and certainly not a GF. It was a scared gameplan to try and scrag a close one (it worked) but its hardly coaching for a flag. Play 1 back, have your wingers flood back and then move the ball so slowly forward, that you are only left with bombing the ball long, we intercepted at will from their entries, but the problem was, that they slowed the game down so much, when they turned it over, there was then no speed available to open the game up. We did try, especially players like Rioli, Shai and Bakes but it just wasn't working.

I'll give the Bombers 1 thing, they are fit. Playing players like Durham, Martin etc, it enables them to 2 way run and get back and clog space, but geez its a long way from a premiership winning gameplan.

Boring, dour and a very crap expression of our game.

Good perspective but when will we win a flag and them?

 

[jb03]

Just watched the last qtr again
We are sooo unfit it's not funny.
Sampson Ross Dusty Cotchin Prestia and Pickett half hearted attempts to tackle or chase.
Some of our kicking is under 8's quality.
We can't even hit 20 meter leading passes.
Can we ask for a priority pick?
Our Team 'Harley Reid or Jimmy Toompas"
We know who they would select

Or our team "Lennon or Cripps"

 

[leon]

3 words.

We can't kick!

I would say one of the poorest kicking and marking teams I have ever seen. It's no surprise Merrett won the medal. His precise disposal just killed us (and he still tackles and applies pressure). Many teams have several elite kicks that can carve you up.

Closet we have is Dusty but he has always mixed clangers with the brilliant. The skunks have about 5+ such players.

 

[leon]

The other thing was Hardwicks constant praise of Nank. Don’t get me wrong Nank has been a warrior for us. But the game now has changed and so have we. Ryan and Miller gave us a point of difference.

The irony too. Miller won the VFL game against them today. Durham - pinched under our noses from our VFL program by Dodoro - won it for them!

(So have we invested in/selected or retained better players, in terms of a future, than Durham?) Again, Clarke and Hartley dudded. And I said I liked Durham a long way back.

 

[rat bastad]

Pissed at what I saw tonite.

To summarize:

Could we have played any worse? NO.

Was our decision making terrible? YES.

Execution into the 50 shizen? YES

Were we smashed in the air? YES.

Our players/coaches not able to read what the Junkies were doing ? YES (passing it around and going inboard via the corridor EVERY time).

Many lack aggressive attack on the ball or stood by watching ? YES.

Should we still have won the game? YES.

If all the above is true - how SH!T are the Junkies ?

We've played in 12 close games since 2021, lost 9, drew 3. Hardly inspiring and in of itself, damning.

In ALL of those games we've been AHEAD and in winning positions. The 14 blokes that have left/retired etc have radically changed the nucleus of this side, not only skill wise but above the shoulders wise as well. Losing Leppa, Caracella and Fly has exposed Dimma and the replacement assistants as well, its plain to see.

Just my 2c.

 

[rat bastad]

K Mac was a momentum killer and turnover merchant all F$@##&Y$# night as well.

Ive been a muted K Mac fan (hard worker/runner) but have been watching him real close for the last month. He hurts us every time he gets it, same again tonite. If he did'nt have a tank or we did'nt have injuries he should be in the VFL. Gives us nothing and out of sorts for some time now....horribly out of form.

When he gets it he holds onto it FOREVER ........indecisively.

Momentum killer.......then proceeds to turn it over.

Needs a spell in the 2s - the season is over, give a kid a run.

 

[leon]

Rebuild needed is biggest message from tonight. We’re not being honest if we deny that.

This. We gambled on one last flag fling, failing to really take enough note of all the close losses last year. The same glaring deficiencies were apparent but were somewhat disguised by Lynch playing more games, a few less injuries perhaps and some players being a year younger. Some teams have improved markedly in '23 that were poorer last year, allowing the Moggs to steal the flag.

But we have been clearly excelled now by several rebuilding teams and are falling off the pace. We have to get some successful picks from the draft urgently before Tassie comes in.

 

[leon]

Daniel Roili weak as water in the last contest. Soft.

And he burned team-mates out wide and open by trying to go for that hero run and bounces, who were much closer for a goal-shot. Same as JR8 burned Cotch in Q1 but going for a left-footed snap from ~40m out and missing.

Not even playing selfless Richmond Man footy any more. Going for personal ego glory.

 

[Bill Haverchuck]

Dustin Martin 2 centre bounce attendances
Trent Cotchin 0

Hmmm

 

[leon]

what happened to the team that beat the cats last

I reckon their game plan is rubbish. They had 6 goals to 3/4 time, kicked 2 in a half. We lost it, simple as that.

No we lose the close ones to most sides. We are rubbish.

 

[leon]

While it was really messy and disorganised, I’m not blaming the coach. We missed many many many opportunities to dominate and were mostly diabolical all night by hand and foot and stupid beyond belief in decision making. We really sucked ass.

So who does the buck stop with? When it's been happening for 3 years now? Aren't we supposed to 'get better'? Work on that? Who is in charge of what we do at training? What drills where you do the practice to 'get better'?
The game-plan? Who endorses the leaders? The drafting selections?

Teams and players need directing.

 

[leon]

Our Premiership heroes are rapidly ageing and fading away.
The younger players are simply not good enough
I am resigned to the fact that we are entering those long dark years of mediocrity again.

My fear as well. And I have seen it coming (or think I do) year by year since '20, and draft night by draft night.

 

[KnightersRevenge]

I'm not a footy wonk, I just say what I see. And I only see the telly, so miss a lot. But it is very obvious this year that it's easier to run the ball out of our F50 than it used to be. We also have serious trouble with next kick after a kick-out from a point. It gets bombed to the wing and we hope K-Mac/Samson/Pickett can mark it or kill it, but we almost never hit a target with that kick. Also Samson/Pickett rarely mark it. K-Mac is surprisingly good overhead now. The other issue is that we used to run it out of there much more than we do now. Rioli still gets on his bike and Bakes is a legend but it is rare to see the chain of forward handballs we used to see that broke open teams. And we aren't bringing the ball inboard nearly enough. The wingers/mids are launching it into the F50 without much of a plan. Without a dominant Lynch in there crashing packs, or a really solid marking target that just can't be our strategy.

 

[MD Jazz]

Pretending he's a forward. Dimma told him to. Cannot mark under pressure and moves and thinks too languidly for a forward. Winger at best.

A forward that plays from behind mostly too. Simply not a forward. And we’ve lost the defensive aerial support he provided.
Dumb move that’s seen Marlions form rapidly decline

 

[MD Jazz]

Grimes made 3 terrible mistakes in a row in the last. He's really struggling a bit. Just signed for another year.

He also made some amazing goal saving plays in the last.