Lid On 2019: The Lid remains on, until a final is won

I’ve seen that one already. I prefer a new release.

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Hey that’s one of my favourites :joy:

Awww shucks …that’s very cute of you xxx

I’m a very cute person, it’s true.

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Zach says there is no cause for concern. Good enough for me.

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If I had to go on these pre-season practice games, I’d be a bit concerned. It felt that we were out of sync on when to streak ahead down the corridor and when not to. I felt that we could have zig-zagged our way up a bit more at times - maybe go around and cut back in instead of full steam ahead. That some players tried to do this, but others were in different minds. I thought our defensive structure was too easily torn apart and spread.

Then again we had key players playing half the match and changing with others. Continuity was horrible. The midfield worked pretty well, I thought, particularly with TBell in there. Our first mids and TBell looked scary good at times. JLT2 saw the lift of some of our better players - but to no where near their capacity. Merret, Hepp, Stringer, McGrath - these guys have a lot more gears. I like Myers latest role. Thought he became a difficult match-up for the opposition, who know he is capable and willing to let fly from 60m.

Both Saad and McKenna showed glimpses of their usual run, but both were at 80%. Both were caught by players that wouldn’t normally. General awareness was down all around, which hints that the team was concentrating on things other than the opposition. There was almost no emotion in the games. Ambrose aside, and a few moments with Hurls. This shows that it was a technical exercise, not a win-at-all-costs blood game.

I could go on for a while on this, but In short - like all supporters, I hate seeing us ‘lose’. Just need to remember what these games are, save your disappointment for the season proper and we lose games we feel we should have won - because as sure as taxes, it will happen.

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for mine that was by far the most worrying part. the whole losing thing doesn’t bother me in the least when it comes to pre-season. We need to become a lot harder to score against if we want to become a Top 4 team.

It’s also hard to really rate some of the players because some are missing massive chunks of the games through management.

Myers as a forward, i think won’t have a big impact because he is so slow he can’t provide any pressure when the ball comes out. As an inside mid who can drift forward on occasion to catch the opposition out- then he could become a real weapon.

I have no worries about our forward line. It’s filled to the brim with quality and talent

I don’t have that many worries in regards to our midfield. Shiel will be a vital cog, and there is quite a bit of talent in there already. Guys like Langford and Parish while being pretty rubbish all pre season- they werent spending that much time in the middle. So my guess is the coaches are easing them into it as they know they will have a massive workload throughout the year

Our backline without Hooker…scares the hell out of me.

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I don’t know the exact numbers but marking stats was telling to what I’d consider our biggest issue going into the season.
Our defensive structures must have been working to a degree as we slowed them up plenty of occasions. What killed us and what I’m very worried about is our skill level. Not many rebounds resulted in us marking the ball and a lot of there score came from basic skill error turnovers that makes it hard to structure up. They also scored goals from poor umpiring and from low percentage areas.
What I’ve taken away from the two preseason games is the lack of controlling the footy. The best way to prevent goals against is us having the footy. We can’t maintain possession nor the tempo with our current skill output. We also can’t win territory if we can’t hit a target out of defence or the inability to string 3 mark and kicks in a row.

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Means nothing if we can’t deliver it to them with any system or accuracy… so much of our scoring is just front running rebound.

If we’re only scoring on the rebound, and only every so often, we’re in trouble - it just compounds our overall paper thin general defensiveness - not just the defensive lines.

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This man speaks for me.

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That is the most invariant force in all of our games.

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Marking in our forward 50 were a concern. Joey is an obvious target but he’s often double teamed. The fact that he hasn’t hit his stride yet and was either playing for a free or leaping when he didn’t need to didn’t help.

Considering the 6-6-6 - I thought we’d have more space in our forward line. Provided we get the ball in quick enough.

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There should be a Team Law - if you are taller than 180cm and you lead anywhere near Joey, you get ■■■■■■■ knee-capped.

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Exactly, it’s all about making space for yourself and for teammates. The last thing any forward needs is a teammate leading into their space or flying for the same ball.

I don’t think we actually kicked it to him straight out of a centre clearance too much did we? That’s the only time the 6-6-6 would help him.

Was Hurley really p1ssd off or did he have a dose of the petulant childish mood. He didn’t look like the player I remember or was he just having an off day because Hooker was missing?

Punters do, weight of money.

I’m just a bit concerned because we seem to be playing the same as we did in the JLT last season. Zero forward structure and a half field press rather than forward press. We tried that for a while and it failed miserably, it was only when we switched to the forward press and altered the forward line (albeit when Daniher went out and Hooker went to defence) that we played a lot better

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If we’re trying to hide a game plan. I question how good it is if we even think it’s worth hiding.

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