Round 11: Swans v Demons.

[UUaswan]

I agree with this, although Rowbottom did bring the effort.

It felt like losing Amartey and McInerney last week was a breaking point. Both were important in the win and are irreplaceable. Now Mills looks in trouble and I notice that Wicks is listed with a hamstring injury in the match report. Cox has had difficulty chiselling the team down to 23 good performers, with a much reduced ability to pick on form. We're a thin squad with our full complement let alone as decimated as we've been.

I thought Sheldrick was our most consistent mid today and Grundy tried hard.

Corey Warner played 100% TOG in the fourth quarter and did not record a stat of any kind.

We need possessions from Rowy, not effort.

Any other Mid in the comp getting it 12x is a win for the other side.

Sheldricks use may be in question at times but when you consistently get in 20+ times you move past others who can't get their hands on it.

Let JJ chase it a bit more too, ineffective unless he wins his role.

I watched Freo against Adelaide, they didnt tag Dawson, they worked off him and exposed that he didnt run defensively.

[Nico]

Cleary wastes too many chances - not saying that one was easy but the set shot was

Yeh, Cleary was a fair way out but the imposter was less than 30 metres out. He got a goal from a 50 metre penalty prior to that but it was too much to expect him to kick 2 on the trot. If he kicked that goal we were 12 points down. It was right in front of us and my son said look how he is holding the footy. He had the top of the ball pointing away from him and when he kicked he hit the bottom point. My grandson was with us and he knows not to kick like that. He's played about 175 games and he still doesn't know how hold a drop punt. He got beaten one on one every time and then when he was running through the middle, well clear, he decided to hand ball to someone sideways to him and missed the man a by a country mile. When the ball hit the ground he just trotted along.

[Blue Sun]

A major problem I’ve seen all year is what we do when the ball is in dispute, our blokes just stand around and watch. It’s frustrating and Cox either hasn’t noticed or has elected not to do anything about it. I’m not sure what is worse.

Whether it’s the lack of healthy and/or eligible players (Gulden, Papley, Cunningham, Fox, Melican, JMac, McDonald and Amartey were all missing today), the scars from the last couple of Grand Final beltings, or perhaps a coach that is out of his depth - it’s painfully obvious that this year just isn’t our year.

[Nico]

We need possessions from Rowy, not effort.

Any other Mid in the comp getting it 12x is a win for the other side.

Sheldricks use may be in question at times but when you consistently get in 20+ times you move past others who can't get their hands on it.

Let JJ chase it a bit more too, ineffective unless he wins his role.

I watched Freo against Adelaide, they didnt tag Dawson, they worked off him and exposed that he didnt run defensively.

I think we should rethink Rowie's game. For most of the game he was played on the half forward flank. He is a clearance beast yet he hardly went in for a centre bounce and was badly missed at around the ground contests. That was a coach's move.

[mcs]

I think we should rethink Rowie's game. For most of the game he was played on the half forward flank. He is a clearance beast yet he hardly went in for a centre bounce and was badly missed at around the ground contests. That was a coach's move.

I would love to see us actually give Rowie a bit of licence to try and attack, as well as defend. I don't understand what they were trying to do today, but it was terrible. Go back and see the highlights from his last junior year and you can see he was much more then a grunt tackling machine, which is all he has become now sadly.

A dreadful, all over the place performance today. I must admit I turned off at 3/4 time and went for a walk instead - I've had a dreadful weekend on many things, so that performance just topped it off completely.

[UUaswan]

A major problem I’ve seen all year is what we do when the ball is in dispute, our blokes just stand around and watch. It’s frustrating and Cox either hasn’t noticed or has elected not to do anything about it. I’m not sure what is worse.

Whether it’s the lack of healthy and/or eligible players (Gulden, Papley, Cunningham, Fox, Melican, JMac, McDonald and Amartey were all missing today), the scars from the last couple of Grand Final beltings, or perhaps a coach that is out of his depth - it’s painfully obvious that this year just isn’t our year.

Playing in 2 minds too worried about the other team. 1st 2nd and 3rd instinct should be to get the ball.

Look at Brissy, Hawks,Pies etc they don't give a sh8t about what the other team is trying to do around the ball and none of those teams have a tandem as good as Heeney and Warner

[Nico]

A major problem I’ve seen all year is what we do when the ball is in dispute, our blokes just stand around and watch. It’s frustrating and Cox either hasn’t noticed or has elected not to do anything about it. I’m not sure what is worse.

Whether it’s the lack of healthy and/or eligible players (Gulden, Papley, Cunningham, Fox, Melican, JMac, McDonald and Amartey were all missing today), the scars from the last couple of Grand Final beltings, or perhaps a coach that is out of his depth - it’s painfully obvious that this year just isn’t our year.

3 of those players are missing because of poor discipline. Under Longmire we had cast iron discipline and suspensions were not common. So what is causing this? Why do the same players make the same errors week in week out. Roberts again in the 3rd Q kicked across goal straight to a Melbourne player. What on earth possessed him to do that? I'll tell you why; he's a very slow learner. He has no trouble finding the footy but stops, looks upfield, looks around then many times decides to do the first thing that came into his head. By then the opposition defenders have clogged up our forward line.

[Nico]

Playing in 2 minds too worried about the other team. 1st 2nd and 3rd instinct should be to get the ball.

Look at Brissy, Hawks,Pies etc they don't give a sh8t about what the other team is trying to do around the ball and none of those teams have a tandem as good as Heeney and Warner

It's called discipline and instinctive play.

[Nico]

Bice: his form has dropped off dramatically and it's all skill based. Why has he all of a sudden stopped kicking long and too advantage and doing chippy little kicks to disadvantage? He turned it over at least 4 times like this. So with players repeating the same errors every week what are the coaches doing?

[UUaswan]

It's called discipline and instinctive play.

Discipline to a terrible structure maybe.

Heeney are Warner are the only 2 chasing a groundball, all year we are nowhere when the ball hits the ground, flat footed and guarding space instead of getting the ball.

We have no defensive transition either, another symptom of being flat footed.

The whole game plan at the moment is stop the bleeding and limt their play, then hope Heeney and Warner get us over the line.

Defensive negative crap, soccer game plan

[imuninformedtwo]

I would love to see us actually give Rowie a bit of licence to try and attack, as well as defend. I don't understand what they were trying to do today, but it was terrible. Go back and see the highlights from his last junior year and you can see he was much more then a grunt tackling machine, which is all he has become now sadly.

A dreadful, all over the place performance today. I must admit I turned off at 3/4 time and went for a walk instead - I've had a dreadful weekend on many things, so that performance just topped it off completely.

Have thought the same about Rowie for a bit. I’d generally like us to drop the tags for a bit, or at least at the start of games. Of course you still need sweepers at centre bounces and what not in your set up at stoppages, but there’s a difference between that and being reactive. JJ is another interesting one, though I’ve not seen enough to know how he’d go in a pure ball hunting role.

As for the Hamling thing, drop it. I get Cox is trying to manufacture something with the limited tools we have down there, but there were times we got on a bit of a break today and the ball movement froze for lack of someone leading up, with Hamling too busy trying to curtail his opponent.

[mcs]

Bice: his form has dropped off dramatically and it's all skill based. Why has he all of a sudden stopped kicking long and too advantage and doing chippy little kicks to disadvantage? He turned it over at least 4 times like this. So with players repeating the same errors every week what are the coaches doing?

Matt Roberts doing a lot of the same absolute nonsense - dreadful turnovers again today with dumb little kicks.

[Blood Fever]

Lack of pressure mostly. The backline is doing ok - particularly McCartin and Blakey - Roberts with his 1 a game critical turnover that costs us a goal.

Warner still running but when I saw Campbell with 3 disposals when he took that mark it sums things up - the ball comes straight back out of our forward line.

DONT TOUCH GAWN

Gawn a gun but an absolute protected species with the umps. Grundy battled hard but coughs the ball up by hand. Ladhams worth more time in the ruck.

[Velour&Ruffles]

Gawn a gun but an absolute protected species with the umps. Grundy battled hard but coughs the ball up by hand. Ladhams worth more time in the ruck.

+1

[liz]

So Liz is it personnel or coaching staff? What will fix it?

I don’t know that it’s necessarily either. I’m more than happy to give Cox some time to grow into the senior coaching role. It’s a fair jump even when you have a good squad to work with. As it is, he has one of his stars reliable, one injured, and the other yo-yo-ing in form from week to week. It’s hard to know how Chad can go from a great game last week to such an error riddled one this. And then you’ve got second and third tier players in and out through injury and suspension. And a handful of others in horrible form (Florent, Lloyd, Jordon - at least today, McLean). It’s hard to be a Bice, Corey or Cleary when so many others are hesitant or just out of form.

The most obvious ingredient missing at the moment is confidence but it’s not something Cox can get the doctors to inject. Melbourne lost the first five games of the season and looked ordinary but they’ve managed to find their mojo. They played very well today aside from first half shot conversion. Maybe that was partly us allowing them to but they’ve managed did beat Brisbane at the Gabba last week.