It was a long night. And our bus driver got lost trying to get to Yass which added an extra half an hour. Back before 8am though so no big deal.
2 Likes
Way too much doom and gloom today.
What this year has shown - and the past 15 in fact - is that we can defend and score pretty well most of the time.
The problem is and has been for 15 years, the midfield.
I don’t buy this “loser culture”, etc. type mentality.
Go and put in 2 A Grade midfielders in our side and we 3-4 more games for the year, have a bigger % and finish in the Top 4.
Our improvement - or regression - next season will depend 95% on how much we improve our midfield given Watson was still, yesterday, our best inside mid.
And I don’t mean further improvement - although welcome - in the likes of Parish or Zac Merrett or McGrath. They are “smaller bodied” mids. We need midfield bulls, like Jobe once was, and what the likes of Martin, Ollie Wines, Jay Viney, etc. are.
If Liberatore could get his head right he would be the ideal pick up, rather than Stringer. Not that Stringer wouldn’t improve us as a HF but a firing Liberatore would improve us way, way more as big bodied mid.
Begley would be ideal to develop into that role if he has the tank because he has the perfect build - and competitive instincts as one. Ditto Laverde. Ditto McKenna (if we can hang on to him).
And, by the way, Lnagford is not a big bodied mid no matter how much he dreams of being one - he struggles to run 4 quarters out as one at VFL level. At AFL level he was completely spent at half time in both the diabolical Swans-Brisbane losses and left us effectively 1 player short for much of the last quarter in each. It’s why Myers got brought back.
We don’t need to improve our forward line as such with the talent already there. We need to get a midfield that supplies way more than 32 times in a game and, in doing so, gives the backline the breather it deserves. Noting that I’m not convinced that Harltey as a very tall KP defender is the answer. We should certainly be looking at “cheap” options for that role like Jackson Trengove or Rory Thompson who both at least have some physical presence.
We need bigger bodied, contested ball players all over the ground (that’s why Begley is such a welcome inclusion) and most particularly in the middle.
It’s not “culture” problem, but a recruiting and player developer challenge we have.
7 Likes
At least the first quarter was a break-even except on the scoreboard. It was only Essendon’s terrible forays forward which allowed Sydney a 2 goal lead.
In the second quarter I’ve never seen a side throw in the towel and raise the white flag so quickly. Took about 3 minutes, surely some kind of record. Heppell and Hurley were two of the leading culprits in this surrender.
Despite advances this year, mainly in forward structure, Essendon have a heap of glaring weaknesses, being:
- Mid-field obviously. About 4 decent B+ grade types short of a decent midfield. I could have said a couple of A graders
- Ruck.
3 A tough lockdown key position defender.
And whoever decided that Myers was to get a 3 year contract should be forced to take a one way trip to Mosul Iraq.
I’m watching cat videos.
9 Likes
watching geelong lose was pretty good
3 Likes
Our CEO apologised to players after a well deserved tweet criticising their performance.
Not only are we losers, but we are fragiile. Worsfold’s walked into a mess.
6 Likes
Unfair.
He was quite competitive in the last QTR against swans.
This is an issue I agree
What I don’t understand is when people say “you can’t just gift young players games, they need to earn it”
But for some reason that doesn’t apply to players like howlett, colyer, Myers etc. None of them should have played football after the bye, yet colyer and Myers played just about every game
4 Likes
Langford in the middle? hahaha
The guy is too soft to play midfield he’s best spot is as a floating hf/mid.
So why did we recruit a HFF with our first pick?
Yep. This one sh*ts me.
It happened last year too. “This club doesn’t gift games to players.” In: Polkinghorne.
We have actually gifted an abnormal amount of games in the last two years, not sure why there is a line drawn when it comes to promising kids.
Which one is WOB?
This was a waste of a year imo.
- Didn’t win a final
- Didn’t blood any young players.
Should of played younger players and finished 10th
6 Likes
Because Dodoro has an obsession with trying to turn players like Langford into mids. The few times Langford has played the middle in the senior side he’s failed. You need to have aggression to want the ball if you want to play middle just don’t see that with Langford if we want a mid go and get a mid via the trade or draft.
So Dodoro is also team selector and head of player development as well?
1 Like
No but he’s responsible to get the players that Worsfold and coaching staff need. If Worsfold says to Dodoro “We need mids” then Dodoro goes out and gets those mids not get players that we hope to turn them into one.
I think there are a lot of list mgmt and recruitment armchair experts on blitz. It’s probably the most non-transparent part of football operations yet people on here make grandeous assumptions and statements.
Some people may have guessed right but at the moment some of this feels like a witch hunt
3 Likes