Match Day Thread, Round 15 - Brisbane Lions vs. Sydney Swans

[wolftone57]

I don't think we can even think of beating sides like Hawks in our current form. I don't think we are that fit quite frankly. Our play tonight had no method at all. All we were doing was pushing the ball forward with absolutely no method at all. Let's just kick the @@@@ out of the ball and hope a forward will mark the bloody thing. People are knocking Towers but I am telling you I'd hate to be a forward in our team as we always kick to the advantage of the opposition. We did not set the play up at all we just bombed.


There was also little or no talking.

By the way Tippett was our premium ruck tonight. At least most of his taps actually hit players. Pykie's taps went to ground as usual and caused us to be in a contested possession situation. Pykie is not a good tap ruckman. He is also a @@@@ forward now. Can't even mark the bloody ball. Useless. Finished. Bring in Nanka at least if he kicks he is going to hit a target.

[giant]

Had to turn it off at half time. Was too angry to keep watching. I don't know what's wrong with this team but I suspect it's something only a sports psychologist can figure out.

I made it a little further - and wish I hadn't. Just godawful, we look soooo far from a top 4 side it's ridiculous. No run, no spark, no intensity, little work rate.

Many of the youngsters just not up to it. Robinson - who's just made it back into the side - misses a shot from 30m that would have put us 4 goals in front. Instead the Lions score and 10 mins later they hit the lead. Seriously, do these kids want to play senior footy? If you can't do this in H&A against the wooden spooner you sure as heck can't do at the MCG on GF day. Heeney, McGlynn and Bird desperately need to be back.

Bought my tix for the Hawks game - right now feeling kinda sick about our prospects and the ride home.

[BRISWAN]

Just back home from the game
A win is a win but we did it with a lower level of skills and decision making compared to our A game
You generally can only play as well as the opposition let you?..but we did let ourselves down a fair bit at times

We can control our skills and decisions but we can't control what the umpires do, so there is no point in complaining over any game.

[Hotpotato]

Games are so different in nature, form and intensity from week to week , you just wouldn't know what Swans team turn up to play Hawks n Eagles ,,,

We will just have to wait n see ...
But they need to train harder all week ..

[Faunac8]

I was at the game and it was even worse to watch live. An interesting observation from someone who was with me who has no idea about the game
" why do they keep kicking it out wide when they have so many white jumpers alone in the middle of the ground " after they said that in the first quarter I starting taking note and on about half a dozen occasions we kicked long to a contest when we had unmarked players in the corridor.
I know that this keeping to the wings is a tactic that modern teams play to minimise scoreboard impact on turnovers but one thing has never changed and that is the fastest way from A to B is in a straight line. Maybe given the potential quality of our forwards we could consider giving this a try? You can see how worried defenders get when they are one out on a good quality forward with the ball coming in quickly. Considering the perceived quality of our forward line ten goals is a poor return against any team .

[Conor_Dillon]

Fair chance that we've been in a really heavy training load given the bye and then the 10 day break as well...Joey mentioned a week of rest in his post-match interview.

[Cheer_Cheer]

Fair chance that we've been in a really heavy training load given the bye and then the 10 day break as well...Joey mentioned a week of rest in his post-match interview.

That is what I was thinking.. I think back to how slow we looked in the lead up to the 2012 finals series for the same reason.. Lets hope...

[Nico]

I don't think we can even think of beating sides like Hawks in our current form. I don't think we are that fit quite frankly. Our play tonight had no method at all. All we were doing was pushing the ball forward with absolutely no method at all. Let's just kick the @@@@ out of the ball and hope a forward will mark the bloody thing. People are knocking Towers but I am telling you I'd hate to be a forward in our team as we always kick to the advantage of the opposition. We did not set the play up at all we just bombed.


There was also little or no talking.

By the way Tippett was our premium ruck tonight. At least most of his taps actually hit players. Pykie's taps went to ground as usual and caused us to be in a contested possession situation. Pykie is not a good tap ruckman. He is also a @@@@ forward now. Can't even mark the bloody ball. Useless. Finished. Bring in Nanka at least if he kicks he is going to hit a target.

Wolfy.

Towers had a chance to win back some brownie points when Goodes gifted him a goal opportunity but he shanked it under no pressure. Towers seems to fumble almost every opportunity for a possession.

[Nico]

I made it a little further - and wish I hadn't. Just godawful, we look soooo far from a top 4 side it's ridiculous. No run, no spark, no intensity, little work rate.

Many of the youngsters just not up to it. Robinson - who's just made it back into the side - misses a shot from 30m that would have put us 4 goals in front. Instead the Lions score and 10 mins later they hit the lead. Seriously, do these kids want to play senior footy? If you can't do this in H&A against the wooden spooner you sure as heck can't do at the MCG on GF day. Heeney, McGlynn and Bird desperately need to be back.

Bought my tix for the Hawks game - right now feeling kinda sick about our prospects and the ride home.

My thoughts on Robinson also. He kicked a handy goal but that miss was a shocker. He just doesn't seem to get where the ball is at. Only gets loose possessions and doesn't get here the action is. On a positive note I thought Cunningham had a red hot go when he came on. Haven't seen that from him before. Hopefully he has finally realized that you need to indulge in the hard stuff if you want to stay in the big time.

[Hotpotato]

They need Heeney and McGlyn back in , to provide some more mongrel , or the well drilled Hawks will eat us alive .

[CureTheSane]

Haven't read through this whole thread, but what I took out of the game was...

Our structure was a mess from the first bounce, and it didn't work.
The more I've watched us play the more I am starting to blame the midfield.
There is no delivery to the forward line, and the players are making enough effort to get themselves in free space.
Also, the forwards aren't leading well, pretty much every time it's kicked long it's to a one on one or one on two.

I feel like we have moved to a point where we are stuck between the possession game of 7 or 8 years ago and the free flowing game of recent times, and it's bogging us down.

Shaw had another night to forget.
Rampe has had a few consistent games.
So has Reid
Not sure where the back line would be without Laidler
Grundy is getting better and better
Parker has been well contained for the last few weeks
Pyke is a worry more and more.
Goodes is in fine form, when he has the ball he is generally doing something really good with it.

The club needs to get Nankervis running, on the bike, dropping some kilos and more athleltic. What I've seen so far reminds me of Sandilands who's lack of ability around the grounds is compensated by his height and ruckwork.
I think we need a Nankervis who is more like Tippett or even Franklin who isn't a one trick pony.

[Auntie.Gerald]

I'm not particularly concerned as yet

We continue to want to focus on our defensive structures, allow fast moving teams to send in second rate forward kicks that are easy for us to shut down and counter

This structure and discipline has enabled us to be a team that is very very difficult to score against hence only 3 losses thus far. Ie we don't get caught on the wrong side of the play to often - well less then most teams we play

But I am not enjoying watching our forward entries ---- the build up prior to the last pass is not to bad but I do think we need to back ourselves to make and take the last penetrating kick rather then kick for safety ie to pin down for a forward entry ball up and reset

I think we need to do this more ASAP otherwise we won't have the firepower down pat and ready for the top 4 teams

[Scottee]

Pleased with Reid's stability and disposal down back. Didn't really think he would make a backman but I may be wrong.

Nankervis and Heeney in for Pyke (looks like its time) ,and Towers. Possibly BJ for Robinson.

[aardvark]

At least we won......

[0918330512]

Alll of these calls for Nank to replace Pyke. From (an admittedly) one game Nank is not as effective at tap rucking at senior level & he's glacial of foot (while he might potentially contest better than Pyke, he might be too slow to actually get to most of the contested situations). He might dominate the NEAFL, but when you're a as big as him, his size does matter at that level. Unfortunately his size is sort of more standard at AFL level. Nank's kicking in that game was really just ok. I realise it was just one game, but that's all I've got to go on. If Pykes body isn't shot (& only the medicos can assess this, not anyone sitting in the stands or watching him on TV) the, for me, he's our best option still. Problem is, he had his best couple of years just before we let Mummy go (perhaps allowing us to let Mummy go at the time). Raised our hopes (no fault of his) but - like a Telstra share price of Dec 1999 - he's probably peaked & unlikely to reach those highs again.