Review Thread vs Roos. Little of Essington Little of Essendon

He is equal 2nd in the Coleman with JoeDan. Not a bad effort for a supposed spud.

Only a couple positives for me:

1/We won , and flipped a switch in the last and absolutely smashed the clearances.

2/The lack of any real intensity, particularly in the first half, hopefully means with the 8 day break they are all primed and fresh for next week.

Besides the umpiring in the first half it was hard to figure out why our kicking plummeted to such lows, cant say I noticed a high pressure game by the Roos, in fact the opposite they really just tried to play keepings off, hence their overly higher than us stats. Agree with the comments about Waite and Brown, they are hard to beat when they are on.
I was glad to see that we eventually did what was expected and 20 goal games where you win are never bad no matter who your opponent is. Seems that some supporters think they are entitled to wins by certain margins. I’m sure some bomber fans sit in front of the TV during the game while holding a play-station remote, smacking and cursing it as if something must be broken.
I say we just got a little bit better at beating sides we should, there is no doubt based on evidence that this group switches on better against better opposition and on bigger occasions.
I dont really care how ugly we win, as long as we keep winning, Finals are big games against better sides and I know we will be good so long as we get there

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It’s interesting, since that final that they both kicked 4 in, Joe and Brown have pretty much gone goal for goal.

2015: Joe 34, Brown 32
2016: Joe 43, Brown 41
2017: Joe 47, Brown 47.

Brown has done it without any of the fanfare, probably because he doesn’t have Joe’s party tricks.

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May be true but if thats the case we shouldnt be flat at the start of the game but the end.

Who the hell is Taylor Garner?

It was one of those incredibly frustrating games where not much went right. A game we should have been mentally prepared for from the start and clearly weren’t. There is undoubtably something about this group that struggles too switch on against the teams it should beat. However in saying that the fact is when it was on the line, the group responded and smashed North in the the last quarter, dominating the clearances and kicking 7 goals. That’s an enormous positive as I haven’t really seen us shake ourselves out of our lethargy throughout a game and does suggest some mental fortitude/maturity.

Our skill errors our biggest issue for the first three quarters. It looked like we were so conscious of winning the inside ball that we played our spare at the contest our just outside, norths pressure was good enough to panic us into a blind kick forward that was being mopped up by their spare instead of finding that last handball to our player in space. For the majority of the game I felt we just wasted our spare and they better utilised there’s. There were times in the second and third were we had everyone of our players in the defensive 50 trying to win the ball and North set up a ring a kick away and we gave it to them 3,4,5 times in a row. Incredibly frustrating and demonstrates a lack of leadership as we were clearly breaking down. When we went man on man is when we got on top.

It was a tough day, tactically beaten for most of it but we found a way and that is encouraging. Essington would have folded. We haven’t ground many out this year, today we did and we keep the dream alive.

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I wouldn’t call it ‘drab and predictable’ because we are playing exactly opposite of that - but I agree with you in part. We will need to work out, over the next few months, whether the team we have and are likely to have in the near future is suited to the style of game plan we are developing. Not all teams can play the way we are trying to consistently play, and it comes down to our skill sets - whether that’s physical or mental or emotional. If we do not/will not have the skills - accuracy/vision/speed/fluency to pull it off, we will need to either look to tweak our list or to modify our style to something more staid yet predictable. It’s a beautiful thing to watch when it works, but we’d want to be confident of bringing it at least 75% of the time.

We play in a way that is pretty easily disrupted if we aren’t spot on. High risk/reward. It may take a little while to be able to confidently and comfortably play that way in most games - if ever. We won’t, however, go very far without taking risks.

No it is more about evening up the stats. A mark is a mark, but if you can substitute it for a free kick it makes the numbers look better.

I could only listen to the game and got a laugh when one of the commentators in the second quarter commented on Essendon supporters booing a marking infringement said, “Just because the umpires are not paying those frees to Essendon, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be paid. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

I seriously didn’t know if he was taking the p1ss, but the frees at the time were about 14-15 to 5.

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People call him a spud because he doesn’t play for them. It’s that highbrow brilliance of the footy supporter.

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That Panell is by far the worst umpire in the league, the other worst is the bald one, name escapes me

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They successfully played ‘keepings off’. Look at their marking stats. They correctly identified that as a way to stem our fast and fluent play. They weren’t able to do it for the entirety of the game.

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Ben Brown is very similar to Joe from a pace and height point of view.

Hurls was never a chance on the lead, and once his arms are outstretched- like Joe, it’s even more impossible.

Wonder if their weights are similar, because I still think with a few more Kgs, Joe will truly be virtually unstoppable.

I suspect this is because the ‘better’ teams focus on their own game plan - the one that got them where they now are, while the ‘lower’ teams focus more on disrupting our game plan - to minimise loss and perhaps stand a chance of pinching a win. If your game plan is one that is either easily disrupted, or your players are not yet skilled enough to counter, you get what the childish ones here here call ‘essington’.

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Last month o so, we found away throug with handball to create the run, we struggled a bit yesterday for a while, and even when we did find holes our kicking was woeful, add that to momentum killing free kicks and unbelievably OTT 50 mtrs penalties didn’t help either. We had several players who to be fair have put in enourmous last month and a bit had a quiet day yesterday.Like Glesson, Daniher, Zakka, Kelly and a few others . What I did like was Parish had a really good game, and Myers really showing some signs he’s back, he even looks to be a bit physically bigger than he was earlier in the year

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Yep, and it’s worrying that it doesn’t take that much right now, to turn a beautiful game style into slushy chaos. I would imagine that the coaches spend a lot of time on this point.

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I do think and believe most of if not all of it is above the shoulders, a sort of anxiety to succeed. I think the players are so eager for success they are having trouble with focus in the moment at times. I really believe if we get there they will be completely awake , so for me, winning anyway we can is ok, If we compare leading up to, and including the disastrous Brisbane game, I think the worst of this fade out problem is behind us now. Our game and talent came through in the end yesterday and that is enough for me. I believe in them

I was at the game and it was frustrating to watch, our skills were a bit off (affecting our possession chains) and some of our 50 entries were a complete waste of the good work leading up to them.
I don’t agree with those saying we weren’t switched on or that we lacked intent. North were unpredictable, the umps were inept and sometimes things just don’t go your way.
Joes kick from 50m getting smothered, Belly spoiling Joes mark, Hurley missing soccering the ball, Hurls and Joe kicking OOB, Zaka getting a finger to a pass in the corridor and spoiling the link to Colyer… all just things not going to plan or team chemistry not working out, not lack of effort.

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Yeah very good point, and that’s why finals will be a different proposition if we get there. By the time you make finals you have to trust your game plan and structures, you dont often see overly negative tactics in finals, even the most dour Sydney and Freo teams of recent times tend to play more attack when they get to the business end of the year, plus the whole game this year seems more intent on fast break footy, which suits us to a tee