We were 7 goals up. Francis didn’t lose us the game with the last goal. The process of losing this game started well before then. You said he lost us the game with that last goal, so you’re kind of ignoring a lot of other stuff by saying that.
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he did. the last play of the game - his man took a uncontested mark 10m out because Aaron had 1, no awareness of the game situation and 2, no ability to have any idea about defensive positioning which has been happening for years. if you dont agree thats fine but if he was even a slightly competent defender, that last situation doesn’t happen
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That’s actually a very insightful point. Always seems to be flying around like a bull at the gate at a high intensity. Would love for him to just operate under some composure and calmness.
Have a look at the contest in the middle of the ground. All bar one of our players got sucked into the contest. Hawthorn had 3 out the back unattended. When Shiels delivers forward he has heaps of time and space to kick to O’Brien’s advantage. There’s also loads of space for O’Brien to move in to. Not saying Francis defended it well, looked like he got wrong footed and O’Brien got a break on him. But our poor set up in the middle was the main reason they were able to deliver forward with ease. We have a 5 point lead with 2 minutes on the clock and nobody thinks to get goal side of their opponent, yet the blame lies solely with the defender?
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Man. Remember the ‘Ryder Speccie’ era fFrancis? My memory is rotted from booze, but it seemed like there was a seven week ir so stretch he was looking like a superstar.
Feelslike a lifetime ago.
He’s got no touch on his opponent at all, and sure if you are going to try and take front position you might need to be checking back where your opponent is regularly not just ball watch.
In a perfect world he should really have been in a position such that O’Brien had to lead to the boundary to find space.
Instead he waltzes behind Francis without him even knowing, and takes an easy uncontested mark in front of goal under no pressure at all
Given Francis’s attributes - speed/leap - I’m not sure why he wasn’t preferring to play from behind/on OBrien’s right shoulder. Playing in front needs very strong anticipation & awareness also which he certainly doesn’t have.
Absolutely the way Hawks got forward from midfield wasn’t great though. Our boys seem to have committed to the stoppage but all that happened was Hawks got the ball out back of it and send it forward to their free men waiting. Would have been better for Shiel to have been pinged HTB diving on it than the tap/handball out to Hawks players.
We did a LOT of things wrong across the ground in that 2nd half that’s for damn sure.
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He is going to come good this week in Adelaide.
You will all be lining up to grovel for st Francis de agressi’s forgiveness.
Not if he plays on Dixon…
Play him forward, he’s a better option up there than hooker.
Let him take a few grabs to get his contested marking confidence back.
In the last 2 seasons he seems to have drifted from a fantastic contested mark, to a not so good spoiler.
He missed a couple of grabs on Saturday, but often brought the ball to ground forward of the contest.
If he can at least do that consistently up forward, our smalls can start to anticipate the outcome.
If nothing else he can dodge blame, because our mids can’t deliver good looks.
Pressure is off.
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I know, I mentioned that. but like I said, always an excuse
it was poor from the mids no doubt, but it wasn’t some awesome kick that gave Francis no hope, it was a kick 10m out, top of the square. our mids need to be better no doubt but it was absolutely terrible from franga and he deserves the criticism for games like he had round 1, because 6 years on he has games like that far too often.
let’s hope our coaches actually are teaching our defenders something because if they are teaching our defenders to play loose with 1 minute to go and a kick in it, well march them out today
anyway, its been done to death. I hope he has a better game this week, but I also hope he smarten up. the problem with franga is his mistakes are generally terrible ones that cost us multiple goals a week. if he could cut the bad moments in half, he’d be a 10x better player. seems a player to me that REALLY needs to go back to just the basics. I really hope he somehow turns it around and becomes a solid dependable player but unfortunately I dont see it
Win as a team lose as a team
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He can’t play forward, we’ve tried it, we’ve seen it, it’s defence or bust.
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I seem to recall he did okay. Competed at ground level, and participated in a couple of goal assists.
He has a strong body and presence.
How many games did he play forward?
How does it go?
If at first you don’t succeed … try try try again
No just stop right there, he’s no good , can’t do it.
Sheesh … the original owners of TakeOver Target sold him for $1400 because he didn’t win straight away.
It seemed like all of our “tall” defenders were playing in front. Any time it got out the back, we were in trouble. Can only guess the instruction was to get front position, but who knows.
You can’t play both Stringer and Francis as medium forwards in the same team.
I’ll add one more, lack of continuity. He’s averaged 7 games a season. And a good chunk of his 36 career games have been as a key back, which simply isn’t his go. Would love to see him get a good run on a back flank or as a 3rd tall. Would even be happy to throw him forward. Unfortunately, until Stewart and/or Ambrose are ready to return, he’ll be stuck in the wrong role and by then, his confidence will take a hammering… especially if he ever decides to visit this website.
he played 19 games in 2019
unfortunately for him, ridley took the role he played and did a better job.
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So I watched the whole game again and have listed each and every Francis moment.
He has 3 goals kicked on him including a high tackle on a ducking hawks player. The two other goals were a Hawks midfield streaming through the middle and Shiel on both occasions pin pointing the perfect kick to O’Brien.
Other things I noticed.
He looked lost at times in the structure. Being a natural footy player, it was clear the structure was not natural to him.
He needs to get fitter, he just looked exhausted in the last qtr, but it is round 1 and he kept running.
He also needs to go for his marks more, as he on several occations looked to tap the ball down to a defender rather than mark it himself.
Q1
Midfield stream through middle, Francis a slight slip and ball placed perfectly to the advantage of Ceglar at the 28 second mark of the first quarter. Goal
Francis intercepts a ground ball at the 3:05 min, side steps then tries to hit a leading target but intercept mark by Hawks
4:19 min ball bombed long into our forward line, Francis needs to back back into 2 tall hawks players to spoil. He does so beautifully by tapping down to Hind on the run.
11:47 min in, Hawks player kicks a grubber, Francis in the right spot, picks it up and handballs to Merrett. Merrett kicks to McGrath who hand pases to Francis at half back, Francis poor handball back behind McGrath stopping his run, McGrath gives an even worse handball back to Francis who has a Hawks player standing behind him. Francis is tackled and loses the ball. Hawks get ball but are tackled, ball spills free Francis ends up with ball and does a nice handball to McGrath.
2Q
5:05 min in, francis goes up as 3rd man up and taps nice ball down to Hind. Probably could have marked it, but tap was fine.
9:00 min in Francis playing well in front, gets spoiled but gets a nice handball out to Caldwell.
13:20 min in Ball bombed long by hawks with Francis playing in front one on one earns free kick. Handballs to Hind.
With 37 seconds left, Francis leaves his man to make a massive spoil on the wing.
Q3
1:50 min Francis zoning off his man slips and O’brien receives the ball lace out on a lead. Goal.
3:26 min Francis goes up in a pack to spoil, then lays a high tackle on Hawks small who clearly ducked. Goal.
6:03 min Francis spoils long kick on wing, picks up ball and is tackled by Hawks 3 players, drops the ball and they are off.
9:00 min Francis gets the ball at half forward off a spoil and handballs to Parish
13:50 min Francis handballs off to Ridley off the pack in the backline
15:00 min Francis standing 60m out from his goal in his zone position when ball goes over his head to a player (not sure if his opponent) is standing 35m out by himself. Francis on the mark though. Shanks kick straight to Hawks player who passes off to someone that kicks Goal.
16:26 min Francis setting up zone on 50m. Perfect kick to Breust that marks 2-3 from Francis. Breust kicks it to the line where we fail to spoil and Hawks player crumbs and kicks the goal.
Q4
50 seconds Francis takes a nice mark at half back and chips short to Parish on the lead.
3:55 min Francis takes a nice intercept grab on the wing, kicks long into the 50m to no real advantage.
4:20 min Francis lays tackle and a couple of pressure acts to get ball over the boundary.
8:10 min Francis recieves a short pass from Ridley on the 50m. Beautiful agressive pass to Cahill in the center square. Cahill drops the mark! Ball goes back high into 50m where Francis goes up and tries to tap down to Redman rather than mark the ball. Ball comes out to Cahill who short passes straight to a Hawks player.
9:30 min Francis in a pack marking contest, doesn’t do much and looks exhausted once ball hits the ground. Beginning or the end.
10:00 min Ridley handpasses to Francis who is by himself on the boundary line. Francis attempts a short pass sideways, but Hawk player gets his fingers on it and spoils.
12:45 min Francis jumps and spoils in pack situation about 30m out.
13: 25 min Francis jumps and spoils long kick into 50m.
16:30 min Ball bombed into Bombers backline where Francis gets there first to an awkward ball. Slips but dishes out the handball to Ridley.
18:12 min O’Brien has the perfect ball passed to him by Shiel as the Hawks mids streamed in. Francis no chance and looked exhausted. Sure Francis didn’t have body contact, but O’Brien was moving backwards as the mids streamed forward, so Francis was trying to keep his eye on what the mids were doing as well as where O’Brien was. No one would have stopped that passage of play.
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I must of missed that.
Is that a new rule the AFL introduced this year?