After sitting through another flogging yesterday its pretty obvious we are still a long long way from being able to really mix it with the good sides.
The Weagles showed us up in all aspects of the game yesterday, but for me the things that stood out the most was their discipline, one on one footy all over the ground all day long and their run to assist.
Every time we had the pill weagles were on their men forcing contests, harrassing and creating turnovers. As soon as there was a loose ball they had players run to the contest, others blocking/shepperding or running past with a bit of space to create an option. Most times they easily forced the contest in their favour and the few times they didn't they ran back hard and had our players covered in an instant.
It's not surprising we copped some huge smashings this year, our guys look really flash surging forward from the backline with the ball at times but once a player is out of the contest he seems to spectate for a while before wandering off to try and find his opponent leaving us horribly exposed on the turnover.
We also regularly fail to do any covering work for our players, I wonder how many of our players laid a block or shepperd for a team mate to give him room instead of standing half a metre off and calling for the ball and then tripping over him or being tackled by the same player harrassing the first ball carrier or fumbling the hot pass from 30cms.
I have no idea what was going on with our forward line but virtually all day long we had three of our five talls ( Richo, Staff, Simmo, Schulz, or Patto) standing in a bunch on the ten metre square waiting for the ball to come in and then charging out in a bunch to try and outmark one another. Surely with the marking capabilities of these guys you would do the old playtex bra thingy, lift and seperate so they could each stand one out. Petts was the other forward most of the day a medium lead and mark player not a crumber so we had virtually no one at the fall.
The Bummers beat us in the midfield last week and the Weagles smashed us yesterday. Matter of fact we get beaten most weeks around the midfield scrimmages, we get Cogs and Newmo back next year and our kids will have another preseason under the belt so will be a bit more physically developed but we desperately need a skilled power extractor in there before we go for a key defender.
Only my humble opinion but I reckon Plough needs to give a copy of this game against the Weagles to every player on the list for a christmas present. Have them go through it study it and analise it, even have nightmares about it.
The club has a heap of work to do over the next season or two putting bulk on our young players.
Working on their skills to reduce cheap turnovers.
Working on their one percenters and decision making in tight. Blocking, shepperding, running back to their opponents when they are out of the contest just as hard as they do to create a contest.