Let me guess:
First game of the pre-season and player X didn’t do as well as I expected so that is his season done and he should be delisted.
Am I doing it right?
First preseason game ffs. Put the razor blades away.
Blitz panic. Nothing changes.
It's interesting that Langford is such a divisive player. I understand the doubts, but I really don't understand how people haven't ever seen anything in him though.Last night, sure. He had a Barry Crocker off the back off a very hyped pre-season.
As a midfielder, sure, I see and somewhat agree with that too. I don’t reckon he’s shown a single thing at AFL level yet that would suggest that he’s suited to playing midfield. In fact, he generally looks lost if he’s more than one kick away from forward 50.
But nothing at all?
To me, he looks like a medium sized lead-up target, sort of a ‘taller and better Angus Monfries’ type. I reckon he’s shown plenty at AFL level to suggest this, too.
I was bullish on LAV going to midfield instead of langas. But instead now I think they’re both HFF/Wingers.
I'm with Wim.I just don’t see it in Langford. I’m not sure if it is decision making, slowness or skill level but his execution of simple foot and hand skills were deplorable.
I am happy to be proven wrong. Love to in fact.
Langford is a preseason training specialist
McGrath looked like a young Scarlett.
Merrett, Heppell will be fighting for brownlow votes.
Also Tippa should be HBF. Hes way more damaging there both ways.
To be honest I had zero concerns last night. Move the ball much better which allowed scoring to improve even without Daniher, Hooker and Laverde(possibly Francis). McGrath was on Varcoe most of the match which Varcoe had little impact. McGrath was all one touch possessions and decisive in handballing. The rest of his game will come but the elements I looked for were all there.
It is exactly how the game is described…match practice… No doubt we are a bit further back than other clubs with game plan and cohesion so with our list comfortably on top of Pies at 3/4 time there is no reason to not be happy.
If we ran a ladder of pre season game victories over 3 seasons Hawks would be wooden spponers…so perspective needed.
Jobe looked good…Hepps got into as the game went on. Myers obviously needed the run with an extensive time not playing…but will only build from here on.
Green, Colyer and Fantasia I thought looked incredibly dangerous as small forwards. Caused a bit of mayhem for Pies. Stewart as the game went on got better but he needs Joe and Hooks beside him to get less attention.
I reckon there will be 3-4 days of important videotape now to coach the boys on game plan and individual progress. This is where Woosha and assistants really deep dive.
Last but not least no injuries…will take that anyday!!!
To be honest I had zero concerns last night. Move the ball much better which allowed scoring to improve even without Daniher, Hooker and Laverde(possibly Francis). McGrath was on Varcoe most of the match which Varcoe had little impact. McGrath was all one touch possessions and decisive in handballing. The rest of his game will come but the elements I looked for were all there.
Did we Scooter? We consistently got trapped in their zone.
I’m not overly fussed with player a did this, player b did this. I was more about systems. We simply couldn’t move the ball through their zone.
On the other hand they cut ours to ribbons.
Oh - forgot to mention - was nice to see Gleeson pushing forward too. Thought he played well too. He even out-wrestled Ugly Chris Mayne at one point. I like the kid’s ticker.
Oh - forgot to mention - was nice to see Gleeson pushing forward too. Thought he played well too. He even out-wrestled Ugly Chris Mayne at one point. I like the kid's ticker.
Chris Mayne did appear to be having a bad face day.
I reckon our lack of midfield pressure will be the key thing that holds us back.Yes, but; almost half the team is a bit rusty and it is the first pre-season game. We are going to get better??? We (us supporters) will have a much better idea of where we're heading and where the teams fits by round 8. In the meantime, try not to panic!You look at Swans & Dogs and they all are ferocious at it
We have too many players who do not run hard enough both ways, and aren’t out there hunting the opposition defensively IMO
Let me guess:First game of the pre-season and player X didn’t do as well as I expected so that is his season done and he should be delisted.
Am I doing it right?
Every player has to dominate their position every game! Don’t you get it???
My key take away is that we are going to really do damage to teams with the pace of Fanta, Tippa, Colyer and Green. We didn’t clunk a mark up forward all game which will change when Joey and Hooker are up there, we were very solid down back while Hurley was on the field and our midfield is deep and good.
I’m very excited.
13 wins is my minimum expectation.
For the past decade we have 3-4 key structural flaws in our list/game style that continue to render us mediocre.
Forget the last qtr, focus on the first 3, how did we measure against the weaknesses:
- Struggle to win clearances/CP without Watson being in the thick of it - Jobe was sublime, especially early. When he went off on his first rotation, we couldn’t win a clearance. Pies were missing 3 of there very best clearance players (Pendelbury, Treloar, Adams) and still, at worst broke even. This problem is still a problem. Pies kicked a massive amount of their score from stoppages with their best 3 stoppage players.
- Lack of good small forwards - problem has been addressed. Our smalls kicked 9 between them and Walla (very quiet) missed a sitter. This is the best small forward set up we’ve had since Bewick.
- We miss sitters at a far greater rate than the opposition - still a massive problem. Our 4 goal lead at 3QT should have been double that. To that point we had missed 5 sitters (set shots from reasonable angles within 30m of goal - excludes Colyer’s complete miss in Q1 from a tight angle), Pies had only missed one sitter. Still a massive problem for us, we remain the worst set shot team in the competition for easy shots.
- We leek easy goals, especially in red time. Still a massive problem, happened in both Q1 & Q2. Pies scored far more easilt than us although our scoring conversion once inside 50 was quite reasonable. again, we cannot maintain pressure for a full quarter, end of Q2 a case in point.
Of the 4 key problems we have we have only addressed 1 (small forwards). And I’m ignoring Q4.
We will not get near a Top 8 spot unless we can address 2 of the remaining 3 weaknesses by early enough in the season to make a difference.
Langford is the most over-rated player to wear an Essendon jumper in a long time.
And Gleeson should not play until he learns to hold simply marks when he is the defensive spare and his teammate has his opponent covered - twice in Q3 he had chances to come over the top and either kill the contest or take the mark; both times went for a relatively easy mark, fluffed it under no real pressure and the Pies goaled twice.
That is obviously your view. I'd point out elements of it are clearly incorrect, as players like Myers and Howlett were running around in the last. I'm also not quite sure if serious when you say include Belly and Laverde - one isn't best 22 yet, and the other has struggled to get on the park for three years.Seriously feel sorry for how ridiculously incorrect your view is and the waste of time you made sharing it.I must be the only one that was disappointed tonight. When we roll over, we roll over like real bad teams do.Not the only one. Collingwood was bottom 6 last year, and they beat us. How anyone can be happy at blowing a 4 goal lead like that, regardless of who was off, I'm staggered by. We were insipid. And that is a terrible sign.We were missing one clear cut best 22 player from the defence, but they looked rubbish all night. Bags looks done, hopefully he regains form. I don’t think our defence took an intercept mark all night. It was a good thing Collingwood kicked accurately for goal as we showed no ability to get it out of defence, reminding me of both the last two years. We showed no ability to run it out or cut out via disposal.
What of our best 22 forward line was there looked good. Green and Fanta were potent, and I’ll assume Walla had an off night. Stewart was ok, but didn’t really provide a target. McKernan had some cameos. We were really crying out for some more linkup play, say Langford, or if he’d played Laverde.
I’m surprised at the views of McKernan here. I thought he was individually the player most responsible for the loss. And that was him playing well! He can’t ruck. He gave away free kick after free kick. In the last quarter it wasn’t his inability to get a tap that cost us the win. It was his inability to stop Grundy (?) give Collingwood’s second string midfield an arm chair ride. If we have to rely on him in 2017 to ruck, we’ll finish bottom four like 2015. That he had two great moments up forward won’t get him a free pass for his pathetic display. Because it’s not a one-off, it’s a continuation of his form since he joined us.
Generally I actually thought Myers did some good things, but nowhere near enough. Same for Hurley and Howlett. All three hopefully just taking off rust. Watson looked good, Heppell got a lot of it but wasn’t clean.
Overall I didn’t think we showed a great deal more than 2016, which was pretty disappointing.
Was Tippa no good?No good. Looked slow, missed a goal and just completely off the pace. Had one gifted goal and a few pressure bits. He did make a few good positions in H1, but he wasn't honoured.We had a team with 7 who haven’t played a game between 400-500 days. All of whom were rested at half time.
The team also had out an AA key position player and arguably the most exciting full forward in the competition. Add Stanton, laverde, Hartley and possibility bell chambers to the fold, with a few more hit outs under their belt and we win by 4-5 goals even with Pendles and Tralor.
For me it was about showing that we’ve taken steps to put our poor systems and poor commitment we showed in 2015 and frequently 2014 behind us. 2016 I was pretty pleased about, in the context of missing key players. I expected to see 2016 + a bit of improvement. Instead I saw 2015 + a small forward line. And that was very disturbing.
People look at things like last year’s preseason game against Carlton. Well, how many Carlton fans said “oh, we were missing half our side we’ll be fine in the real stuff”? Quite a few. I hope this is all rust and we see a better performance in the real stuff. But I expected to see burning anger and commitment, and I really didn’t think I did.
I know the side was a LOT better, but I expected to see the 2000 side’s attitude post the 99 prelim that they showed in every game (including preseason) in our side post the saga. Instead, I saw a side who were fine with capitulating to Collingwood.
The game was an extended training run. You get run and bash into the players, you try a few things, you take people off when you’ve seen enough and training is done for the day.
Just happy to watch them out there, there was nothing that made me wanna get negative at this point.
so Langford is the new whipping boy… how ■■■■■■ ridiculous. He will play 200+ games for the club and be fantastic. Anyone remember his last AFL game?.. no, you’re only as good as your last JLT praccy match.
For the past decade we have 3-4 key structural flaws in our list/game style that continue to render us mediocre.Forget the last qtr, focus on the first 3, how did we measure against the weaknesses:
- Struggle to win clearances/CP without Watson being in the thick of it - Jobe was sublime, especially early. When he went off on his first rotation, we couldn’t win a clearance. Pies were missing 3 of there very best clearance players (Pendelbury, Treloar, Adams) and still, at worst broke even. This problem is still a problem. Pies kicked a massive amount of their score from stoppages with their best 3 stoppage players.
- Lack of good small forwards - problem has been addressed. Our smalls kicked 9 between them and Walla (very quiet) missed a sitter. This is the best small forward set up we’ve had since Bewick.
- We miss sitters at a far greater rate than the opposition - still a massive problem. Our 4 goal lead at 3QT should have been double that. To that point we had missed 5 sitters (set shots from reasonable angles within 30m of goal - excludes Colyer’s complete miss in Q1 from a tight angle), Pies had only missed one sitter. Still a massive problem for us, we remain the worst set shot team in the competition for easy shots.
- We leek easy goals, especially in red time. Still a massive problem, happened in both Q1 & Q2. Pies scored far more easilt than us although our scoring conversion once inside 50 was quite reasonable. again, we cannot maintain pressure for a full quarter, end of Q2 a case in point.
Of the 4 key problems we have we have only addressed 1 (small forwards). And I’m ignoring Q4.
We will not get near a Top 8 spot unless we can address 2 of the remaining 3 weaknesses by early enough in the season to make a difference.
Langford is the most over-rated player to wear an Essendon jumper in a long time.
And Gleeson should not play until he learns to hold simply marks when he is the defensive spare and his teammate has his opponent covered - twice in Q3 he had chances to come over the top and either kill the contest or take the mark; both times went for a relatively easy mark, fluffed it under no real pressure and the Pies goaled twice.
I wouldn’t base your third point on one game.
Tippa and Green are extremely reliable in front of goals, as is Langford. Colyer is a goal kicker and Fantasia knows where they are.
We will be a lot better in front of the sticks and the mistakes won’t hurt us as much as they did last year.
Agree BWAS
Myers who should have been giving the main chop out in clearances was non existent. I had him ahead of Hocking but on that output can’t see that occurring. And I’d also play Bird ahead of him also.
Small forward situation is exciting and I expect Hooker/JD to form a dominant partnership also.
We def would have been up by more if kicked straight. Were all over them in 2nd and 3rd quarter.
The red time goals comes from lack of winning clearances but also lack of overall midfield pressure. Too many mids who don’t run hard enough both ways/aren’t rabid defensively.
Certainly positives though in so far as we scored plenty and were in position to score far more than previously.
So many future Brownlow’s, so many delistings, so little to go on…