Even though Betts kicked 4, bags was awesome. Is a warrior and a damn good player
Lerverde and Edwards are close to the only reasons I watch.
I turned off at half time,watched saints hopefully beat north scum,even that went pear shaped.fark Adelaide,fark us,fark north hopefully fark mrs zep later on.gotta salvage something out of today.
We are an average team, but our decision to destroy our back line by playing sub standard players is making us look 10x worse than we are.What youngsters? Outside of ones in our best 22 anyway, the only "extra" kids we were playing were Langford, Laverde, Edwards and Jerrett. That is hardly "playing the youngsters".The Hooker up forward move is a disaster. Idgaf if it’s an experiment. Or to provide a contest. He tries his guts because he is a warrior but he kicked 2.2 including an absolute HOWLER in the second term. We’ve taken a weapon and turned it into a weakness.
Steinberg (I wasn’t going to sink the boots in but since people keep bring it up I feel the need to comment). Not AFL level. I’m sure someone will go through the tape and try to explain how every goal kicked on him wasn’t actually his fault, but I’m going to side step his 1on1 defensive skills for the moment since enough has been said on the topic. He is terrible below his knees, slow to react and is barely a VFL level kick. He also offers zilch in terms of intercept marks. No it’s not his fault we lost. But between him, Pears, and few of our more chip kick happy mids. it all added up to there being absolutely NO counter attacking from our back line.
In the modern game you tend to score from either winning clearances and implementing an effective press, or from effective counter attacking after an opposition stuff up (ideally caused by good midfield pressure). Playing two absolute plodders in Pears and Steinberg today totally gutted both of these options. Our press has never looked worse and our back line is 3 stooges stuff.
Say it’s tanking all you like, but I don’t see how Hird can get an honest look out our youngsters whilst handicapping the team like this.
Remember we beat the Hawks and nearly Sydney first two rounds this year. Then WADA appealed and we fell to pieces. Clearly there are extenuating circumstances and until they are resolved, unfortunately I can't see anything changeing, regardless whether Hird or someone else is coach.I wish people would stop pulling out this lie. WADA didn't appeal until after the Fremantle game.
Stanton is the least of our problems; & those wanting Smack’s return will get their wish as Giles is now injured.
We are going to have a huge clean out at the end of this season - Kav NOB Stein Pears plus retirements of Fletch chappie & Licka at the bare minimum & some trade potential with the 2 Jake’s. That’s almost 10 changes without even blinking.
At least we can comfortably say without any hesitation that we know what we are getting rid of as we have given all those listed a chance to prove themselves with runs in the 1sts. Not sure why anyone has got anything to whinge about.
Remember we beat the Hawks and nearly Sydney first two rounds this year. Then WADA appealed and we fell to pieces. Clearly there are extenuating circumstances and until they are resolved, unfortunately I can't see anything changeing, regardless whether Hird or someone else is coach.I wish people would stop pulling out this lie. WADA didn't appeal until after the Fremantle game.
Sorry, I was unclear. If I recall correctly, it was after the Freo game things went really pear-shaped.
A coach isn’t necessarily there to be loved…
Gunja eases the painMaybe nearly as much as ganja?
The AFL have won…
Well done you pack of ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■!
#standbytheessendon34
#standbyhird
Fark this ■■■■. These players need us. All of us. You ■■■■■ who want to declare various players as disgraceful, worst ever , never play again should be ashamed of yourself.There is nothing, NOTHING, normal about this situation. Good players, really good players, are battling, not because they have lost ability but because of unprecedented and catastrophic factors.
Get ■■■■■■, this sniping is bullshit.
They need to be left out of the side then. If they are struggling and depressed and just over it they need to be left out- send them on a holiday or something and just play all the youngsters for the rest of the season.
Then we don’t field a side. The entire club is battling. The whole club. From our captain to the boot studder. The blokes out there playing deserve our support and respect, as do our coaching staff.
Remember we beat the Hawks and nearly Sydney first two rounds this year. Then WADA appealed and we fell to pieces. Clearly there are extenuating circumstances and until they are resolved, unfortunately I can't see anything changeing, regardless whether Hird or someone else is coach.I wish people would stop pulling out this lie. WADA didn't appeal until after the Fremantle game.Sorry, I was unclear. It was after the Freo game things went really pear-shaped.
Not really. We put in decent efforts against North, Brisbane and Richmond. Fell apart for the first time against Geelong. Before then we had a streak of about 23 games where we hadn’t conceded over 100 points and no loss over 5 goals.
Absymal game plan.
Unwatchable football.
Skills.
Kicking for goal.
These are things a coach CAN control.
The Le Cras game lost Kinghts for me.
This game has just about done the same for Hird. I feel sad saying that.
I feel a bit more dead inside each game I watch at the moment.
I actually am pretty confident that the club will turn this around. I think the club has done an incredible job of holding things together with the saga. Many clubs Wouk have disappeared. We made the finals in 2014. Things are bad. But will get better and I trust the club to turn things around. Hopefully quickly.
It looks nice when we play well. Shame that we killed the game for ourselves with skill errors. That’s about all it was. Skill errors, and eventually, energy in spreading. Loved LaVerde’s game. Edwards showed a lot also. Needs to stop over using the ball. Bags is a farkin legend. Hooks a titan.
I think that our Club has faced an unprecedented situation where the players have been subject to enormous stress and anxiety, and no doubt this has effected their performance.
However you could say almost the exact same thing about Adelaide’s players and the stress and anxiety they have been subject to this year. Their senior coach was murdered SEVEN weeks ago and they just came out and won a game on the road by 112 points.
Gunja eases the painMaybe nearly as much as ganja?
Gunja in Jamaica. And rap music.
Just had me 3rd vodka
■■■■■■ Nora. don’t YOU start, it is bad enough listening and reading all the other snipers. This team is playing under lousy exceptional circumstances. Another week of the Hag and the Purple cretin to go through now. Stick by them guys, and WOB please drink enough to pass out!!! Great post Saladin.
Look at Port this year. Meant to be premiership contenders. What's there excuse?
They were never going anywhere this year… Remember they picked up Judas! Its the only thing keeping me going… Oh, and the fact that Carlton are below us
Injury made it worse. Giles and Myers going down ■■■■■■ up our rotations.Positives.
- Stein was good.
- Leverde with his best game yet
- Melky was a good sub.
Its nearly over, keep putting game into Langford/LAV. Get that decent pick this year and the next…Keep rebuilding. Once we get cleared by CAS we can fight again.
Pretty spot on, RM7.
You know your having a bad year when you sub Langford for Melksham (who was quite good I thought when he came on and then have your best inside mid of the day in Myers - playing his first game of the season - get ridden hard into the ground about 2 minutes later and go off injured not to return. To add insult to injury a clear free kick was not paid and Adelaide just waltzed into a free running goal.
Then we lose our #1 ruckman - who didn’t star but competed well at the ruck contests helping to us to a surprise win in clearances on the day against the #1 clearance team in the comp - early in the last quarter…and the flood gates subsequently opened.
Our biggest problems remains our propensity go sidewards/backwards, put ourselves and pressure and then the ball over. We naturally continue to miss simple set shots. Goddard missed in Q2, then Hooker missed from 20m out. Both those goals would have given us back the lead. But Adelaide grew a leg and we lost a bit of confidence.
Our poor skill level is killing us - especially in the back half. I think it was something like 16 turnovers on our D50 by half through Q2. As our skill level didn’t improve it was inevitable the flood gates would open. No team, no structure, no game plan can survive such poor skill.
The players are no doubt hurting tonight and all we can do is support them in the last 3 games.
There is no question not playing a legitimate 2nd ruck support option has hurt us big time this year and I hope the review points this out. This is one area we must improve on.
On the bright side - because there is one:
- even after losing Myers, then Giles we still won the clearances 43-38 against the #1 clearance team in the comp. Myers with 7 before even midway Q3 was outstanding and Hocking with 6 good too in this regards. We’ve hardly had both all year.
- Laverde continues to grow in stature with every game and is one of the few players to regularly use the ball well. got more midfield time and his stats get bigger every week. 20 possessions this week at 95% efficiency. Also got 3 clearances and spent time playing on Scott Thompson. Best of all, he seems to really know how to spread from a contest.
- Every time Edwards got the ball we looked dangerous and he generally created something. Kicked 1 and set up 2 others.
- We got 50 I50s for the second week running. We get plenty of ball to kick a winning score. (It’s the skill delivery both going I50 and at goal that’s hurting us).
- Heppell, Goddard & Stanton are working their backsides off regardless of the scoreboard and running themselves into the ground.