Round 4, 2014 v North Melbourne

[AnnieH]

Well, we were just @@@@.
@@@@, @@@@, @@@@, @@@@, @@@@.

@@@@.

[Ludwig]

In the past, the likes of Stewy Maxfield, Brett Kirk, Adam Goodes, Jude Bolton, Craig Bolton and Ryan O'Keefe were all extremely strong leaders who demanded excellence, trust, commitment and honesty among the group.

Flying South is right. I cannot remember Stewy, Kirk or Jude ever not putting in 100%, game after game. When we were down, they went even harder. They were just so intense. That was part of the never say die attitude that allowed us to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat so often. Now, when the game is on the line, we just fold.

Hanners is the one in the last few years that gave us those inspirational moments that set the standard for hardness and commitment. That's been missing this year and it has spread like a virus through the team. We desperately need him to stand up and be counted.

We may need to bring Zak Jones in the side sooner than usual, just because he brings the kind of commitment, like his brother, that sets the standard for the rest.

Although I am not a fan of Terry Wallace, he now has written off Sydney this year because it seems to him like the group has lost the hunger. I think he's right this time.

[erica]

Longmire seems reluctant to change his tactics during a game, even when it is blantantly obvious that they aren't working. Surely a coach should devise tactics for the team we are playing rather than have a one-size-fits-all approach?

[rojo]

I wonder if the players are losing confidence in 'the game plan'? But I think it might 'just' be a confluence of a whole host of little things. Senior players coming back in who are way short of match practice and other players who had interrupted preseasons. The personalities of Buddy and in the back line Shaw who throw their weight around a bit so there are too many 'voices'. The inability of the forward line and mids to get any match time together before the season started. KT coming in may solve some forward problems or add to the confusion.

As has been noted, there is also the poor form of Hanners, and maybe Jack is playing with an injury. Macca by all reports had a fantastic preseason but for whatever reason has no way been playing at his best. Mitchell has had so many injuries since he has been at our club, knee, hamstring and now ankle, it is a wonder he can still run at all. Evidently he excels as an in and under mid and so far is no good as a small forward. Parker seems to have usurped his spot and Parker is also effective in the forward line. ROK sadly is grinding to a halt. It will probably take Gary all this season to regain confidence and be anywhere near his best. I could go on!

Hopefully by the 2nd half of the season most of these things will be sorted out! Then scraping into the top 8 will be our big challenge.

[wolftone57]

It isn't hard to look good defensively though when you are playing against a team with absolutely no resemblance of a proper forward set up. Its Franklin and that's it at the moment, and he just wanders off where he wants, leaving a free man to clean up time, and time, and time, and time again.

Its like what I'd think watching a goldfish whack against a brick wall would be like - watching some stupid happen again and again and again.

Horse needs to take plenty of the blame - our tactics in the first month of the season have absolutely stunk the place out. But, as you saw, we look sooooo slow and there seems to be no hunger at all.

Longmire Quote; "we over handballed early when it was wet and then we kicked long but still did it when it cleared up." Who's fault is that? Dear John you are the coach, please start taking some responsibility for our losses. Stop blaming everything on the players by innuendo. I couldn't see this game as I was in Adelaide for a wedding but from what I have heard from friends, we played like a bunch of WWI veterans and all of them are dead.

But I am getting sick and tired of listening to the mandatory press conference and hearing the coach blame the players but take absolutely no responsibility himself. Gary Lyon is right, Horse is coaching badly at the moment. The problem is that I don't believe Horse can think on his feet like a Clarkson, Chris or Brad Scott, Bomber or Ross Lyon.

Horse has two game plans 1) short kick to position and create the loose man to incorporate sling shot, hard running footy kick to leading forward. 2) If (1) is not working kick the hell out of the pill & try to get as much distance as possible. Never to our advantage of course. That's it. He can't seem to counter opposition moves and he has been terrible at letting the opposition get one up (see Pies, GWS games with loose men back). I think Tudor was the man linking back & forward play and pointing out the problems. Now he is with North. The stoppages have been a problem too and that is because George Stone is asst at Melbourne not here. The people who have taken their roles are not doing very well. I like Marty but he had absolutely no experience at any level wit coaching. It might be better to get Josh Francou to take the stoppages role, after all he was an SANFL coach and played midfield.

The club is looking at 1/4 and a style of footy that is just not good enough. The other thing is that the team is old and looks it. This was one of my beefs the first week and hasn't changed. ROK & LRT, sad to say, are looking finished. Derrickx is not good enough. I am sad that Horse saw fit not to play Toby or Big Sammy N. We need to mix it up and find a list of strategies to counter every side we play. Not only that we need a list of strategies that can exploit their weaknesses, every team even the Hawks have them. We have none of those things it seems.

[barry]

We should play more games at ANZ. At least that ground suits our game style. And we win more out there.

[bloodsbigot]

I'll give Longmire the benefit of the doubt for now. The guy won a premiership in 2012 with a team who were very ordinary on paper at the time, so I assume he knows a bit about football... particularly when he served as an apprentice to the great Paul Roos. Problem is like others mentioned, he lost a few good assistants this year and I think it's showing. We need to find some good off-field talent as opposed to on-field talent.

Note: If it rains again, I expect us to get thrashed by 100 on the weekend.

[Flying South]

Longmire Quote; "we over handballed early when it was wet and then we kicked long but still did it when it cleared up." Who's fault is that? Dear John you are the coach, please start taking some responsibility for our losses. Stop blaming everything on the players by innuendo. I couldn't see this game as I was in Adelaide for a wedding but from what I have heard from friends, we played like a bunch of WWI veterans and all of them are dead.

But I am getting sick and tired of listening to the mandatory press conference and hearing the coach blame the players but take absolutely no responsibility himself. Gary Lyon is right, Horse is coaching badly at the moment. The problem is that I don't believe Horse can think on his feet like a Clarkson, Chris or Brad Scott, Bomber or Ross Lyon.

Horse has two game plans 1) short kick to position and create the loose man to incorporate sling shot, hard running footy kick to leading forward. 2) If (1) is not working kick the hell out of the pill & try to get as much distance as possible. Never to our advantage of course. That's it. He can't seem to counter opposition moves and he has been terrible at letting the opposition get one up (see Pies, GWS games with loose men back). I think Tudor was the man linking back & forward play and pointing out the problems. Now he is with North. The stoppages have been a problem too and that is because George Stone is asst at Melbourne not here. The people who have taken their roles are not doing very well. I like Marty but he had absolutely no experience at any level wit coaching. It might be better to get Josh Francou to take the stoppages role, after all he was an SANFL coach and played midfield.

The club is looking at 1/4 and a style of footy that is just not good enough. The other thing is that the team is old and looks it. This was one of my beefs the first week and hasn't changed. ROK & LRT, sad to say, are looking finished. Derrickx is not good enough. I am sad that Horse saw fit not to play Toby or Big Sammy N. We need to mix it up and find a list of strategies to counter every side we play. Not only that we need a list of strategies that can exploit their weaknesses, every team even the Hawks have them. We have none of those things it seems.

Nice analysis!!

[ernie koala]

We should play more games at ANZ. At least that ground suits our game style. And we win more out there.

After the heavy hits you took in some earlier rounds....It's good to see you've still got your jab working Barry

[The Big Cat]

Longmire Quote; "we over handballed early when it was wet and then we kicked long but still did it when it cleared up." Who's fault is that? Dear John you are the coach, please start taking some responsibility for our losses. Stop blaming everything on the players by innuendo. I couldn't see this game as I was in Adelaide for a wedding but from what I have heard from friends, we played like a bunch of WWI veterans and all of them are dead.

But I am getting sick and tired of listening to the mandatory press conference and hearing the coach blame the players but take absolutely no responsibility himself. Gary Lyon is right, Horse is coaching badly at the moment. The problem is that I don't believe Horse can think on his feet like a Clarkson, Chris or Brad Scott, Bomber or Ross Lyon.

Horse has two game plans 1) short kick to position and create the loose man to incorporate sling shot, hard running footy kick to leading forward. 2) If (1) is not working kick the hell out of the pill & try to get as much distance as possible. Never to our advantage of course. That's it. He can't seem to counter opposition moves and he has been terrible at letting the opposition get one up (see Pies, GWS games with loose men back). I think Tudor was the man linking back & forward play and pointing out the problems. Now he is with North. The stoppages have been a problem too and that is because George Stone is asst at Melbourne not here. The people who have taken their roles are not doing very well. I like Marty but he had absolutely no experience at any level wit coaching. It might be better to get Josh Francou to take the stoppages role, after all he was an SANFL coach and played midfield.

The club is looking at 1/4 and a style of footy that is just not good enough. The other thing is that the team is old and looks it. This was one of my beefs the first week and hasn't changed. ROK & LRT, sad to say, are looking finished. Derrickx is not good enough. I am sad that Horse saw fit not to play Toby or Big Sammy N. We need to mix it up and find a list of strategies to counter every side we play. Not only that we need a list of strategies that can exploit their weaknesses, every team even the Hawks have them. We have none of those things it seems.

Longmire uses "we" so he's not absolving himself of blame. Get off his back and stop putting him behind non premiership coaches such as Lyon and Brad Scott. And for goodness sake, we had more inside fifties to a forward line which is missing three stars!

[annew]

But what has happened to our goal scoring midfield?

[Triple B]

After the heavy hits you took in some earlier rounds....It's good to see you've still got your jab working Barry

Lol... Keep fighting the good fight Barry....

[YvonneH]

But what has happened to our goal scoring midfield?

Saw on TV last night that we have won 3 of the past 11 games.
Doesn't this line up roughly with Kurt playing his 1st game.
Not blaming Kurt for this but has our game plan changed so drastically now that we have Kurt and Buddy to 'bomb it long' to and we are not handling it well?
Other teams are now doing what we were doing (greater spread of goal kickers) and we seem to have gone backwards to the style of play from a few years ago.

[Mr Magoo]

I actually thought Longmires post match analysis was pretty spot on. I dont think at any stage he is blamingjust the players.

One interesting comment I did note which was difficult to discern when not at the game is that he claimed that we werent outnumbered in the forward line after quarter time but we just kept kicking to where there numbers were - this to me is symptomatic of one of two things :
1. Just looking for franklin when we kick long (where I presume the numbers are ) or
2. Not looking at all andjust banging it on the boot.

Either way that is the midfield and half backs that are at fault.

I actually thought it was our poor disposal and lack of being first to the ball that killed us often on the weekend. We play a style of game where we allow the opposition to work it up to the forward fifty where in theory we then have them turn it over to allow us to build a counter attack. This style falls apart when we make glaring skill errors that lead to a turnover to the opposition in a very dangerous part of the ground. Often on the weekend we seemed to have a lot of the play only to make such an error and turn it over to almost immediate goals. This is one part of our game that just doesnt work in the wet IMO.

[dimelb]

I actually thought Longmires post match analysis was pretty spot on. I dont think at any stage he is blamingjust the players.

One interesting comment I did note which was difficult to discern when not at the game is that he claimed that we werent outnumbered in the forward line after quarter time but we just kept kicking to where there numbers were - this to me is symptomatic of one of two things :
1. Just looking for franklin when we kick long (where I presume the numbers are ) or
2. Not looking at all andjust banging it on the boot.

Either way that is the midfield and half backs that are at fault.

I actually thought it was our poor disposal and lack of being first to the ball that killed us often on the weekend. We play a style of game where we allow the opposition to work it up to the forward fifty where in theory we then have them turn it over to allow us to build a counter attack. This style falls apart when we make glaring skill errors that lead to a turnover to the opposition in a very dangerous part of the ground. Often on the weekend we seemed to have a lot of the play only to make such an error and turn it over to almost immediate goals. This is one part of our game that just doesnt work in the wet IMO.

Quite right. And not in the dry either.
And I agree that although our forward line is still a problem, what's really hurting us at present is that we are being beaten in the midfield, where people who were real stars last year have gone off the boil: both captains, Hanners, Mitchell, Jetta. The honourable exceptions are Kennedy and Parker, and even he had a forgettable game on North. McGlynn is also trying hard but was given the wrong job on Harvey. What has happened to "relentless"?