So I’ve had a chance to sleep, rest, reflect and rewatch parts of the game. My five very long thoughts:
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The effort was much better in Quarter 1. We played ‘our way’ and jumped to a handy lead. Brisbane tried to go head to head with us and lost. Despite the dominance all over the game, our woeful forwardline structure meant we were only 3 goals up. Could have easily been a 10 goal blow out at quarter time. Merrett and Parish were great, Wright played one of the best quarters of his life. It was pleasing that we had a ‘response’ to last week… it is clear there is SOME spirit in this playing group.
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From quarter time onwards we got stomped and stomped hard. Don’t care about margin. We got beaten by a team that ADAPTED and changed their style to beat us. Fagan gave Rutten a masterclass in how to identify a problem and then fix it. Brisbane rolled Berry onto a close job on Merrett meaning he was unable to keep giving bullets to Wright. They also held their forwards back a little deeper and moved Daniher onto the wing where he could use his size and field kicking to get more involved. They switched to a closer man on man style down back and blocked the leading lanes. Zorko stayed out there to act as a general and also to provide quality disposal coming out. Brisbane adjusted and corrected back to a ‘kick first’ mentality to get over our pathetic defensive zone rather than trying to ‘run and gun’ through it with hands. ALL these moves were deliberate and had good effect. We tried exactly ZERO tactics to change the course of the game.
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Rutten can’t coach or won’t coach or whatever… I don’t care but he is a useless pile of junk. He may have tricked me last year but I see him now. Just another in a long line of fraudulent scam artist that will steal money from our great club. NOT ONE positional change… not a single change in approach or style. We “play our way” even when it is clear the tables have turned… that is just IDIOTIC and STUPID. Not even Richmond or Melbourne or Geelong or Hawks in their ‘Prime’ had that stupidity or arrogance to think you are going to be able to dictate every game. You must try to play your way but also be able to counter the opposition. Our head coach is a dead set stone. I’m done with him… now I’m guessing I’ll have to endure 3 years of everyone telling me how stupid my opinion is as we circle the drain again… and then get no apologies when I am proven correct and the masses finally see what is clear as day. Rutten has NFI.
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We had NO real goal threat from our small forwards all day… and yet we had to look at Tex… one of the brightest potential small forwards we have on the list, hot from an amazing pre-season… sitting on the pine. Uh huh. I will never, not ever, never never understand this decision. How you give Ham another bloody chance to spud it up… ditto Smith… whilst we have the pure unbridled energy of a young kid that could become ANYTHING sitting on the pine… duh duh duh. I would say the same with Hobbs… who was recruited as a ‘ready made’ bull… and yet we haven’t even heard a hint of him getting a chance. Just a waste of time and energy following a club that can not and will not accept reality. We need to get serious about selections… serious about recruiting. If you are not performing… then you should be out of the team. Also… I know he took a little while last season… but how did the coaches miss the fact that Heppell is literally a statue compared to modern players. He was never fast to begin with but he is now a deadset liability. Dude looks lost and has NO IMPACT as a player… let alone a Captain. As I saw Merrett slow that lovely running goal and the team rose up around him… that looked like a captains effort. Don’t see anything from Dyson other than a few hair tussles after Cox gave up the pill again and again with shoddy handpassing. Make the tough call and make it early. Heppell, Smith, Ham should all have a big line put through them. Maybe Heppell could play a medical sub role similar to Riccardi a while back for Geelong? The other two should be asked to pack their bags and never ever return to our facility… potentially even the entire Tullamarine district…
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Why are we the least skilled team in the league? Skill error after skill error. However the big one is goal kicking. We were graced by a delightful training report on Tuesday that spoke about a ‘loose goal kicking’ session where everyone just had a bit of fun taking pot shots from whereever… AT that time I posted that we haven’t taken goal kicking seriously enough for 20 years. What a (surprise) that when the pressure came… we can’t hit the side of a barn. We convert our set shots at the same rate as Brisbane and we win by 5 goals. We were deplorable and not just from bad angles. Just really really bad goal kicking and it starts with the fact that you ARE what you TRAIN to be. We don’t take goal kicking seriously in training… and the results are there. STOP mucking around and start having a WEEKLY training session with purpose, drive and dedication to focus on and improve goal kicking. It is a CORE part of the game and yet ignored so frequently.
So whilst some feel we took a step forward yesterday… I feel more anger. Yesterday just confirmed that we have not moved forward one step. We are a middle of the road time that sometimes puts in effort… we are poorly coached, poorly selected, have no leaders and go missing as soon as any heat is applied. Our goal kicking and forward structures are clearly lacking and they seem perfectly content with the middle road.
It is going to be a long long looooooooong season.