I think Mutch reminds me of Kieran Sporn, both in looks & playing style.
Even though we had the majority of AFL listed players compared to Richmond, they played with a lot more desperation & willingness to take the game on. Our blokes looked like they were in cruise mode & just expected to win by showing up.
To have Hocking, Stanton & Looey cracking jokes on the interchange bench halfway through the last qtr when the game was on the line, showed me they were not taking the game fair dinkum.
I know what you mean but i took it another way. After the ā ā ā ā that hocking and stanton have been through and not getting a senior game agter being best 22 for years it would be very tough. I was happy to see them laughing. Maybe they are just enjoying playing footy and accept it for what it is - a game.
It was a game of park footy really. Bitchmomd scragged and harassed and denied us the corridor and our ability to run. Basically, they dragged us down to their level, and beat us that way. Not too fussed myself. Their way will win them a few VFL games, ours is about developing players for the AFL. As disappointing as it is to lose, Iāll take our approach every day of the week.
I thought Morgan was ok. Heās quick, strong, and aggressive. Hope they persist with his hammies. Loony was good in the ruck, and fark heās good below his knees for a big bloke, but just too many fumbly errors yesterday. As others have pointed out, The Eel was pretty good, but he needs to flatten out his kicks. Also liked the look of Clarke, and although he didnāt do a lot yesterday, you can just see it in Ridley; the kid moves beautifully. Laverde was a bit rusty as expected, and had a limit of 8.5km yesterday, so didnāt play out the whole game, and poor ā ā ā ā ā ā Mitch Brown is off for scans on his ankle after some opposition oaf fell on it in the last couple of minutes. Looks at this stage like a carbon copy of the injury he just returned from.
Damn, that sucks to hear about Brown. Hopefully he comes up clear of damage.
I only saw the last 10 minutes or so. Myers looked good and it looked like Francis was a 1 man backline.
What stood out though was the different interpretation of umpiring between the 2 teams. One that really stood out was when the Essendon guy ducked to get the ball was taken high and no free kick. Praise for the umpiring by the commentary team. Yet literally 2 minutes earlier a Richmond guy collapsed at the knees was barely touched and got a free on our forward line. There were several others especially around holding the ball.
It looked like we should have won but had zero composure which was like our seniors the week before.
Some thoughts on our Twos as they relate to improving our Firsts.
Iāve watched a few Twos games live this year, as well as yesterdayās game on TV, and there are a few issues that relate to Blitzās confusion / disagreement about player development and depth that are concerning.
There is a noticeable lack of team strategy / game day plan in our Ressies set up. Evidenced again by the spud Tiggies outplaying us as a side yesterday. Games Iāve watched have our structures thrown around from quarter to quarter. Blokes are played in a multitude of roles not just from week to week, but within each game. This has led to glaring instances of kick, handball and hope - ie turnovers, scrubbed and hanger kicks, s@@t handballs etc etc on multiple occasions
Players seem to have little knowledge or trust in whatās happening around them. Our game relies on a series of individual actions. No way can it be said that our Twos play in a similar style to the Firsts - unlike sides such as Geelong or Footscray.
I believe the issue is in our ādevelopmentā model
Weāre choosing to try and develop players as individuals outside a team context.
This may be fine for first year players like Fridge, Mutch, Clarke, and Ridley. You can see them improving to some extent though questions remain about how theyād perform in the Firsts. Hence Blitzs various opinions.
It has more serious problems for blokes like Francis, Redman, Long, Morgan etc
All players whose development seems to have stalled (cue Blitz argument about whether theyāre any good even)
Brought home yesterday by the Tv commentators when Francis marked deep in defence late in the last - looked inboard as he should and no options presented. What are we teaching him, and the others?
Not to take the game on when needed, not to trust that blokes will be leading to dangerous spaces forward, so back yourself to take the AFL skill option and get better at it, not to go in hard in contested ground balls and learn the vision skills of feeding it out to advantage because you know and trust your teammates and the game style
If you donāt develop this in the Twos you wonāt magically do it in the Firsts.
Conor plays better in the Firsts than in the Ressies
Fantasia, Gleeson, Colyer all play better knowing their teammates options and skill levels with a block of time playing as a team.
Francis, Long Redman, Jerret et al all look ordinary at times / a lot despite having some outstanding skills and a desperation to improve. When played at AFL level theyāve clearly developed bad habits.
Unless the Club can change this narrow focus on individual development I fear we wonāt see our next tier of players show what they could be.
And Blitz will continue to alternate between Franga is the Messiah / Franga is unfit useless trade bait.
I donāt know if you were there or watching the broadcast, which I havenāt seen. Iām with you on your first point but not the second. It seemed to me from where I was standing that Richmondās running game was fairly good, much better than our own. They ran coast-to coast at least twice, straight down the middle, whereas I donāt think we ever looked like it. Their long handballs hit targets, ours hardly ever did.
Iām starting to wonder if the old AFL-listers in the side are doing us any good at all.
As I see it, the problem is the midfield and why, individually, none of them are playing seniors - treacle moves faster - uphill. There are only a couple of players playing midfield who move faster than meā¦and Iām a touch past it and a fraction above my playing weight. That fraction is probably about three-quarters.
Thatās interesting to hear because in the only game Iāve been able to see (Round 2 vs Pies) I thought the exact opposite, that we looked like our firsts in style. What have other regular attendees noted in this regard?
There are many similar things between the AFL and VFL teams (e.g. they put one forward behind the ball at centre bounces) but the two teams have very different talents to work with.
For most of the year the VFL team has been too short at both ends. The closest their forward line has approached the seniors is Smack + Peters: need two more talls and two more smalls to match up. Hind and Long is about the extent of pace in the team.
Of course, yesterday only Long featured at all from the above four.
One thing Iāll concede: right now, Merrett is a better converter than Green.
If they tried to play the same game, theyād fail.
In the end, we were one extra player playing well/kicking straight from winning.
Credited with 0 marks. Canāt remember that being wrong, either.
I think after today we can say their are significant similarities in the playing style to the seniors. Goal accuracy, handballing to covered players and giving it up at the end.
Weāre ninth, with scope to drop to tenth once games level out.
If weād turned up weād be fifth.
I am not saying we need an identical structure to the Firsts.
I am suggesting that for the development of our young blokes we need SOME structures / game plans.
A couple of weeks ago I spent a quarter watching our forward line from high in the stand.
Counted at least 6 or 7 totally different forward setups - not from rolling play but after stoppages.
The result was mass confusion from our forwards - leading to the same spot, no one leading (looking at each other), 3 blokes all running back calling for the high/long ball & dragging their opponents to the same pack mark situation etc etc.
It also meant that when our younger players got the ball & looked forward their initial reaction was WTF?
Errors, missed kicks, disposals under pressure were inevitable.
At top level footy a player has a split second to assess options & execute their choice.
How well they do this is how you can measure their ability to be good or very good players.
For development they need to know what those options are most likely going to be - split second decision making can then be learned, improved on, or not as the case may be.
Yeah, footy is a random game - it doesnāt always work but to ignore this aspect of the game is to hamper our playerās learning.
The Corrigans are probably good / very good U/19 coaches - individual skill work and motivation etc etc.
We need a genuine game day coach for the VFL to add this next layer.
It was a strange game in that the game was mainly played in each teamās forward 50, whereas many games are played between the arcs. Thought both teams played similar styles to their ALF teams.
While you seem to excuse the blokes playing in the 2nds having this attitude, would you accept the same attitude from the blokes in the 1sts, cause they appear to have caught the same disease?
No. Totally different context.
55 robbed of goal
