Match Day. Round 1 Sydney V Port Adelaide SCG. 4.35pm.

[ugg]

Wouldn't put a line through Foote's career just yet. It is just his second game and he looked like he hadn't adjusted to the quicker pace just yet. What didn't help him was being selected as a forward when he hadn't played there in the preseason or in the NEAFL practice game. I thought he was a little better in the second half when he had acclimatised a little

[Scottee]

Trying to assess the bigger picture:
1. Port are further into their training than us due to missing the finals and our last game being in October.
2. Paddy Rider is a brilliant ruckman who has just come back fit and fired up after a year off. Gave Port a big advantage.
3. We were down a player with Robinsons injury.
4. That was not the Hanners that I know. What is wrong?
5. Towers has confirmed the doubts. Non contributor.
6. Despite the errors, Marsh stuck his hand up to be a member of this side tonight and fought it out to the end.
7. Foote is a very ordinary player.
8. Florent would be better off with some time in the NEAFL and is not ready yet.
9. Aliir to come into the side hopefully but no other obvious replacements for Robinson, Foote and Towers who surely do not get another go.Possibly BJ for Foote and Newman to play back and free up Mills.
10. I hope that there is still some improvement in fitness and skills next week, if not we could be in for a long season.


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[Auntie.Gerald]

Off those missing only henney would have made a difference. No team has 100% availability.

That towers and Cunningham still get games shows or lack of depth. There are simply no alternatives.

no paps nor AA nor Rohan ?

i think they make a difference

[mcs]

Just home after a disappointing trip up the highway. I will comment more tomorrow but in summary port were consistently leading us to the ball all day and thoroughly deserve the win. Only other thoughts for tonight are our bottom six were dreadful and showed our issue with depth, i just don't get towers, and welcome back sammy reid - him and buddy were our best two on thr field i thought.

Itll get nasty next week if we play like that against the 21 man fairypuppies.



Oh and joel ridge - keep the corporate afl wankery to another thread please....

[Ludwig]

I just checked the ladder. All is not lost. We're still ahead of Carlton.

I wouldn't be too harsh on some of players, although they deserve criticism. Given our injury situation we were faced with playing too many inexperienced players, or players like Towers, that don't perform when the pressure is on. Usually the stars of the team have to carry the burden during such times, but so many played poorly, as has been noted. We can only hope that players like Hanners, Parker, Smith and Tippett will get back to their best soon. We are unlucky to have a pretty tough first 5 games this year. We could have used an easy run until we get settled in.

[liz]

There's a bit of Chicken Licken on this site tonight. Can we at least wait until Easter before completely writing the season off?

[aardvark]

There's a bit of Chicken Licken on this site tonight. Can we at least wait until Easter before completely writing the season off?

Sorry......nup! Our depth is very shallow.

[goods78]

Agree with most of the posters here re the very ordinary player performances with the exception of Reid and Lance.

Now for Longmire. For how many seasons have we not had a wet weather game plan.......or do we have one and the players decide to ignore it (can't figure out which is worse)? The number of times in the second half we had tall players down the line, and we elected to go corridor to a player under pressure - it drives me up the wall.

If I was coach I would have had the property steward stopping every player as they came back in the dressing rooms and recording their choice of stops in their boots. I can't understand why this is such a taboo subject. If the review shows your not keeping your feet and you choose in the second half not to wear the long stops, I would expect a please explain from the player.



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[aardvark]

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[liz]

Now for Longmire. For how many seasons have we not had a wet weather game plan.......or do we have one and the players decide to ignore it (can't figure out which is worse)? The number of times in the second half we had tall players down the line, and we elected to go corridor to a player under pressure - it drives me up the wall.

If I was coach I would have had the property steward stopping every player as they came back in the dressing rooms and recording their choice of stops in their boots. I can't understand why this is such a taboo subject. If the review shows your not keeping your feet and you choose in the second half not to wear the long stops, I would expect a please explain from the player.



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We were a terrible wet weather team under Rocket and a worse one under Roos. But since Longmire took over, our record's not that bad. And we've had a lot of practice in recent seasons. We played three JLC pre-season games in various varieties of wet weather, winning two and narrowly losing the other. We won the majority (if not all - I can't be bothered to check) of our wet weather games in season 2016. I no longer think that's the issue.

What is the issue is that the bottom half dozen or so of the team tonight is very inexperienced and/or not really good enough. It was the same last year and we were fortunate that our injury record was pretty reasonable. The younger players did OK last year because the senior players played consistently well. Longmire knows how important this is. He stated over and over again last season, when journos congratulated him on how the youngsters were going, that the key was the consistently good form of his best players. If the trio of Kennedy, Parker and Hannebery plays, collectively, at the level they did tonight, the team's going to struggle, regardless of when we get the likes of Heeney, AA and Rohan back. I think they've posted a sufficient body of work over the last few seasons to suggest that we can reasonable expect them to improve.

[Markwebbos]

No ones mentioned it yet, but we got smashed in the contest... and this is our first game without Tom Mitchell. We used to have too many slow inside mids, but perhaps now we have too few.

[goods78]

No ones mentioned it yet, but we got smashed in the contest... and this is our first game without Tom Mitchell. We used to have too many slow inside mids, but perhaps now we have too few.

Game high 37 disposals in a losing team tonight. Not a bad start with a new club!

[goods78]

We were a terrible wet weather team under Rocket and a worse one under Roos. But since Longmire took over, our record's not that bad. And we've had a lot of practice in recent seasons. We played three JLC pre-season games in various varieties of wet weather, winning two and narrowly losing the other. We won the majority (if not all - I can't be bothered to check) of our wet weather games in season 2016. I no longer think that's the issue....

We have been a great team over many years but we come back to the pack in the wet more than we should for a gun contested team.

I watched Longmire at the 3/4 break and his routine did not change at all. 85% of the break was shuffling player names on the whiteboard. Net result was Rampe in to the middle. Give them a rev up, long down the line, lock it in our forward 50! It's not Rocket science (no pun intended)!


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[aardvark]

...... because the senior players played consistently well. Longmire knows how important this is. He stated over and over again last season, when journos congratulated him on how the youngsters were going, that the key was the consistently good form of his best players.

I agree totally with this. I would argue that this has been happening for the last 2-3 maybe 4 years. I suppose we will find out in the next few weeks if we've worn them out or not. Hanners, Parks, Joey, Buddy and KJ can't carry us forever.

[CureTheSane]

I watched the game on replay.
what I took from it was that PA were able to find a target and make great position in tight situations to be able to extract the contested ball.
It also highlighted some of our fringe players, or depth players who were on the field tonight.

The only way is up

- - - Updated - - -

Towers and Foote are not up it. We know this about Towers; it's very frustrating he keeps playing. He shouldn't play again. Including Robinson and Cunningham, we had four players who are not desperate, hard or smart enough. Robinson is slow and doesn't chase.

The defence also looked slow. Laidler, who I like, is past his best and Melican should have been given a go ahead of him. Mills and Smith were unusually bad.

Most concerning, for me, was the performances of Parker and Hannebery. They (also!) looked slow and hobbled. Parker was frustrated. Tippett was terrible; looks shot of confidence.

Buddy and Reid excellent; Joey good; Jones pretty good.

The quickness and intelligence of Heeney and Aliir are very important to us. Only Aliir back next week, so we need to roll the dice on some reserves.

Agree with most of this.
Perhaps Foote is the one from your post I'd be able to find most promise in.