Match Review Thread. JLT vs FCFC

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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Experimental approach by the Dons which (in hindsight) was understandable considering the outs and how certain players were managed in game. As @Finding_Nino had predicted (and reiterated by Shiel post game), Carlton’s game last week against Hawthorn gave them the advantage. Only saw bits of the last quarter when Essendon were piling on goals (which was super impressive by the way) and should’ve hit the lead but for Stringers miss.

Expected more from Shiel who was running at 60% but I suspect he’s easing himself into his work given the long season ahead.

Brown is a lock for round 1. The bloke is calm, reliable and has a presence up forward. McKernan, who had a poor game, should play as well so 3 big men and 3 smalls seems the go.

Make no mistake, Carlton were pumped for the game whereas Essendon were looking to ease themselves into the contest given it was their first competitive hitout against opposition. Although, like the loss last year, it seems Carlton’s possession based game plan causes Essendon some trouble.

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Brown when he plays with intensity is a lock. However, there were times last night when he wilted in the contest and it cost us goals on the rebound. This happens too often. He and Clarke last night were not good at halving contests.

Brown had a good game.

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I could really use a nackers training report right about now.

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Posted in the game thread from the ground that I sincerely hope Bellchambers plays close to every game as Clarke was very ordinary IMO against a very average AFL ruckman in Phillips. He was smashed and clearances hurt us. The only advantage 6-6-6 offers is from the clearance and that opened up the defence which was lacking Hooker. Not sure how much to take out of a practice match but recall Brandon Ellis saying their winning habits & belief was built on “meaningless” JLT matches. I feel it’s an opportunity lost to build some winning habits.

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Spot on. Winning habits are good habits.

Phillips looked like Brodie Grundy last night.

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Phillips/Cripps was a well drilled combo, for us, Clarke/Langford looked as though the had never played together. This is where Cripps looked so good. Lets hope Myers is available when we play these 6’4"+ mids, Myers and Stringer are about the only players we have who can stand up to them.

What happened to Stringer getting midfield minutes. Last night at centre bounces, we needed him.

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Positives:

  • Came back well. Ball movement at times was quite good.
  • McKenna better than I thought. Run was useful when we were coming back into it.
  • Forward line worked quite well, despite limited opportunities. Brown, Stringer and Walla all had good hitouts.
  • McGrath quite good.
  • It was a practice game with no serious injuries (hope Jok is okay)
  • Speaking of Jok, he showed a bit, needs to fix his kicking.
  • Ridley has probably played himself into a Round 1 spot
    Negatives:
  • We lost to FCFC. Again.
  • Smashed in the midfield. Guys like Parish and Langford are really going to have to step up from that (it’s a practice game, though).
  • Too many goals from defensive stoppages.
  • Hartley and Long wouldn’t want to play like that too often
  • Too many of our good players looked underdone (understandable given they’ve been injured).

Carlton looked quite good for most of the game, a lot more organised, good pressure and a nice simple game plan. Very good in the middle, and some good young talls.

I’m disappointed with some aspects of last night, but as it’s the first practice match, I’m not hugely concerned. It can be hard to tell with practice matches.

It’s a big year for Parish. I think he has a lot of potential, but he didn’t play well last night when he had a good opportunity to, given our midfield stocks. He’s got a bit of pressure on him, given he’s out of contract. I don’t think he’ll be traded, but I hope he plays in a way which demands a good contract. I didn’t see that last night.

It seemed a typical Essendon game from last year. Mids smashed, defence under pressure, goals largely from turnovers or from half back. You can’t win too many finals doing that.

I’m not too worried yet, but we can’t have another slow start to the year. A bit to like from last night, but a lot to improve.

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Lets see how Dylan Clarke* goes on Saturday at Beaconsfield. If he can bring more grit and win more contested ball for us, Darcy might be the one to make way, because out of our small mids, Zerret and McGrath are locks.

*DClarke 186cm, 6ft1 Darcy Parish 181 cm 5ft 11

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I dont think we can play Clarke and TBell at the same time when we have McKernan and Brown. It has be one of the following combos:
Tbell & McKernan
TBell & Brown (Joe D 10% ruck)
Clark & Mckernan
Clark & Brown (Joe D 10% ruck)

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A bit like early last season when Hooker wasn’t down there. He is the glue.

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We all thought McKenna was downing Guinness pints during the off season. He looks like he was bench pressing Guiness barrels 4 days a week for the last 6 months…

Something something Gerard Healy something something…

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Clarke wasn’t that bad! First ‘AFL’ Game in a long time with a new club. Give him a chance.

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This was the biggest concern, actually the only real concern. The setups were terrible on occasion and there didn’t seem to be a lot of direction to tell blokes where to set up, the absence of Hepp, Zerrett, Smith and Myers in setting up around stoppages was palpable. Be good experience for the younger brigade to be doing without that leadership around them for the majority of the game.

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The only concern I have is the centre breaks. They will be clean entries into our defence now if there is no pressure and intensity. Our Ruckman have a more critical role than ever with the rule changes.

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Few thoughts on the game…

The boys were off. I think everybody can agree that they were only playing at about 75% intensity. Whether it was by instruction, laziness or fitness issues, it was very obvious. So we can take comfort in knowing that they definitely have another couple of gears.

They were also lacking cohesiveness. They had no idea where team mates were, missing handballs and they were bombing the ball long all over the ground straight into packs of Carlton players. Lot’s of guys played limited minutes of the match, meaning they didn’t have a chance to fix this problem mid game. When you look at all of the disrupted/managed/limited preseasons a lot of our players have had it’s understandable (not excusable). I’m sure they’ll be working had to make sure it all clicks before round 1.

Defensively, they were a disaster. If you remember the start of last season, they were trying to implement too many new defensive strategies and they guys had no idea what they were doing. This game reminded me of that. This was always on the cards after bringing in a new defensive coach who, by all accounts, has been a major part of the pre-season coaching. After the bad start to last season Woosha simplified the defensive coaching strategy and the guys improved dramatically. Maybe they’ll have to do that again.

If you look back at the last JLT, nobody takes preseason games more seriously that Carlton. They beat St Kilda and Hawthorn but then only went on to win 2 games for the whole real season. Hawthorn on the other hand finished top 4. So be ■■■■■■ off, sure, but it’s no indication of what’s to come.

The following is just opinion, and ONLY BASED ON LAST NIGHTS GAME. Also let’s not forget it was their first real hit out in a long time, and in extreme heat by football standards.

Players:

McGrath - Started terribly. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Keep getting caught, missing targets and looked slow. I don’t know who spoke to him at half time but he came out a totally different player. Credit to him for being classy enough to turn a nightmare first half into and elite second half.

Brown - Possibly our best player for the night. I’m not sure why everybody is so surprised. He played like this for the back end of last season. Definitely a lock for round 1. 18 disposals at 83%. 10 contested possesions. 3 goals, 2 behinds and 9 score involvements. Take a bow big fella.

Walla - All class. Looked like he hasn’t even stopped playing since the end of last season. Every disposal was damaging.

Stringer - Great performance. Covered a lot of ground and looks really fit. Very clean with the ball and muscled his way out of packs pretty easily. Missed an easy goal but kicked 3 others and set one up for Brown so more than enough from Jake.

Hepp - Was awesome. Just the same reliable performance he puts in every week. I’m sure if he played the full match he probably would have been enough to get us over the line. Also great considering he has barely trained this preseason.

McKenna - This guy is really becoming one of our best players. So composed and looks like he sees the game in slow motion (a quality that only the very best players seem to have) I’m starting to think that when we have a game in the bag, they could experiment with him in other positions. I’m sure he’d be good in the midfield and he can certainly kick goals.

Smith - Changed the tone of the game as soon as he came on. If he played the full match he could have been our best on ground. His pressure needs to be our benchmark. If guys don’t play like him, they get dropped to the VFL for a week or 2.

Francis - Pretty good. Did some great Francis things, that one kick through the corridor made my jaw drop. Great to think we should see him play 20+ games this season.

Saad, Guelfi, Shiel, Hurley, Zaka, Lav & Ridley were ok. Shiel was uninspiring but with nothing clicking for the team i’m not surprised. We know what he can do, we just need to see it in red and black.

Parish and Langford weren’t great. I was expecting a lot more. They were given a lot of responsibility and fell short. Turnover city, Parish 4 and Langford 7. Lacking pressure. Looked slow.

ZClarke, Hartley, Ambrose, Long and Jok all worked hard but definitely aren’t best 22 based on that performance. Lacking top level skill.

Baguley and Smack were invisible. Bags kicked 1 so that’s something.

Joe - Will take some time to get back into it. Probably not fit enough and needs to be a lot stronger in the contest. He’ll get there. Maybe it will take a little longer than we all hope though.

Merrett - way off last night. Zero impact. Taking up space. Like with Joe, i’m not concerned. We know Merrett is good.

Carlton played well. Pretty clean with the ball and out marked us all over the ground. Their defence held up and their forwards got the job done too. Sam Walsh is an exciting player and Cripps is a beast. They looked way more like a cohesive team than we did. These bastards always find another level when we play them. It’s uncanny. Looking forward to round 11.

It’s not a bad thing to get a reality check. And it’s a good thing if it happens when there aren’t 4 points on the line.

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That was one area where I thought cattle aside, it was pretty clear we were deliberately holding something back in terms of structure and set up. The commentators kept banging on about the 6-6-6 opening up the centre square more but there’s buckley’s chance we in particular will not push our 6th forward straight into the centre when the ball is bounced to prevent the ball from feeding easily out the back of the centre bounce. Be interested to see how that evolves.

Aside that, we barely had our best midfield rotation in there on more than a couple of occasions last night.

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The Runners opportunity to pass messages to players is much reduced.

Messages need to be passed by players coming off the bench. At times, particularly at the end of Q1,Q2,Q3 our players appeared confused, lacked leadership and the ability to adapt to Carltons way of playing.

If players are going to try to organise themselves they need leadership on each line and messages from the box need to be passed to the line leaders when interchange players come back on.

We missed Hooker/ BJ down back. Hooker is more of a natural leader, and playing deep can see all the players and organise ours. Actually Francis is good at this, but its a bit early to rely on him at this point.

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Smashed in midfield and clearances. Worst game for mine was Zaharakis who was on ground for 110mins.

Not impressed by Zac Clarke. I thought Smack did more when he came on in second half. Hartly - missed a few balls in the air, and bumbling when ball on the ground.

Jok’s kicking not good and seems totally bamboozled by ball rolling along the ground.

For a team that has been doing match sim for so long, would have expected much better cohesion and less players getting into each others’ way.

Good: Stringer, McGrath, McKenna, Ridley, AMT and probably Brown for being solid all game.
First Game Free Pass: JD and Shiel but they need to improve.

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Agree, if we do have communication issues then this is going to be compounded by the restriction on runners (which I like they are kept off the field). The really good teams are drilled to know what and have the systems in place on the ground to get things back on track. Being headless chooks is not going to win you games.

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Last night we had reduced leadership in the middle with Heppel and Zerret off for a half and no TBell.

Then down back, Hooker and BJ were not there, the natural person to set up the defence was Hurls, but he was on his bike. That left either Ambrose, Francis or Hartley to organise the defence so it was structured up properly.
That, was not done well at all. We need to appoint a leader on the last line to organise the defence. Thats going to be Hooker, or in his absence, Francis imo.

In the forward line we clearly need to create chaos , so leadership is not so important, but there are clearly a lot of setups that they use at stoppages that have to be coordinated

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