I don’t normally post new topics but was wondering the thought of our year so far. If you would grade 2019 like a school report…are we an A, B, C, D, E or F so far?
I was thinking today if we somehow did get a win this week we would likely be 5th on the ladder. At the start of the year I had us finishing 6th and it made me reflect on what if we did finish around 6th…what are my thoughts when I have had a number of frustrations on our performances this year?
For me I am likely giving us a C despite the recent courageous form. I was trending an E for sometime so a C is in fact a huge turn around and we can still get to a B on current form.
Strengths and positives so far -
Resilience, grit, toughness , character
Parish and McGrath developing into tougher more reliable players
Back 6 consistent form
McKenna becoming a more elite half back
Emergence of Redman and the introduction of Gleeson back in the side
Essendon finally have a run with player in Dylan Clarke
Depth of list overcoming injuries
Weaknesses or frustrations so far:
Poor start to year again- having to play catch up to keep season alive
Rarely play 3 or 4 Qtrs of quality football- play well in patches or at end of games
Midfield and forwards connection still lacking
Form of Fantasia
Lack of identified consistent game style week to week- talent and moments sometimes winning
games
Pretty reasonable and agree with your ‘good’ and ‘bad’ points.
I’d add Ambrose returning to become the blanketting defensive beast of a couple of years ago as a positive, prior to his most recent injury. Plus Saad. That guy is a joy to watch. Genuine 2 way operator.
If a C is a pass, middle of the road, then we are very clearly a C.
We had a dreadful start. We lost to St Kilda FFS, because we couldn’t learn the lesson from the year before about dropping easy games to start the season.
We have somehow managed to single-handedly bring OP back into the AFL landscape.
We have struggled to score freely, because we cannot manage to create and/or hit a target in the F50.
However, we have still somehow manufactured enough wins to be in the 8… just… for this week anyway.
The lads are being very brave at the moment. I find the skills frustrating, but the wins satisfying. I don’t know if they can keep it up. If they can, the score might go up. If they can’t, it’ll go down.
Anyway, definitely a middle of the road C at present.
I had the season as an F until we beat GWS, now starting to see some positive signs.
Positives:
Dylan Clarke gives us much better balance in the midfield
Mason Redman’s arrival as a serious player
Stringer looks fitter and stronger and more consistent
Midfield shaping up nicely, love the player that Parish is becoming
If we could get our forward line on the park at the same time it is a pretty menacing lineup
Back six consistency
Negatives:
I still think that we were playing better football more consistently at the end of last season.
Winning a final was base expectation for 2019, it seems that expectation has been amended to playing consistent footy
Mismanagement of Joey, questions about Fantasia
Persisting with Myers and Baguley at the start of the season when better options were presenting themselves in the twos.
Failure to promote Draper when given the chance
McGrath hasn’t come on like I’d hoped
We’ve won 2 out of 7 games against the top 6 which doesn’t bode well for finals
Questions:
Not sure if Shiel really represents value for $ considering what we gave up, somewhat dependent on where we finish but we would have been thinking top 6 when we made the trade, not bottom 10. His foot skills are problematic.
Leading into GWS I would have said F but some signs of spirit and decent play has elevated us to a D+ IMHO. Some absolutely putrid losses in there prevents it being higher. Not making finals would consign us back to an F
C ish just at the moment - would need to make finals to keep it. Barely a D- for the season so far, which is not too bad considering the start to the season was very F-.
If you take into account the players available to play, I’d put us as B+.
Grinding out recent wins against good sides while missing key talented players is impressive. I’m annoyed about the start of the year, if we repeat that performance in 2020 heads should roll.
The young talent starting to cement themselves is awesome, plus the vfl side is dominating, which has a big impact on our future success.
We’ve been scraping in over the line last few weeks, which is great. Certainly better than losing those games, but the teams we’ve scraped over the line against haven’t been world beaters, GWS aside who seem to be in a bit of a form slump currently.
Last 2/3 of last year I loved how we were playing, consistent tough footy. We lost some games, won a lot of games and put the effort in every week… woe betide anyone who slackened off against us and allowed us use of the corridor.
For some reason because the teams that beat us were quality teams, we seem to have decided that our game plan wouldn’t stand up and have re-worked large portions of it. This year our skills have been woeful, the effort has been inconsistent and for the most part it’s been ugly too. At this point it’s not really about results for me, we could make finals and win one playing like we are and I would probably still think Worsfold should be moved on.
Hooker: he doesn’t just make our defence better but also the whole team.
Saad: the most consistent out of the all players, imo, deserves to be AA at the season’s end
Redman: enough said.
McKenna: had a couple of bad games but been great otherwise.
-Ambrose: same as Redman, no need to say more.
Hurley: Same as McKenna. Doesn’t deserve the hate he gets from Blitz sometimes.
VFL: sitting on the top of the ladder.
Weaknesses and negatives:
Forward (blame the injuries).
Walla not hitting the scoreboard enough this year.
What is wrong with Orazio?
Get our forwards healthy and in form, we would be sitting in top 4.
My pass mark in the pre-season was a finals win. Now that Hurley is out potentially for the season, and Hooker being not 100% and a b-grade forwardline, it’s just a top 8 finish. I think that is a reasonable expectation as we can’t see us winning a final without Hurley and Hooker.
