Round 4, 2014 v North Melbourne

[Ludwig]

I think it's been a long time since a team that started 1-3 have made the 8, and it's not like we look close a team capable of it. This NM Melbourne team beat a Swans' team that is supposed to have one of the best midfields going around, without their two best mids in Swallow and Ziebell. We are so far off the mark it's not funny.

No need to be in denial. This is not a good team and it's time to rebuild and look to the future.

Besides the obvious omissions of ROK and Derickx, we need to move on from Shaw, who we know will not be here next year.

Perhaps we overrated Tom Mitchell. He's a bit slow and not an accurate kick. He's not in good form this year.

Hanners is out of form, but we can't drop everyone. He just to play his way through this.

Perhaps we should try Nanko at FF/2nd ruck instead of LRT, at least until Tippo returns.

We should bring in a bit a skill and speed into the team for the upcoming games. Biggs, Lloyd, Towers and BJ come to mind. We can upgrade a couple of rookies with Walsh and AJ on the LTIL.

At some point Zak Jones may be worth a go. At least you know he will give you 110%.

I wouldn't worry too much about winning games from now on. It's more about finding out who can play at senior level and getting games into some of the younger players.

Finishing in the bottom 10 will not be all that bad. We can get a top ten pick (maybe a good KPP). We will almost certainly not have to use our first pick to get Heeney.

I think there's still a lot of promise in our future. Just not this season.

[Dan]

Membrey kicked 8 for the ressies on the weekend, he must be a chance for next week.

I know the coaches have been resistant to giving players games after kicking bags of goals in the ressies (TDL, White etc) but considering the team we had today we only had one true forward in Franklin. I know our mids have kicked goals for us the past few seasons, but only having one true forward isn't going to work against quality defenses.

[Gary]

Didn't watch the last quarter ... awful to that point ... and apparently things didn't improve.
Sorry to those who can't stand speaking your mind after such games but here it is anyway ... O'Keefe, Shaw, Grundy... gone ... Tom D ... should quietly disappear ... doesn't think quick enough ... Cunningham ... the honeymoon is over ... I thought speed was his (perhaps only) asset ... but watched a nobody go past him to an important ball ... Mitchell ... where is the bloke who played last year? ... Hannebery ... what is the story with this bloke? ... even Kennedy, Jack, McVeigh are not getting quality disposals ... now ... who is the skills coach ( dropped marks, inability to know when to kick of the ground, when to handpass in the wet or tight ... who is the tactical coach ... who picks this team. O well we haven't had a really bad year for quite a while.
Congrats to Smith, Pyke, Rampe, for at least looking like something depended on this game.

[dimelb]

The problems started at selection. OK, you don't generally change a winning team, but to go onto the SCG when rain is forecast, without Bird, is crazy. Hindsight suggests Cunningham should have gone to the reserves.
That is compounded by putting our most productive small forward as a tagger on Boomer, a mistake that was changed too late.
The umpiring wasn't too bad on the whole, and yes I include Ray; with one exception it was merely salt on the wounds. The egregious exception was the almost complete failure to ping Thompson (I think he's 16) for repeatedly holding Buddy; no wonder he lost his cool for a while, but his sulking hurt us worse.
Again, we were done in the midfield. I don't know what's the matter with Hannebery, and wonder if it has anything to do with the black armband he persists in. Jack is reasonable, obviously working his way back into things. Parker had a terrible game, missing shots he normally nails, dropping sitters, just awful. Grundy did less harm up forward than down back. Mitchell worked hard but skills let him down. McVeigh was a mixture. Shaw was horrid, and should have been on Harvey to release McGlynn forward. Rampe is still learning, but needs to steer the ball away from the posts in defence, not towards them. Laidler was good and won his position, so did Nick Smith. Malceski played a solid game (allowing for a couple of clangers) and he and Kennedy mostly stood up when needed.
But even though the individual defenders didn't do too badly, our status as top defenders has become a thing of the past. No number of returning forward talent will solve that. And why are opponent teams standing on top of our blokes while we give theirs space?
A lot to do for the coach. They caught balls, we dropped them mostly; end of story. Why are our skills so woeful?

[Cressakel2]

No mention of Captain @@@@@@@ Up Grundy on here. Disappointing from you guys! Seriously, Grundy is getting into the Darren Holmes territory of footballer now i.e.

[ScottH]

We've lost that winning feeling.

Since Round 20 last year we have won 3 games out of 11.
Averaging 79 point for and 89 against.

[Cressakel2]

Five mistakes from Grundy killed the game for me. Derickx should never play another game for the Swans. Longmire also outcoached for the second time this season by letting Scott Thompson run amok in their back half. It's now getting to the arrogant point with Longmire! Asks Buddy to go up the ground & leaves Thompson on his own to cause havoc - dumb dumb dumb dumb coaching

[Reggi]

Lose next week and we should definitely play kids from the week after. At the moment this year looks like a write off.

Hopefully the draft is good this year

[i'm-uninformed2]

Two very noticeable things at the game.

One - they were slightly dominant in contested situations, but the big difference was we'd do one too many handball, whereas one release handball was enough for them to kick for position in the wet. Fairly basic strategy.

But the second one was more odd. In the first half in particular we'd have LRT, Buddy and the resting ruckman in our forward 50, but the smalls would press up 30 or 40m to the stoppage.

It meant when the ball got banged in there was no one to crumb or hold it in. Bad tactics given the wet made marking difficult. In fact the only one who occasionally held back with the forwards was ROK, but he's too slow to be much benefit.

They mixed it up a bit more later with Jetts and others, but North was playing two behind the ball by then so could usually intercept or mop up.

[bodgie]

We don't play like a good football team. Poor decisions poor skills, lacking intensity of previous years, strange set ups. We were flattered by Adelaides last quarter fade. 3 losses in Sydney already.

[Matt80]

Some things need to change.

Garry Rohan made a defensive contribution, but does not find enough of the ball. He needs to be given a run with tagging role to help him develop.

ROK needs to be in the midfield coal face or out of the side. He can't survive in the open as he does not have pace of the mark anymore.

Ryce Shaw does not have the composure any more and needs a spell.

Need to persist with Cunningham. Mitchell needs to improve his pace and reaction time.

Laidler, Smith and Rampe played well. Rampe needs to develop confidence in his offensive game.

Buddy did not play well, but will play good games. Scott Thompson was superb.

Grundy was poor, but has played well this season.

[ugg]

Two very noticeable things at the game.

One - they were slightly dominant in contested situations, but the big difference was we'd do one too many handball, whereas one release handball was enough for them to kick for position in the wet. Fairly basic strategy.

But the second one was more odd. In the first half in particular we'd have LRT, Buddy and the resting ruckman in our forward 50, but the smalls would press up 30 or 40m to the stoppage.

It meant when the ball got banged in there was no one to crumb or hold it in. Bad tactics given the wet made marking difficult. In fact the only one who occasionally held back with the forwards was ROK, but he's too slow to be much benefit.

They mixed it up a bit more later with Jetts and others, but North was playing two behind the ball by then so could usually intercept or mop up.

Great summary explains everything perfectly

[aardvark]

The desire for success is gone, too many players just playing out time in their careers. Some hard decisions need to be taken before it completely falls apart.

[bodgie]

We don't play like a good football team. Poor decisions poor skills, lacking intensity of previous years, strange set ups. We were flattered by Adelaides last quarter fade. 3 losses in Sydney already.

[ScottH]

in 2006 we were LLWL same as this 2014.