Will we admit it now???

[Vivien]

Originally posted by mpr104
I thought we were lucky to be as close as we were, until Melbourne kicked away. They seemed to have alot more polish than us..we seem to have to work so hard for a F50 entry or a goal.

Yeah, that's so true. We seemed to struggle finding targets inside 50. I think Melbourne took some excellent contested marks. What about the one by Robertson in 4Q? So awesome!

[floppinab]

Originally posted by Vivien
Sorry, but I seriously don't think tonight's match was all that bad.

It was bad all right.

Originally posted by Vivien
We made some skill errors and laked accuracy in front of goal

None of these things are good, that means the match was bad.

Originally posted by Vivien
We are not a bad team. We are a highly-skilled team.

We are NOT and have not been for a looooong time, a highly skilled team.

[ugg]

Not quite correct, we're highly skilled at miskicking the football and handballing it to teammates under pressure.

[Vivien]

Sorry for trying to be optimistic =) But yes, I get your point.

[desredandwhite]

I think the issue is not that we are highly skilled - we have a gameplan that NEEDS highly skilled players. We are trying to PLAY skilled, but we're not quite there. We need the guys playing good basic footy first before trying to do the cute stuff.

I honestly don't think we have a bad team either. We are simply not playing to maximise our strengths and get around our weaknesses.

Dumb footy, in other words.

[Sanecow]

Originally posted by desredandwhite

I honestly don't think we have a bad team either. We are simply not playing to maximise our strengths and get around our weaknesses.

Blaming the coach(es)? That's where I'll be as long as BBB isn't leading from the square.

[liz]

Originally posted by desredandwhite
I think the issue is not that we are highly skilled - we have a gameplan that NEEDS highly skilled players. We are trying to PLAY skilled, but we're not quite there. We need the guys playing good basic footy first before trying to do the cute stuff.

I honestly don't think we have a bad team either. We are simply not playing to maximise our strengths and get around our weaknesses.

Dumb footy, in other words.

I think that's a pretty fair assessment. It is also a gameplan that demands the players are confident, and the confidence of this team has been fragile for a number of years.

I'm nothing like as angry after watching that as I was last week. The effort was 50% better than against the Crows. But I'm probably more depressed because seeing them bust a gut and still fall way short makes you wonder.

Main positive to come out of the game for me was O'Keefe. By far his best game of the year - worked hard for 4 quarters, marked reasonably well (though still short of his best) and was mostly constructive with the ball.

Can't question the endeavour (or should that be Enterprise) of Kirk or Jude.

[desredandwhite]

Originally posted by liz

Main positive to come out of the game for me was O'Keefe. By far his best game of the year - worked hard for 4 quarters, marked reasonably well (though still short of his best) and was mostly constructive with the ball.

Definitely agree that it was a much improved effort from ROK. BTW, I was listening to MMM for most of the first half. I stopped listening in the second half because it got too depressing..... Troy Luff mentioned that ROK had a bet on with his teammates that he wouldn't cut his hair before the end of the season.

So now you know.




ALMOST makes you want the season to end as quickly as possible, doesn't it?

[Mike_B]

Originally posted by liz
I'm nothing like as angry after watching that as I was last week. The effort was 50% better than against the Crows. But I'm probably more depressed because seeing them bust a gut and still fall way short makes you wonder.

Main positive to come out of the game for me was O'Keefe. By far his best game of the year - worked hard for 4 quarters, marked reasonably well (though still short of his best) and was mostly constructive with the ball.

Can't question the endeavour (or should that be Enterprise) of Kirk or Jude.

Just got done watching the tape (couldn't make it to the game) and my sentiments match liz's above. Effort was enormously better than last week, unfortunately skills weren't there to match. I also felt like we tried to move the ball on a little quicker from marks between the 2 50s which was a positive.

Delivery into the forward line was plain dumb - bombing to forwards where Melbourne were zoning a defender off to create a 2-on-1 was suicidal. But, we didn't seem to have any penetrating kicks to a leading forward either (McVeigh's bullet in the 2nd quarter excepted).

Good to see ROK actually getting involved in the game and can't fault Bolton or Kirk and thought Barry (of the Leo kind) was solid as well and Jolly definitely stood up to be counted. Thought Goodes was pretty decent in patches as well. Apart from that, still too many players doing not enough.

I think it may be worth bringing in a younger guy this week, just to give him a taste - on current performances, it's a game where we will be longshots to win, so why not take the opporunity when there is next to no expectation?

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by punter257
we need to do something quick
blood some youth roosy, try something
im not looking forward to next week against the weagles
livery

Neither am I. If we get within 8 goals of the Eagles I'll not be considering the trip an abject failure.

I'm bringing over 9 flags for everyone to wave in Perth. I shudder to think that we may not even kick one goal per flag.

I hope the Margaret River daytour I'm doing on the friday is good. But I'm pretty darn sure the footy won't be.

JF

[smasher]

What a shocker of a game.We were simply outplayed.Our handball skills were OK but our footskills were deplorable last night.The only good footpasses that come to mind were from McVeigh.Spriggs doesn't do enough but we were without Willo and that really showed.We didn,t seem to be able to break the packs as usual even though there were players in multitudes around the ball.Congrats to Melbourne but......we'll be back.

[Wil]

Originally posted by liz

Main positive to come out of the game for me was O'Keefe. By far his best game of the year - worked hard for 4 quarters, marked reasonably well (though still short of his best) and was mostly constructive with the ball.

Agree with you there. He gets a few free passes for that game. Not so much because of what he did with the ball but because of his useless undisciplined teammates he kept finding himself having to drop back to cover someone who was not manned or running from the forward 50 to the back 50 because non of the midfielders could be bothered leading. There is a HUGE gap between the two 50 metre lines for the swans - which is astounding playing on the SCG.

[LittleSchneider]

Just dumb over use of the footy.

We played on too many times when there was no one to kick too and hence were forced to handball within a very enclosed space or we played on and put the reciever under pressure with a handball as there was nothing on.

How bad were the umpires last night though...What did we have to do to get a free kick

[Guzzitza]

Basically agree with everything said here. One thing that hasnt been mentioned is Schneider, who i think was a bit harder at the ball this week. He looked promising, the run in the reseveres has got his confidence up a bit, and he was at least trying to chase some of the Dees down which is more than what some of the other players were doing.
I felt Jolly made a good contribution, showed that he'll play an important role in the future. Didnt give away too many frees either which is often a problem with younger ruckmen.
One annoying thing to note is seeing Nicks on numerous occasions standing and waiting for the ball to come to him, only to have it spoiled (suprise suprise). Possibly poor communication from team mates not yelling the customary "man on"? Maybe, but i feel like Nicks jsut waits under/for the ball. Frustrating to watch.
[forget to mention that i thought Dempster was great last night]

Next week does indeed look scary, maybe a good thing i can watch it in the privacy of my own living room to save embarassment. No doubt we'll get a good indication of what the damage will be after the Lions game.

[Glenn]

Interesting in the Paul Roos post match media conference, he said Sydney has a lack of talent.
Just playing real dumb football at the moment, on the SCG especially, one handball and kick it long.
The ways things were going last night when Sydney could get through, players couldn't hold the mark or find a open player.
As for the delivery into BBBH, is possibl to get it to him when he is not deep in the pocket