Essendon has lost 3 of the last 4 games. All too familiar scenario confront the club, yet again where they hit the half way mark of the season and all the early season gains amount to nothing.
It’s farking depressing seeing the players show zero fight in the second 1/2.
Yes, that 3rd quarter from the umpires was an absolute disgrace. Draper. Menzie. Stewart. Bowes. 4 moments favouring Geelong which altering the momentum of the game.
Mind you, Geelong started the 3rd with renewed intent which Essendon struggled to match. BUT, Draper kicks that goal, it’s a different game.
Sigh, a season full of so much promise will likely see Essendon fall out of the 8 in 2 weeks.
Yeah you can because you don’t give up half way through a game. In life you have a choice to face adversity or meekly accept it. These guys choose to embarrass themselves with half hearted attempts and absolute stupidity.
Not all doom and gloom, we managed to get some vital mins into Goldstein which will help his development while also not playing Caddy at any level after having a promising game last week, so he gets a nice rest. Really shocked Tsatas wasn’t the sub to give him that valuable 10 mins of playing out of position on a wing to further his development
I watched the game on TV. My key takeaways, some of which others have covered:
As bad as the Q4 2019 Anzac Day umpiring was (I was there live), last night was actually worse. Will be interesting to see how the AFL spins it.
We lack the mental resilience to deal with setbacks - we need tougher players and leaders who will lift their team and demand a response. Neither Merrett of McGrath are that type of leader.
Our loss though was caused by two, key problems.
(a) By 3QT we had been outscored by 38 points on turnover by Geelong which was bottom 4 in this stat the past 5 weeks. In fact, we were a about a +4 goal better scoring side that the Cats over the past 5 weeks coming into this game.
(b) Our forward line efficiency (scores from I50 entries) must be the worst in the league. It cost us games against the Blues and Suns. It cost us last night. To have 60 I50s and score only 15 times (only25%) is an indictment on the coach and his game plan as on anyone else. We must have the worst forward efficiency % in the league.
What causes both these problems is the game plan. Let me explain:
(a) Geelong has been stymied in recent times because all times know not to allow them a spare in defence (normally Tom Stewart, but not always). Yet, that’s what we did last night by continually sending a HF to a stoppage between wing and HF. The Cast defender stayed back of course and our many clearances were then easily picked off. What was the point of playing two ruckmen, for ruck & stoppage clearance dominance, but then still push up a HF for an extra at the stoppage? It makes no sense. This is on the coach.
(b) Like all the good sides (Sydney, Collingwood, etc.), when the Cats got the turnover in our forward half, they went quickly and directly through the corridor giving us no time to set up behind the ball. What do we do when we win the the turnover? Slow, sidewards, chip kicks and you then have a Laverde or Heppell turn the ball over finally kicking forward from HB to wide on the wing to the advantage of the opposition for turnovers - it cost us two goals in Q1.
Whilst the umpiring was a disgrace in Q3 last night, let’s not let it cover up the fact that the gameplan is not aligned to team selection and our ball movement slow and sideways induces turnovers back the other way. Our I50 scoring efficiency will only become Top 4, and we will become Top 4, when we learn to move the ball directly through the corridor like other Top 4 sides and hit up forwards in space rather than just bomb it long to a contest where we are inevitably outnumbered.
I think we’re tracking pretty nice, I think an elimination final against Freo in Perth is looking likely and to quote the great man Orazio ‘10 other teams would love to be in our position’ after freo do us by 78 points
A series of unfortunate events hey Brad? So Lemony Snicket was umpiring out there.
The thing about bad umpiring is that the AFL are as corrupt and a pack of serial liars that they make Donald Trump look like a top bloke. The worse the umpiring is, and it doesn’t get as bad as last night, the AFL will double down and admit only 1 of the 8 blatant cheating decisions was incorrect. This is the way.
We’re blaming umpires when we literally were handed a win thanks to the non Draper holding against Adelaide, who are we to sook? Are we expect the club to close down mid match again if a decision goes against us? The heart of peas, the drop off on form from individuals is laughable if it wasn’t so predictible, we’ll lose both out next few games and be sitting 11th again.
What an absolute headcase of a game plan where we can get it to 70m out on a wing, and the option that we take almost 100% of the time is either;
a) kick it to a 2v1/3v1 in the pocket where it’s knocked out of bounds, or
b) being slightly more inboard, kick it to a contest 20m out where we have no one at ALL at the drop of the ball and it rebounds out (and that’s if we didn’t kick it right in the hole to a spare defender)
Our transition into 50 is diabolical. Our forward 50 set up is even worse