I agree with this. It needs to change. That’s why McGrath and Zerret need to lead the club asap. A step change is needed.
But I still think we will be better because guys like them, JoeDan and parish are made of better stuff.
That’s my opinion.
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Noonan used to do good rants. Suspect he can’t be a*rsed anymore.
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I don’t honestly know which way to look at it. I’ll try and be as optimistic as possible.
Swans are a very good, finals hardened side who will likely win the whole thing this year. They had, probably along with Richmond, the best form of any side going into the finals. I think we won’t look as bad in a week after what the swans will do to Geelong.
But, there is no way we should be letting a side kick 10 in a row against us, no matter who they are. That was our worst bit of footy in the past two years and was a major fail from both the players and the coaches.
Finals makes and breaks players reputations, and there are a few of our better credentialed players who, if they are fair dinkum, will be working very hard to gain back some ground they may have lost yesterday. On the other hand, Parish, Gleeson, McGrath, and Joey can take a bow.
For the future, I don’t know what someone like Rockliff would cost us, but someone of his ilk a piece of the puzzle that’s an absolute priority.
Other than that I think the biggest winner of the day was the captain burger at the Captain Cook Hotel.
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Yeah maybe its the anger & frustration, but the tackles could also be because at every contest we couldn’t get our hands on the ball so had to tackle, the effort wasn’t seemingly there in making sure we weren’t outnumbered in marking contests over and over, not to mention being utterly dominated in marking contests constantly, and with ease.
And the VFL was the same, amazing the way both teams mirrored each other so often this year, so definitely a club wide smarts, skills or talent issue.
I have been disputing some peoples criticisms.
But I do think we have a cultural issue. We aren’t winners anymore. Haven’t been for a while. VFL results also support this.
But one thing I will say.
Woosha is a winner. That is important. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have match day weaknesses. But he is a winner.
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Woosha is the St Kilda of coaches. 1 premiership by 1 point.
More spoons.
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Mate.
He won one by a kick. Lost one by a kick. And captained 2 premierships.
You’re talking ■■■■
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11 years ago.
Malthouse won MORE flags and won more recently. Doesn’t mean he’s cut out for it in 2017.
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Smack played in our first 2 wins then got dropped for our designated ruckmen.
He came back and played in the 1point loss to Sydney.
Much better than Bell/Lue around the ground and up forward.
Center bounces not so much.
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Mate. I can see you are hurting. I am as well.
But don’t let your mind winder into a deep dark hole.
Yesterday was abysmal. But that doesn’t mean our season or future is abysmal.
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I can say - with a significant degree of confidence - that Smack would not have made an ounce of difference to what happened yesterday.
We went inside 50 a grand total of 32 times and Begley finished with two goals.
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The SCG has probably never seen that many away fans, what a memory we could have had yesterday for us fans of making it sound like a home game if we were semi competitive.
The noise in the first quarter supporting us was huge, booing Sydney onto the ground, joes mark and goal… could you imagine what the place would have been like had we been close all game and guys like Tippa or Jobe kicked a goal.
Ah well.
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overall a pleasing season considering. Insipid performance yesterday but onwards and upwards
Got to do something about that midfield. Too much pressure on the backline
7th is about right
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Sick of hearing we are ‘building’ and will improve. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that is the case except for the blind faith and optimism that keeps us coming back for more of this crap year in and year out.
Our best 22 as seen by woosha this year:
Back Six - Hurley, Ambrose, Hartley, Baguley, Gleeson, McKenna
Hurley AA but struggles to defend, gets outmarked and is more an oversized HB
Ambrose had injuries but he is a solid defender. Undersized and offers nothing offensively.
Hartley - Went backwards. Struggles against good players. Offers nothing offensively.
Bags - Slow start, solid middle, hardworker and honest trier but entering the twilight of his career
Gleeson - Found by Bomber, patchy but really built into the season nicely. Entering the prime years.
McKenna - Still a lot of work to do but an exciting piece of clay. Room for Improvement.
Overall - what you see is what you get. Other than McKenna there isn’t a huge amount of ‘growth’ left in this group and we didn’t ‘unearth’ any new blood/talent. Serious concerns moving forward.
Front Six - Daniher, Stewart, Hooker, Green, Fantasia, Walla
Daniher - Continues to star. Absolutely the lynch pin. Small amount of development left imho
Stewart - Solid 3rd tall but goes missing. Handy support act - still a little bit of room to improve
Hooker - Important piece of the structure but goes missing, struggles on the lead, Improvement needed
Green - Older player that offered some sparks but nothing more than a solid 6th piece
Fanta - Exciting young player that most likely will be needed in the midfield. Room for improvement still
Walla - X-Factor that clearly struggled in the 2nd half of the season. A ‘finishing’ piece.
Overall - The group that developed the most this year and probably still have more growth to go. Lots of potential there but we didn’t ‘unearth’ any new blood/talent. With Fanta and Walla needed up the ground, Hooker possibly needed down back and Stewarts tendency to go missing… serious questions about robbing peter to pay paul arise.
Ruck - TBell
TBell - Some love him, I reckon the big fella is average at best. Goes missing and often. Not the future.
Midfield - Watson, Heppell, Goddard, Zahakis, Merrett
Watson - Retired, struggled all year was lucky to keep his spot. Thanks for the memories Champ.
Heppell - Nowhere near his pre-suspension levels. Too slow, disposal woeful and lacks something. Regressed.
Goddard - Used as a sweeper a lot, sometimes to good effect. Twilight of his career and struggles for pace.
Zaharakis - Turned the season around and showed some good signs. Entering his prime
Merrett - Best midfielder by a country mile this year. Probably getting close to his peak.
Overall we had a lot of plodders. watson goes out and Goddard will follow soon enough. Heppell may not every recapture his potential. Merrett needs some serious help and Zaharakis needs to continue at that level. Yet another line where no ‘new’ talent was found. Very serious concerns going forward, not just about the ‘names on paper’ but their ability to actually structure up, run both ways and provide some clean ball.
Bench/rotations - Kelly, McGrath, Parish, Myers, Colyer
Kelly - retired. Some solid games but showed his age in the end.
McGrath - Fantastic first season, plenty of room to grow, will be perm mid next year.
Parish - Seemed to stagnate and was used on the wings rather than the engine room and it hurt his game
Myers - Lump of coal who is selected for some unknown complicated reasons
Colyer - Fumble king who was lucky to get so many games. Still unknown if he can reach the peaks.
Overall - Showed our lack of depth and recruiting. Kelly, Myers and Colyer continued to play big roles despite woeful form, lack of speed and questionable skills. The development of Parish stagnated as preference was given to others and the only light was McGrath.
Status of the “New Blood”
The only guy really given any chances this year was McGrath and he didn’t disappoint. We finally awarded Begley a few token games at the end but you wouldn’t call it a development year from him. Langford and Laverde got limited opportunities, and tbf butchered most of them. We barely sighted Francis. Bird was shelved and Dea never got a chance to build on his excellent season last year. Morgan, Ridley, Redman are still just names on a page.
So I’m not sure where all this ‘hope’ comes from. The utter lack of games into our kids will hurt big and we lost any momentum we may have built last year. Most of the returning guys have been scania and I reckon we need at least 2 more classy mids, a key defender, another 2 small forwards to replace Walla and Fanta (or 4 more classy mids), a ruckman (possibly two) and another key forward. Ain’t going to happen.
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“We’re not here to make up the numbers”.
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I think this could happen…all depends who we get this offseason…which more than likely will be b graders if that…like I’ve said in the past if teams don’t like dealing with dodoro than we will need to shift him away from direct negotiations because teams will go out of their way to make trades hard for us.
If we make the elimination final next year there is so way I splash any cash on attending.
I now have 2 sources of PTSD - saga and elimination finals.
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JD
Appreciate the detailed breakdown.
But in essence Zerret, McGrath, fantasia, JoeDan, Stewart, Walla, Begley, Gleeson, parish are cause for optimism.
And I might be in the minority but Langford is one of my favourites and I think it was a great development year for him in the midfield in the 2’s. Should be have played more afl, yes. But would he have racked up 25 disposal 7 tackles games. Probably not. So that is good learning. Also think Mutch and Draper showed a lot in the VFL.
So that is the cause for optimism.
Not many of our older players have offered much compared to our youth. Another cause for optimism
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EFC: “HOLD MY BEER.”
Makes up numbers.
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It’s ok WOB. I’m sure the lid off peanuts are calculating how we’ll be the first team in histroy to win the flag even though we’ve been eliminated.
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