Some very hard questions need to be asked. And answered.
Hooker isn’t a forward. Luenberger isn’t an AFL standard player. McKenna won’t cut it, as brilliant as he COULD be. Zaka is past it if he ever had it. Mitch Brown could be good but probably won’t be. Gleeson is a better prospect than both of the backs selected that shouldn’t have been. Any game plan that has Daniher away from the forward 50 for the bulk of the match is flawed. E have some very good youngsters who have benefited from the exposure they received last year but we are currently sending them backwards. Hurley needs a spell and Hartley brought back in. At least he knows how to stay on his man and/or kill a contest. We missed him tonight enormously.
Im not sold on the coaches, their game plan, their selections. We’re not a fantastic side but we are better than what was served up tonight. A lot better.
Get the right team on the park in the right spots. Contrary to popular opinion football is not rocket science.
Hooker looked lost tonight.
I think he needs to go back to help stabilise the backline, get him playing to his strengths & free up Hurley to play to his strengths as the floating, intercepting 3rd tall, whilst developing the Joe & Stewart/Franga forward line.
Lots of wasted chances tonight (eg 7 consecutive points in 3rd qtr & so many slighly but costly errors throughout the game when the extra handball should have been a kick) which helps me keep the faith that all is not lost in the short-medium term, and still extremely positive about the overall, big-picture, longer term prospects of our club, for the success we all desperately want.
Go Bombers!!!
Agree wholeheartedly. I am not a coach but for crying out loud why do some match ups seem so obvious to a lot of blitzers where the coaches seem to be right off the ball.
MCG should have started on Betts Bags was not ever going to be up to it.
Harts should be playing AFL not VFL
Smack should be in the side either as a help to Luey or in place of Luey
Hooker back (can alternate forward when needed to put opposition off)
Ambrose on Walker - no brainer.
Gleeson should have stayed in. Gets a lot of the ball McKenna not up to his level yet.
There is so much more. Are the coaches insisting for a reason because I can’t see it.
When MCG was put on Betts he stopped kicking goals. Same with Ambrose on Walker. Ambrose has been shutting down everyone down this year (and last). So its not as if our obvious match ups don’t work. They are coming in late or not at all from the coaches. When they do come in they seem to work.
I don’t want to put our coaches down but I just want to understand why the obvious isn’t happening. Last week you could come up with more obvious choices that the coaches are not implementing and we got our result.
I just hope there is a good reason for the long term. It appears we need to invest in the baby bombers again as we have in the past. The young guys have shown real heart this year (and last). I feel we need to play fully young team and get them to meld and know each other on the field which in time will bring them success. Guys like Mckenna, Langford and gleeson will feel more part of the team and they will improve together. If not we can get other young blood in that are prepared to put in the hard work to achieve ultimate success. It seems like this current team it going to have a hard uphill battle…I hope I am wrong
I reckon we played the most in-form team in the comp tonight.
We’re no where near having our best team out there yet, for all the reasons we should all be well aware of & will look very different by the end of the season.
Blitz is a very impatient beast; Worsfold is not.
Support the boys & enjoy the ride.
Good times are coming, starting with a much improved ANZAC Day performance!!
I’m sure we have the stones,. we fair dinkum just looked stuffed in the 1st qtr. They came out & jumped at full speed, having got up to top match fitness & fine tuned after the 1st 3 games, and their cohesion after 4 years or so playing together was something that will likely see them make their way to a GF, if not a flag this year.
We are way behind that, & looked like we had lead in our legs after the last 2 weeks, especially after the “Water Bowl”, early on.
It took a massive lift, and some changes, (& yes, maybe they relaxed a tad), to get back into it, but our older returning guys will be much better for getting the last 3 weeks into their legs, and will lap up a long break to freshen up.
No matter how much training they did pre season & over the 12 month break, nothing emulates the muscle break down that occurs during games like this one or last weeks slog, . & of course, the 1st 2 as well.
Given their time over, I reckon Woosh et al, might have given them all the week off for Fk Carlton, and let them repair from the 1st couple. In hindsight, I would have rested Jobe Hurls & Hooks & maybe Hep too, and brought in Smck Stewart Bird & maybe Jerret for fk Carlton in the wet.
I probably shouldn’t reply because I turned off the telly at quarter time.
There is one truism in sport: you can’t beat the officials (umpires).
I can deal with incompetence - just! - but not with bias.
It’s not just the free kicks that are paid. It’s the free kicks that aren’t paid … and when and where they’re not paid. Adelaide’s first goal came moments after an obvious throw. The only ‘throw’ adjudication paid in the first quarter was against Jobe - a borderline case that cost a goal because of a 50 metre penalty paid against Kelly.
Kelly suffered a ridiculous HTB decision in the first quarter. He should speak to Matthew Leuenberger about playing football as an Essendon player because the decisions against him in the first quarter defy belief.
Can I explain this? No! Is it home-crowd syndrome like at West Coast booing games? I don’t think so. All I know is that we were playing O.K. in the first quarter. Adelaide was shading us through the midfield and exposing our defence. They didn’t need help but fgs they got it.
If you - like me! - were frustrated with the umpiring, imagine how the players felt. It’s hard enough beating a good side operating efficiently without outside interference. (Did the two absurd Leuenberger free kicks against lead to goals? At least one of them did!)
The fact that the AFL is a totally corrupt organisation that is a law unto itself means that there will be no meaningful review of the officiating. If challenged it will ■■■■-covering all the way. Accept it or walk away.
So, for those of you who sat through the entire game - that was over at quarter time - I will accept that our midfield is slow and mediocre defensively - I watched the Brisbane game. I will accept that players panic and make bad decisions under pressure … something common across the whole competition.
We were fukked over in the first quarter for whatever reason and whatever happened after is almost immaterial to me. Does that mean I think we are a good side? No. But I can see what we are trying to create and I’ll withhold judgement until returning players get up to speed, players gel and the martinets with whistles put a cap on their egos.
Noticed that. They definitely out pressured us. We were actually really good at that last year, it was a real feature of our game & I don’t think we’ve reached the pressure levels of then yet this year, and yeah, it was probably at it’s worst level so far this season tonight in the 1st half.
We brought some in the 3rd term, & won tackles 22 to 13, . & that’s what got us back into it. Pity we couldn’t nail the goals, … 7 - 3 instead of 3 - 7 would have had us in with a chance.
I missed the first quarter and some of the second due to commitments. So I didn’t see most of the Adelaide avalanche or our reaction. On what I did see, thoughts were:
most of the saga players played poorly. Colyer was the exception. M really getting annoyed at Heppell’s penchant for killing momentum passing it backwards or to someone under pressure.
if Adelaide didn’t kick as straight as they did, scores would be a lot closer.
part of their dominance was our stuff ups. I’d hate to know how many goals were scored on turn overs where our mids we’re out of position to put pressure on. Walla was particularly bad at this- he potentially cost us 6 goals. Hopefully just a bad day.
So often we were ‘nearly’ there. But that difference costs you versus the top teams.
Why did we not take a really good backline from the end of 2016 and start with that this year? I’m still suspicious Hartley/Ambrose/Brown/Dea/McKenna/Gleeson/Kelly would have been the best base.
Some context. With a bunch of guys still finding form in 13 days we played in Brisbane in humidity, had a slugfest in torrential rain in Melbourne and then flew to Adelaide to play one of the favourites for the flag. That is a tough stretch.
The combination of the umpires farking us over and Adelaide continuously kicking goals out of their ■■■ was what killed us.
There is no disputing that they are a better side but when everything is going against you and the home team is being handed momentum for the first two qtrs, it’s just an avalanche you cant stop.
Great optics for the afl to have Adelaide respond like that after what Eddy has been through in the last week,
I’ll take it a step further - Focused on the midfield tonight - In our first 3 games the number group for the centre square were Zac, Watson and Heppell - What happened tonight ? Watson was in for most centre square in the first quarter, while never saw Heppell in at all, Zac got in a few times, Goddard was in many times, while Fantasia and McDonald were in a few times - This indicates the coach wasn’t happy with the centre clearances for the first three rounds and changed it up tonight - Watson played ( outside of centre square clearances ) more outside in the first three rounds, while today he was more inside and struggled - Goddard played more inside than the first three rounds, Heppell tonight played exclusively as a winger,Zac for the first half still player more in the back half but thank god got more forward half possessions in the second half - It seems the coach is unhappy with the contested centre square clearance work,and added speed to this mix.
I said last week that they won’t win again until there is absolutely zero expectation on them. But based on our last two losses, and looking at the fixture, it’s hard to see where the next win is coming from even allowing for that. In any case it will be a surprise win like the game against Hawthorn, they may even win a second game after that. Then people will start expecting performance from them and the wheels will fall off once again.
