We are soft

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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After watching on Tuesday night and then on Wednesday its just confirmed something I have thought for 18 months.

We are soft, both physically and mentally and until we change that we are no chance of every becoming anything more than what we have been for 14 years. Which is such a blight on a club that prided itself on being hard and tough.

The current excuses that come out from the coaches are exactly that, excuses, anytime we get challenged we capitulate, maybe its a saga mentality, maybe its the people the club as a whole has in leadership positions. But its now become blatantly obvious.

I can’t remember the last time one of our players hit into a contest with the kind of intent that hurts the opposition. We are making out that playing footy is some great strategic battle equivalent to chess. Where moves are made, structure and ball movement can win. But in the end, its a physical game, and unless you are ready to impose your will on the opposition there is no way all the strategies and structures from the best coaches in the world are going to help you.

I can always remember a Brisbane Lions game back when they were dominating, Voss picked the ball up and the opposition player tried to crunch him and came of second best. Not only did Voss take the hit, kicked the goal but he let the opposition play know about it and then his team mates followed up after him. They imposed their will on the competition for years. Clarkson knew it and took years to build it back up, Goodwin is trying at the Dees.

AFL is about imposing your will, be it though crunching the contest, gut running your opponent into the ground, manic pressure and work rate to make your opponent fail. Do one better than anybody else and you can win a flag, do all three you have a dynasty.

We are soft, and unless we harden up and start cracking in with intent, it will never change.

How do you change, I’m not sure if we can in the short term, but a good place to start is to get a bit of ■■■■ about us and cracking in hurting the opposition, not worrying about coping the weeks.

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Agree 100%!!!

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not soft. filth were better.

and i think we are outclassed too often in the midfield and up forward.

I would have backed our backs in much earlier to organise themselves without hooksy and moved our contested mark gun forward.

Buckley coached well. exploited Baguely. we needed hooksy up forward for our own mismatch.

bad coaching hey. i mean I know that sounds like peanut gallery stuff.

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Couldn’t agree more. The attack on the ball, the man and then contest is embarrassing. Humiliating.

I can’t even remember we had someone suspended for going that little too far with a bump, block etc. A quick google and I found McKenna’s bits and Greens staging as the last two to be in trouble! What a joke! Merrett got done against Carlton last year but other than that… we barely get fines for wrestling ffs!!! We’re a bunch of kindergarten students.
I love James Sicily, sure he’s a complete ■■■■ but he has fire and passion. More than 21 players out there in Wednesday, with Goddard being the exception.

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It’s not about one game.

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no its not…but I think our coaching leaves a little to be desired at times.

still its only a couple of weeks from where everyone was calling for Buckleys head.

if the filth keep playing the way they are he wil have calls to be AA coach.

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We were soft against the Dogs, the players had a heart to heart and they came out with intent against Port, then we revert back to our baseline against the Pies.
We’d be afraid of being bruised by mashed potatoes.

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Soft as butter, mentally and physically. How often do we make a statement and intimidate the opposition? The only one on Wednesday with any niggle and ticker was Dev but we will ruin him in a matter of months. There were atleast 3 opportunities to iron out a Collingwood player and we pulled out every single time. And TBC is the worst culprit, had a couple of chances to kill Cox or atleast put the knees into him and failed to do so.

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I didnt see a desire to avoid the hard stuff.

I saw a side unable or scared to move the ball quickly on the big stage…call it stage fright or juat good opposition coaching knowing how to pressure our ball carrier and the next option well.

we couldnt move the ball quickly through the corridor so we needed better marking options down the line.

Hence Hooker shoukd have been moved forward in the second quarter. I saw it. commented on it at the time in the game thread.

the coaching staff did nothing about it until junk time in the fourth.

opposition was well coached and shut our game down. we needed a plan B. ■■■■■ me Woosha always seems to wait too long in games to try one out.

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We need to start doing the things that go unnoticed not just the things that end up on highlight reels. Simple as that.

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I guess it’s hard to see them shirk contests when the players aren’t getting to contests.

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I thought we played well.

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We’re actually not.

What we are is inconsistent.

Long term, predictably, frustratingly inconsistent.

Why do we bring the effort one week and not the next?

Why have we been doing that for years?

It’s easy to take the low hanging fruit when we lose and say we’re soft or unskilled or the coach is ■■■■ or the players are ■■■■ …none of those things are true. What remains true is that we have been inconsistent for years and we need to find a way to fix it.

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i understand a knee to the cox is quite painful…

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I think a good coach can fix inconsistency

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Soft as butter on a melted marshmallow pillow cover in cotton wool and the finest furs.

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You’d like to think so. But that has not been the case for the last decade, and we’ve had, what I consider, some very good coaches. The only constant is the inconsistency.

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I’m not saying this is the be all and end all, there’s so much that’s wrong with this team and so much to fix, but it doesn’t help that a good 15 of our best 22 know they will never be dropped, no matter how poorly they play.

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Agreed.
How long does that take?

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No no.

They’re just ‘confused’.

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