Last year, as soon as one of Green, Fantasia or Walla were out, our forward line structure struggled. With one to two of those players out each week, and with Walla and Joe being way down on form, and Stringer still trying to find his place/form, and now with Hooker moved, no wonder we cant kick a score. I supported the Baguley move to the forward line as i knee he would at least ‘try’ to keep the ball there (on the rare occassion it made it past the center).
A whole stack of other issues whem it comes to the mids, backline, gameplan, confidence, teamwork, etc
3 Likes
All i know is…we are shiiiit.
1 Like
We keep telling everyone we are ruthless but we are not. We get someone in to clean out the place, but we tell them we can’t.
Richmond finally delisted Vickery and got rid of other average players who were clogging up their list
We still have Myers and our list cloggers
1 Like
Title needs a question mark. Or not?
1 Like
If you listen to Worsfold, the coaches and the players the answer is: we do not know.
After 7 rounds I find this a massive worry. But it started in the JLT preseason comp when they farked up game 1 because confusion reigned.
I think part of the problem is the same as what happened under Knights, we started with the offensive aspect of the game plan first, and then looked to build the defensive component afterwards. And that has stuffed up the players’ flow and instincts on the ground. They, as a team, do not know what to do. Or if they do, they are incapable of doing it during a real game. And whatever this game plan is, they can’t handle it as a team, during a real game.
Sure they’d practise it at training, but the proof is when you do it in a real game. At training you are only as good as your teammates. It’s going to be a compromise of putting the different best players in the different coloured tops. If we lack depth in the list then that’ll show up at training and it’s easier for the better players to look good and nail it.
But back to the opening comments, the worry is that they don’t seem to know why it is happening. If you can’t identify the exact problem(s) then how the hell are you going to fix it?
8 Likes
4 words.
Mark Neeld.
Hayden Skipworth.
These two in control of our midfield is the worst thing that has happened to the EFC in recent times. (Saga included).
The game is won around the ball and between the two arcs. There has never being a question about that.
With the talent we have in Zerrett, Heppell, Parish, McGrath we should be competing much better than we are in the midfield. However we are not.
We need to get rid of these two cancers and bring in some recent successful midfield coaches.
1 Like
I don’t like playing the blame game, but someone here is still accepting mediocrity.
2 Likes
Get the guy who coached our elite forward line last year!
This is either ■■■■■■■ alarming, or a dead set joke.
How can they continue to say this? How can a coach say this week after week? If he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know his players, or he doesn’t know the game. There’s no answer to this that makes any sense.
Because everything they can think of has been tried, and worked on, and implemented, and still these things happen? It is quite possible that you could eventually struggle to work it out if that is the case. Sometimes thing just happen, and don’t make sense. Maybe this is one of them…
The hawks offering Vickery half a million dollars a year is one of the best gifts richmond has ever received.
2 Likes
The basic skills have been so poor in recent weeks, even just handballing to a player a few metres away. Our game plan isn’t working but how do you analyse the failures in the game plan when players can’t hit a target? Poor Hepp, I’m feeling for him, you’d reckon that just by the law of averages some of his mongrel kicks would hit an Essendon target.
3 Likes
Is there self reflection that the problem is the coaching panel?
2 Likes
Good to see you’ve come around.
Yesterday we missed opportunities in the first quarter due to poor execution. If our skills were carried out just a bit better we would have been in the game. For most of the game we are playing with heart and determination but apparently poor skills, and we are dropping our heads/lose our confidence when we don’t get reward for effort.
What makes difference in this day and age is having a coaching staff and team atmosphere which inspires confidence and consistently good performance. We don’t have that at the moment. Richmond had it last year, the Bulldogs did the year before. Teams with lesser players can play better than us because of this.
Rumour has it the coaches have been reading our players the riot act behind closed doors. This can make us put more effort in, but not play with more skill, our coaches seem to have out of date attitudes that don’t resonate with this generation, we need to get in tune with what will make our players better.
There is also the matter of a game plan that our players are capable of implementing in reality, otherwise it doesn’t matter how good it is in theory.
Related to both these things is whether the leadership and chemistry in the team is working. Dropping 3 new players in the side and the loss of Jobe has to have changed the balance, with the leadership of Hepp being under a lot more stress this year. I see Jobe leaving and Stringer coming in as a substantial shift. This is especially given that Hepp had a lot of respect and positive chemistry with Zerrett and Joe previously, and now with Joe having his “good friend” (Joe quote) Jake at the club, also with Jake physically dominating Zerrett in practice and getting under Zac’s skin (an example of an interaction from a training report) and also with Smith and Saad coming into the club in the same age group, the organic development of the under 25 group has been altered, and the over 25 has substantially altered with the heart and soul departures of Jobe, Stants, BobCat and Heater.
I think we have a talented group, but I think we need a cultural rebuild which suits our under 25 brigade, and if Stringer is a positive or a negative in terms of the team dynamic, will play out over time.
8 Likes
where’s the desperation, I watched the commonwealth games recently and the thing which really stood out was how desperate they are, some crashed and got injured others succeeded, but 1 thing was they left nothing on the track, some of the athletes tried doing some insane stunts, talk about courage and effort.
Where’s our desperation to win the ball, tackle ect some of the athletes at the games do things where if it doesn’t come off they end up in hospital. hence why they are the best at what they do, we can’t even put pressure on a player with the ball.
So weak.
1 Like
I think if we were a basket case and needed a full rebuild bkitz would begrudgingly accept this or even rejoice in it.
To me the reason we’re all so ■■■■■■ off is that we’ve got the KPP, we’ve got the forward line, we’ve got line breaking off half back. We have a running power & speed.
Ok we’ve lost 1000 games of experience from the 2017 list & don’t have a clearance beast in the midfield.
Why are we making same mistakes week in week out.
Why can’t we adapt during a match when the opposition seem to adapt themselves and move their chess pieces, culminating in us being nullified mid match.
1 Like
And plan A needs to include more tackles that stick…f me…Saad, Hurley, Goddard, Mutch, Heppell, Daniher, stringer, Laverde for a start
That concussion zerrett got might have been worse than let on.
1 Like
45 tackles for a game is disgusting. Our midfield strategy is putrid and the effort of those midfielders the strategy was designed for is just as bad.
We’re a bunch of weak, poorly lead turds 
Faaaaaark