We were Chookless?
There is just soooooooo much familiar with last night that I donāt see how people can go āah, itās only jlt! We will be fine!ā Our midfield has been running one way for ten years, it didnt looked to have changed last night. Where was any defensive pressure from Langers, parish or zaharakis? Literally nothing.
I was hoping to see a defensive effort of some sort. Letting carlton kick 100 is not great. At all. When was the last time they kicked over 100? Years ago, thatās when.
Onus on players to pay attention to LED boards: Hurley
Daniel Cherny
3-4 minutes
Veteran Hurley acknowledged that there had been a few teething issues, but said that the boards were easy enough to read.
āThe bigger issue is youāve got to be looking. I looked over a couple of times, my number was up at one point and I had to come off,ā Hurley told The Age .
Carltonās Will Setterfield stretches for the ball in the match against Essendon.Credit:AAP
āI think itās a work in progress. Itās obviously not the biggest board. Itās sort of [the size of] an A4 piece of paper.
"But I think once the players adapt to it and know thatās where weāre looking ⦠itās on the players to own that.
āIt can be a good tool if we learn to use that properly.ā
It was, overall, a night of learning for the Dons, who despite a strong finish couldnāt overcome last yearās wooden spooners.
Positively, however, star forward Joe Daniher played three quarters having missed most of last year with osteitis pubis, kicking an early goal before fading out of the game in the face of centre clearance dominance from the Blues.
Hurley was glad to see Daniher get through.
āPleasing to see he got a fair chunk of the game. I think the build that heās gone through has been really smart,ā Hurley said.
āThe fact heās been able to play is a credit to the medical staff and the work heās put in.
"I think if you asked people late last year it might have been looking like he was in strife early on in the year but I think heās put himself in a really strong position now.ā
Charlie Curnow is treated for cramp against Essendon.Credit:AAP
Hurley said the new 6-6-6 starting position rule made it harder to defend when being well beaten on the inside.
āIt does feel like it is quite free in that forward 50 and you canāt put numbers back if the pressureās on. It felt like they smacked us around centre bounce,ā he said.
āItās sort of a momentum game. If you can get out the front of a stoppage, especially from centre bounce, no oneās coming in off the back of the square, so it sort of opens it up, you can get the ball in deeper to one-on-ones in the goal square.ā
Leading midfielders Dyson Heppell, Devon Smith and Zach Merrett were all restricted to a half each as the Dons tried a younger midfield setup for much of the game.
Recruit Dylan Shiel was sidelined in the last quarter with a corked knee, while rookie Tom Jok was concussed late in the game.
David Myers, Orazio Fantasia, Cale Hooker and Tom Bellchambers all missed the game but are expected to take on Geelong next Thursday night as the Dons ramp up preparations for round one.
Defender Martin Gleeson is a bit further away as he makes his way back from injury.
There was plenty to like from a Carlton perspective, in particular the three-goal showing of mature-age recruit Michael Gibbons and the classy 28-disposal performance of No. 1 draft pick Sam Walsh.
āHeās got a real desperation to be a really good player, which is a great thing to have at the footy club,ā Carlton assistant coach Dale Amos said of Walsh.
The Blues escaped unscathed other than cramp suffered by Charlie Curnow, which led to him being sidelined early as a precaution.
With spots up for grabs it was a disappointing to see so many players half assed it from the beginning.
I thought McGrath built confidence throughout the game and towards then showed how good he can be this year.
Brown kicked off 2019 where 2018 left off and is absolutely our number 1 CHF, Daniher will take time to build and is probably better suited to FF and Ruck backup allowing us a smaller forward line for pace and mobility. McKernan better have a serious crack next week to take a spot.
Laverde looked good and got through unscathed, Iād suggest they are limiting his preseason game time to build confidence that something bad isnāt going to happen given his bad previous luck.
Parish and Langford will need to build as they make the translation of their good pre season to their actual games, kinda like mcGrath did throughout the game last night.
Any injuries?
We are playing Geelong next week.
JLT2 OUT: Laverde (rested)
donāt you just hate opponents?
maybe we should start our own league, the Essendon Bombers Football League?
22 intraclub match season, 4 game finals series, weād be a good chance at winning the whole thing i reckon.
I do hate opponents.
I particularly hate losing to the objectively worst team of 2018. You know, again.
when you tape your best player up and send him back out in a PRACTISE match so you dont loseI know its only to say look how good we are are going from a coaches perspective.
as for us meh half games from guys who have hardly been on the trackā¦games for guys who will be in the VFL all year.
yes some of it was disappointingā¦zaka in particular.
carltons best 22 wont be far off there starting line up last night and ours well Iām guessing at least 6 maybe more that did start wont be anywhere near best 22 come round 1
Mynott and Clarke would have been spewing they didnāt get the opportunity to play the second half and make there case for selection. Laverde saw an opportunity after half time to cement a spot and I think did a good job.
All Langford and Parishās hard work last year and over the preseason come undone last night. Most of us had them pencilled in and they blew it. Not sure if it was immaturity or being naive but I wouldnāt be surprised if they get a talking to by leadership and coaches. They havenāt got the runs on the board to deliver that garbage. Sure they havenāt had great opportunity training against Merrett and Hep this preseason but they didnāt grind it out in that second half to warrant selection. Theyāll be sweating on selection over the next few weeks.
One thing I guess in hindsight that came out of last night was our stoppage work. Havenāt seen many repetitive stoppage work at training and when doing half ground training drills the attacking team always outnumbered the defending stoppage group to force an easy clearance forward. We didnāt work hard enough to win the stoppage last night and looked disorganised at stoppages especially the repetitive ones and when umpires threw it up straight away.
Fairly sure its been proven that preseason results have literally no statistical inference on the season proper, and you should all just chill out. Carlton played it like it was round 1, Essendon played like it was round one of the JLT. It seems like half of you spent the summer saving up your whinging.
Fairly sure that is the same argument people were using last year after our poor JLT performance. It took another 10 games to get our ā ā ā ā together.
you, like the rest of us, are a sucker for punishment.
good england by me.
The new Rutten defensive system better not be one of those things that takes 8+ rounds to master. We simply cannot afford to drop early games. I know itās the JLT and donāt mean jack s*** but we really need to start the year with a bang.
Got home from the Chilli Willy concert last night to check the highlights after seeing the scoreline. I was seriously worried until i saw the intensity we played at which was minimal. Certainly was far less than Carlton & we almost pinched it once we strung together 15 good minutes of footy.
I donāt think the coaching staff were particularity worried about correcting what was happening around the ball where we got belted for most of the night from what i could tell. They continued to experiment with different plays & personal in there.
BTW, stick a fork in Hartley & Long. They are done. Both are not in our best 22 but Hartley can at least be a good backup & it hurts me to say it but Longy is nowhere near good enough.
The defensive system looked a spitting image of last yearās defensive system
just another game where we play one extra around the contest only for the loose man out the back to tear us up. Not worried by the loss (although I would have preferred to have played anyone other than carlton), but the manner of the game play was a bit of a worry.
You play how you train and and while only a practice game, we are not a club that can just āturn it onā when we need to.
Last years insipid lead in was a pretty good indication of what was delivered in the first 8 rounds. This club needs a rocket and it seems we donāt have the tools or the willingness to deliver the rocket.
Yeah I honestly thought it looked similar iām just going from what some of the coaches and players have said saying there was a few tweaks of the original defensive structure. I just hope they get whatever they are tweaking right before round one.
For all those doomsayers it may be some consolation for them to know that we did not win one practice game in 2000.
Sure they won the preseason comp