We are soft

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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I don’t believe they do pick and choose. This has been happening for far too long to just lay that on one group of players. It’s deeper than that and until we address it, it will continue.

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I’ve seen TBell stop to a walk in both of our terrible games this year whilst his man ran up the ground and got involved in a goal. This is the sort of mentality we need to eradicate from the team. Zak and Joey in same boat. If they aren’t gonna run and work when the ball is in dispute or not in possession then they should be in the VFL no matter the name.
From the second tier Anzac Day it was basically impossible to figure out what sort of structure we were running with but the Pies rolling zone was so obvious and well done to them all working for each other to make us look second rate.
I for one am over it and will be absolutely disgusted if we roll up Sunday and smash Melbourne which will more than likely happen.

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I agree with all the posts on here.

I feel the club is still under that black cloud caused by the saga. How else can you explain the mental fragility of the team?

We have no will for the contest one week from the next.

We are all talk and no action on the field. Off the field we are striving ahead, but this positivity is not reaching the players.

The returned players are fragments of their previous selves and the remaining players are starting to lose confidence in themselves as a result.

Hard working players back in the VFL are constantly being overlooked and are getting no reward.

I can’t see any real improvement or premiership threat coming for many years until the saga clouds and those players involved are long gone.

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For a homicidal lunatic who loved to intimidate & hurt opponents as a player, Worsfold the coach is incredibly placid and docile.

I hate being “nice”.

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We as a team are like Trent Cotchin 5 years, have skill, and flair sometimes but lack ticker, just soft and happy to accept mediocrity.

He turned it around, by God I hope we can.

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We must have the worst kick out ‘strategy’ in the competition - its so painful to watch.
I miss Fletch pinpointing 50 metre bullets to moving targets!

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Yep. Not sure it’s choice so much as inherent to our culture.

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Perhaps the club is stuck in a culture of “we are successful, we have won 16 flags!”
No. "THEY were successful, THEY won 16 flags. We have done nothing.

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Its too hard on my phone to find it , and its impressive work to get all that.

I still think there wad alot of players who may have been on the list , but werent main or best 22 guys, they were building to that yes, but they werent established.

But yes they did have a core group of good players.

So do we , to which if you complimented the high end talent with harf working defensive talent, we xould probably turn ir around.

But simply trying to turn players into something they arent , just wont work.

You just cant teach players who havent had to focus on that hard defensive mindset who foe 5 + a few extra years have never really been forced to implement it.

Thats why you need to gut the supposed starting best 22 of senior players eho cant do it , and get in some youth who can or is willing to do it.

But we dont , across mulriple coachong panels now , they just back in the senoir playrrs of the time to get it done. They dont and we end up back here.

09 we make finals.
2010 what happened ?

2011 make finals
2012 , well that was a cluster ■■■■.

2014 finals
2015 ■■■■■■■■■■■

2017 make finals
2018 looking really bad

Its a pattern. The senior players just donr get the job done, and to break the cycle you have to cut loose the dead wood.

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I found it interesting that with the exception of Goddard, the three players busting a gut were the three players that were probably really chuffed to be playing on Anzac Day. Saad, Stringer, and Smith.
No one else cared.

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During our successful years, we gave away a lot more free kicks

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I have to completely disagree on the softness issue. Whenever a team is able to make space easily or spread quickly, it can make the opposition look soft because they cant get to the contest to impact it. Hawthorn used to do it with their accurate 30m kicks and Collingwood did it because they are much faster than us and are very good in close with handballing out of danger (like WB 2016).
Tbell tried his guts out all day and had to chase a guy all day who is pretty much a slightly taller version of the bont - no surprise we are resting him this week.
The only player i took/take exception with is BJ. He was the only one to shirk the contest at least a dozen times and he made 2 on 2s become 2 on 1’s by literally stepping back away from the contest. Anyone who thinks that he played anywhere better than abysmal obviously did not go to the game and watch him closely. He berates his teamamtes when he has a bad game. When he plays well, he very rarely points and screams like he did. He repeatedly demands the ball, then for some reason goes on to his left or puts himself under pressure and shanks his right. He has no right to berate Joey who runs his guts out all day even though he had a stinker.
Our biggest problem is not hardness, its the footskills of our mids. we wont be able to penetrate tight zones with our kicking. the only way would be to spread extremely quickly and kick to space. That means we need Fanta, Mckenna and even colyer (as long as he handpasses rather than kicks) to play in the middle instead of Myers (VFL) and Hep (HBF).

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We are soft, which adds to every other problem we have.

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Agree with pretty much all that. I spent so much gathering the info on the richmond stuff that I kind of forgot to make my point.

I think richmond made less change than the mythologised version of their flag year says. They had a core team that made finals three years in a row (5th twice which is really making finals rather than praying results go your way in the last round) and repeatedly ■■■■ the bed. They fixed those problems by fixing what I guess is the classic “bottom 6 players”. A process they I think actually started in 2016, and dropped them out of finals badly.

That’s not us. We scraped into the finals on percentage and last round results going our way last year after two years well out (1 mitigated). It was also with a quite different core of players than the team that made finals in 2014.

What richmond did I think was less radical than generally portrayed, they mostly tinkered with a team that was fundamentally and provably a finals teams. We don’t have any proof that our core top 12-14 is a consistently finals quality group. We know that if everything goes just so we can sometimes sneak into the finals. To me, richmond shouldn’t be a source of inspiration until we’ve shown we can repeatedly make finals.

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I agree with the general direction of the post. However, anybody who crosses the white line whether the Tootgarook Under 10’s of the EFC Senior’s, is by definition not a coward. They know what awaits them in our 360* game.

I think as Watson the Senior had it right. The fish rots from the head. Mr Worsfold had a perfectly good game plan last year that saw as the 3rd highest scoring team. What has happened to that? I would love anyone to explain this years game plan to me? Please? Ignoring this basic tenet is killing us. Our players look confused and unsure of what they are supposed to do.

Richmond used the KISS principle. Get it and kick it quickly and long into the forward line and then hold it into. Not hard.

There are weak links, not because of lack of courage; but quite simply are not up to it in all facets of modern footy.

Without emotion, get rid of prolly 6 guys I can think off of the top of my head and play the kids like Clarke, Mutch etc.; kids always will give 150%…85% confused effort isn’t going to cut it.

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If it was wich a good game plan last year then why did we just sneak into the 8. Last year was probably just one part of it and this year they are trying to add another part (whatever that may be)

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And you only have to look at the debacle of X’s “offensive” tweet to see how soft we(some of the players anyway) are

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Being soft is not just about whether you put your head over the footy or back back into packs. That’s only a small part of it.

We are soft because we capitulate easily
We are soft because we cannot play to the required level consistently
We are soft because we don’t stick up for our team mates
We are soft because we don’t strike back when one of our stars gets taken out
We are soft because we don’t hit the contest and tackle with ferocity
We are soft because we don’t have the courage to play ‘smart’ risky footy
We are soft because we let players out run us with intensity
We are soft because we only play when we are scolded enough to do so, like a beaten down child
We are soft because we are scared of being reported
We are soft because we are scared of giving away frees
We are soft because a tweet from the CEO can hurt their feelings

We are soft because we are afraid, of what, I can’t tell. We as a club and playing group have made every mistake imaginable over the last 10-15 years. Its not like we can ■■■■ any worse. We should be playing with care free abandonment, not giving a ■■■■ about other clubs, opposition players, with a who cares come at me mentality, and if you do I’ll ■■■■ you up and kick ten on you. Instead we are a meek team hiding behind confusion and the promise of tomorrow. But right now, we are not chance of getting better until we acknowledge it and start to harden the ■■■■ up. The whole club needs a good helping of concrete. Unless we do there is no tomorrow, only what we have today.

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Guelfi?

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This stuff precedes the saga. It’s partly the reason the saga happened imo.

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