Edwards
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Apparently Bergman is odds on to be signed by saints is what I heard
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Good game. Not one for the ages, but Iāll take it.
Iām sure people will ā ā ā ā and moan that itās another missed 1st pick opportunity and weāre only heading to mediocrity.
Whatever will be, will be.
What I sawā¦
- The midfield won us the game. Not because of what they did offensively but what they did defensively. The only way we win this game with that many talls in the backline is if the midfield did what they could to force a high ball into the forward line and allow our taller players to use their height as an advantage.
- The back 6 was pretty disciplined and tight. Yes, we made errors, but it worked far better with Archie and Shiel further up the ground more often than not. There were other problems, but other than Georgiadis, none of their forwards gave us a headache. And I was not expecting that at all.
- The forward 6 was okay. Firstly, this is our weakest area of the field. They did the best they could. But they lack forward craft. Edwards is okay, but heās too āthinā to worry the opposition. Heās more of an opportunist than a leading target threat. And thatās our big problem. None of our forwards lead and our midfield just sit there waiting for someone to move. Port Adelaide at times actually, kicked it into to space so a forward was forced to go there for the mark. I suspect if we do something like that, itāll be āBenny Hill musicā time because we do not have any repeatable habits that we can trust in our teammates. Iāll leave this to another point later on.
- The effort and intent was better. We were trapping the ball in our forward line and trying to pressure whoever had the ball. I was watching Port Adelaide practice their boundary line throw in plays before the game and I was worried. They were expecting a loose man at the contest and Iām glad we didnāt give them that. I think between Rozee, JHF, Boak and Mead, they would have found the right person for an easy clearance.
- Repeatable habits need a lot of work. ZTHis really does screw us a lot. Iām sure itāll look terrible on TV, but the reason we canāt move the ball on quickly is because we canāt trust players to be in position for the next play. When we could do with quicker movement, there are no leading patterns, no nothing. Itās just frustrating watching it. Every time we get a mark on the wing, there is no one 100m away leading towards the player with the ball.
- Teamwork was much better this week, but there still some issues. A few times a player was too selfless and tried to thread a pass instead of taking a shot at goal. I still donāt get it. If you cross the 50m arch, you are allowed to take a shot. I get it, you may burn someone at times, but we almost wait for a clear opening to not eventuate and force a ā ā ā ā ā ā little kick that gets picked off. The other part of teamwork that is terrible is the forward movements. Other teams do it well, we are terrible. There is no one leading to open up space for someone behind them to lead into. And weirdly, on the odd opportunity we do it, we honour the shorter lead when than the longer lead.
- Our skills are still poor. If the effort is not there, our skills drop off drastically. If the effort is there, weāre still not clean but we stay in the contest. At no stage did I think we were out of the game even though we were poor in many areas.
- Decision making is poor. But again, if effort is not there, our decision making is farking diabolical. With effort, weāre in the contest. Part of this I think goes under the repeatable habits thing. Itās tough to pull the trigger on a slightly more riskier kick if you cannot trust your teammate to be in the right position for it. And if he isnāt, heās got to work hard for it.
- The last quarter turn was a tad different from the norm. There was more run and carry through the middle and we dared to go there too. Port didnāt defend it well at all. Weirdly, those few runs through the middle were the 2023 āChips Inā plays. When thereās a contest, you tap to the inside. You try and play from 10m out of the centre square and inboard than outboard.
- I thought Port were rather kind to us by playing Soldo. He was just taking up a defender and rather poorly. They would have been better served with another medium forward or small forward. Heck, even Finlayson would have been better.
- We still had problems with coast to coast. Too often we had the ball in our forward line and all we needed was some clean possession, a kick to our players advantage or even just a reset / ball up and instead Port won the ball and we were out of position on the rebound. This team will be susceptible to coast to coasts simply because when weāre attacking weāre almost like downhill skiers, but as soon as thereās a turnover, thereās no way weāre making up the ground.
Onto individualsā¦
- Draper. Time for the groans on his kicking to be go away. Worry about the result not the method. Heās kicking them straight, let him do it and take what we can get from it.
- Ridley. Good performance by him. He played the āShielā role but could actually impact as the third man up. He didnāt have to because the midfield put enough pressure on the Port midfield that they werenāt getting clean ball to leading targets.
- McKay. Heās very rusty coming into this season. Heās struggled badly. But he got better as the game went on. Keep him in.
- Archie Roberts. Finally got time on the wing and he did well. He has good sticky hands. The thing I liked about him is he had two terrible kicks (one was farking deplorable in the backline that cost a goal) but he kept going to the next contest. Heāll be fine.
- Shiel. We knew what weād get with him in the middle. A few of his kicks were because there were very few players presenting, but there were more āunforced errorsā than not.
- Hobbs. I thought he did his job okay. Had one CBA early, but he seemed to play as a high half forward who went up to the contest. I think that works well for Ports midfield, but it wonāt against other teams who have more outside run.
- Menzie. I thought he was okay. There was no useless running from him. He found himself in a few dangerous spots and we used him a few times. Still not exactly a crumbing forward and also not high half forward. The Lincoln McCarthy leading small forward is slowly going out of the game.
- Bryan. He was okay. I was more impressed with his around the ground work. When the ball is in our forward line and heās setting up a kick behind play, he works real well with the defenders in the area. One time he picked up an opponent and allowed some one else to be loose which is a good tactical play at times. Whenever he is a kick behind play, itās real important that our forwards work their nuts off to pressure the kick. Because if they get a clean clearance, Bryan speed cannot cut off the angles on leading lanes and we can easily find ourselves on the wrong side of a coast to coast goal.
Overall a good win. Thatās our baseline effort needed for the rest of the season. There will be times when weāre better than that and times when weāre worse, but we shouldnāt be too far off it.
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Just returned home from the game.
As well as pleasing change in attitude by the players compared to last week, it seems Scott had an epiphany on team structure and game plan which, in turn, fed the players confidence:
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Put players in their natural position - Shiel in the middle (replacing Tsatas, good game) and Jones to the forward line (pity his team mates kept kicking to his opponents advantage across HF). We looked much better balanced - especially up forward starting with 3 talls and 3 smalls.
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We played a much more man-on-man game and much, much less zoning. There were 1:1 contests everywhere. there wasnāt too much of Port playing Chinese checkers and chipping it to a free man in space continuously. this meant there was much less free-flow to the game and made it into a scrap which Port doesnāt like. It wants Rozee & JHF in space and they were denied that by opponents who wanted the ball more on the inside and an Essendon team that didnāt provide too many easy clearances through the front of the stoppage.
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In the back half of Q2 we had lost momentum and Port were in control and it seemed we dropped a spare back with that player seeming being Ridley or Reid. It game Reid, in particular some confidence by getting his hands on the ball and this stabilised the side and choked Portās scoring. Late in Q2 we got momentum back and got on top and that carried over to the second half.
Itās very clear, having watched all 3 games live that the player that troubles the opposition the most, especially in our forward line is Draper. Multiple times I saw Aliir look to zone of his man to help Ratugalea on Draper. They couldnāt intercept mark, as usual, if Draper was in the contest and then set play up. Structurally, Draper is our most important player because his involvement in aerial battles denies the opposition intercept marks; and they struggle containing him if it is 1:1. He is averaging exactly 2 goals a game right now and is on track for a 40 goal year if he can maintain his consistency. He is the Stringer replacement.
At 3QT all we needed was a spark and El Hawli provided it. His run lit up the crowd and really energised the team. that was all we needed. Our terrible goal kicking masked the fact our numbers said we should win this game by 10+ goals: +29 contested possessions, +15 I50s, +16 tackles. Port are a very ordinary side and team and will finish well down the ladder.
Pleasingly, all players lifted after HT and Prior had a really good period in the first part of Q3. Roberts was good all night and his sublime pass to Draper in Q4 is the skill level we need to aspire to. He was one of our best players. Also, great to see Reid shut down Georgiades (McGrath and Ridley struggled with him) and then win plenty of the ball himself.
Itās a pity we now have to wait 16 days but we get at least Tsatas and Perkins available for selection by then. We then start to get selection pressure. El Hawli must stay in, he ignited the team in Q4. Edwards might be the one to go (couldnāt get into the game and struggled against the size of Aliir).
We still have a long, long way to go - you could easily see how the very experienced Pies slaughtered Port in Round 1. Our stats dominance on clearances, I50s, contested possession and tackles almost on par with the Pies who won by 91 points. We won by only 12. That 13 goal difference is the gap between where we are today and a top side.
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I hate to be negative but
DID I HEAR ā ā ā ā ā ā ā MUSIC AFTER GOALS
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you did
and it can fk right off
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I deal with juveniles everyday each week. You just blend in.
Did they play Neil Dimond?
^ the w/tanker
Roze spoke after the game to Mitch Cleary looked like he was shocked that they lost lols
You thought you could flat track your way to a win and bullies us didnāt ya Port well we fixed you up in the 4th qrt take that you fark head
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The bonus will be listening to Corn duck and weave the incoming Port attacks tomorrow on SEN. Could be worth listening to that!!!
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I like Cornes but he went silent in the last haha
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To be honest, we have a few coming through in Clarke, Johnson, Gerryn and Day-Wicks.
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Best thing about tonight was seeing Kenny at the bench in the last qrt no goal after the siren for you this time kent
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I was thinking about this in the last quarter.
We know Perkins and Tsatas will come back in. Maybe even Parish.
I also donāt want SEH out. Iām hoping we keep him in and give him a full game. I suspect having him as sub was to allow him to get through the game and heāll be freed up after Ramadan ends (this Sunday).
Edwards is an easy out. I like him, but I just donāt see him winning many one on ones against any defenders. He not strong enough. And Iām not even sure heās quick enough off the mark to be a decent leading forward. Regardless our skills are pretty ratty so heāll need to be better with one on ones than getting leads honoured. Heāll be fine at VFL level, but the step up to AFL is a tad too much for him.
I suspect Hobbs will come out. It was pretty clear that Merrett dragged himself out of the midfield in the first quarter to allow others some midfield time. I suspect heāll continue doing that when Perkins, Tsatas and Parish come back. That pushes out Hobbs.
The next one out should be Shiel, but I donāt think heāll do it. The Shiel backline experiment over with, but there really isnāt anywhere else on the field for him to play. I hope we do drop him when the time comes, but I just donāt see it happening.
I donāt think weāll drop Prior. Heās poor, but we seriously do not have an abundance of small / medium defenders at all in the VFL. Itās one of the major list failures weāve had the the last two pre-seasons. And whilst I like Archie Roberts, heās better off on the wing than off the backline. Same deal with SEH.
I also donāt see us dropping Menzie yet. He wasnāt that bad, but the more midfielders we bring in, the tougher it is to hold a spot in our forward line.
I think weāll persevere with McKay, Reid and Ridley in the backline. As long as Ridley can handle playing on a smaller forward / high half forward.
Lucky for us we have a bye, so we wonāt be ārestingā players anytime soon.
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Were port tanking?
I believe heās done another injury
Oh ā ā ā ā off with that crap how about give some credit to essendon for wining Port wre lucky we didnt kick straight and belt them by 10 goals
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I was at the game and my impression was that Port intended to cruise home but when we stepped up a gear in the last quarter they were stuck in second.
Loved Kako to Caddy in the last quarter, and El-Hawliās run.
It was a scrappy, low standard game but the most important thing was they showed a lot of heart after a week of criticism (myself included). There will be more down days but thatās the sort of attitude I like to see.
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