We took it to an in form pies in one of the games of the year
Our best when the boys accidentally find themselves in a real football match is enough to match teams in the top 8
Problem is our best seems to be optional from the team
We came out completely unprepared for the pace and hardness of afl footy, you saw it in our first few weeks, game was just too hard for the whole list
This was the first red flag against the coaches
We got a few players back and started playing half ■■■■, not good, just a qtr here and there, but again, effort seemed optional
Coast to coast goals were a problem for most of the year, went away when we ditched the zone and flooding our own back half helped us find our run and gun style that helped us in wins vs sydney and brisbane
Our midfield seemed to look a lot better when parish was injured
McG struggled to find any decent consistent form, had maybe 2 good games for the year
Heppell is so beyond cooked it’s not funny, the guy is so deep in denial of the team, his own and his coaches inadequacies, he’s not a great leader, not inspiring, not during games with his play, or whatever rev ups he does for the team before and after
Wright was one of the top 10 fwds in the comp with the worst delivery in the comp, our biggest positive
Langford still plays 2 good games then 5 ■■■■ ones
Riddley is playing like somebody stole his lunch money, just seems sad and disinterested
Kelly wasn’t as bad as people say, but ■■■■ me he makes dumb decisions with ball in hand in slow plays, ignores open players to kick to packs too often
Hind was great some games, completely nonevent in others, some very low iq plays at times
Phillips was great when he got games, then he was shelved because we looked competetive around the contest and can’t have that
In fact, our purple patch was when we had PHillips/Draper, it really lifted our performance and we weren’t as shaky in the air
Bryan/Reid failed to have any impact
Zerk is a revelation finally playing to his vfl form
Lav was great for the majority of the games with the occasional shocker
Dambrosio is a find, and can play forward or back and impact
Durham is raw but a player there
Martin got worse as the season went on as he learnt class, poise, skill, great decision making is not on brand with this club
Zerrett will win the b&f
Shiel was ■■■■ first half of year then was absolu tely flying till he got injured then has been pretty decent but not to his peak
Our defense, especially our backline structure, is terrible, so many over the back easy goals, so many free men especially shown in the richmond game
OVerall our team work ethic is absolutely woeful, opposition players run off our hf and slaughter us outnumbering us up the field
The biggest red flag against Rutten was the point defending from us, we 90% of the time would allow a kick to a free player on the boundary 50 out, the kicker would then run past and be the receiver, then our player on the wing would have to leave his man to cover him, sometimes we didn’t even have a man there
I don’t think I’ve seen a team leave the kick 50 out on the boundary available, then a wing kick, so often
We were notoriously bad at all our players running into the centre and guarding grass in a weird structure
This was the other red flag against rutten, our zone, is so laughably bad, teams j ust run around our players into the empty spots and get unmanned passes to them with no pressure
I’ve been watching efc play since the 80’s and i don’t think i’ve ever seen a defensive or going forward structure so counter to playing to good football, it’s like we were setting up to be the easiest team to score against going forward, and defending, which lies at the feet of Rutten.
He has to go.
