Bankers And Anchors - Round 2, 2018 vs West Coast Eagles

[Eastdog]

This is the round 2, 2018 edition of the Weekly Bankers and Anchors Thread. Once the game against West Coast is concluded post your nominations for:

The Bankers = 3 guys/aspects of the game that we banked on to do the right thing during the game
The Anchors = 3 guys/aspects of the game that weighed us down by their errors or poor play

Please limit it to no more than three of each player or aspect of the game, but feel free to make honourable/dishonourable mentions. As usual try to make it constructive criticism.

Try and restrict it to individual players rather than aspects of the overall match - I will allow more freedom now as the thread seems to be going down more of the aspects of the game path so you can have 3 for each made up of aspects of the game and individual players.

The thread is named in honour of a popular WOOF Contributor, The Banker, who passed away on 22/04/2012 after a six month battle with cancer.

[GVGjr]

Bump

[G-Mo77]

Bankers.

Weather was very nice in Melbourne.
My neighbor saying "Hello Darling" when Darling got his first kick.
Seaguls entering in flocks was a nice spectacle.

Edit: Apologies to our AFLWs team. That was the highlight of the day

Anchors
The steaming pile of shit that wore our colours and pranced around with 4 quarters.

[bornadog]

Bankers

1. Macrae - after a bad 1st quarter, really got into the game, and for once had shots at goal and kicked 3

2. The enthusiasm of Richards, showed some good signs, although he made a couple of errors, I can see a real footballer in him.

3. Wood and his spoiling and marking - back where he belongs.

Anchors

1. Turnovers coming from skill errors, killed us

2. Jong, Webb - Not up to AFL standard - delist candidates.

3. Goal kicking - pathetic.

[Eastdog]

Bankers:

1.) Macrae - another good game and good to see him kick some goals

2. McLean - Did some good stuff through the middle

3. Gowers - Thought he was ok but didn't kick well at goal


Anchors:

1. Our forward line structure non existent

2. Our defence being all at sea for most of the game

3. Missing set shots and back to inaccurate kicking again 9.16

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Bankers
1. The present is crap..the future looks better. English, Naughton, Richards showed glimpses of a promising future
2. Macrae lifted that's what we needed, pity some of his mates didn't follow suit
3. The weather looked nice???

Anchors
1. Torched on the turnover. At one stage 59 of WC's score of 75 were from turnovers. Johanissen, Naughton, Daniel and Cordy come to mind.
2. Bailey Dale pushed off the ball by 1st gamer Willie Rioli. Hit the gym son.
3. Gowers, Dahlhaus, Honeychurch, Dunkley, Naughton, Cordy. 6 guys who have serious skill deficiencies by foot and they're all in the team together. Can our match committee really lament our turnover woes when they select such a deficient kicjing side?

[The bulldog tragician]

Bankers
1. Jack Macrae showed pride, and anger and frustration and determination rather than meek acceptance.
2. I know Tim English didn’t hold the marks he could have, but I see a real player in the making.
3. Um...

Anchors
1. There is a whole class of ‘nearly there’ players that I have kept hoping, waiting, expecting to make it if they just had a good crack at it. Today those hopes disappeared.
2. Our kick out strategies. I have no words.
3. Leadership. Our most senior men are not showing the way.

[Ozza]

Bankers:

Macrae - our best player right now. Has noticeably improved his kicking. Attacking and creative.
Hunter - A bit like Macrae - kicking is better - and he is actually trying something.
McLean - has a genuine crack. Despite his light frame - is going in harder than his team mates.

Anchors:

Webb - seen enough now to make a call on him I think. He looked a promising prospect at half back in his early games. Then we’ve tried to crowbar him into the midfield - and he isn’t capable of getting a kick. Spends so much time ‘in between’ - where he doesn’t get close enough to impact the contest, and also isn’t in a position to be the next option if we get it (or to defend if they get it). If he’s a starting midfielder - then we are pretty much one short inside.

Roughy - I know he missed the end of the game injured. But he seriously failed to have any impact while he was out there. Given the appalling selection, he needed to stand up and be our ‘big man’ presence - and he had opportunities to have an impact when Naitanui spent long periods off the ground - but instead made Lycett look like a star.

Bevo & the coaches: The amount of times I looked up today and saw a forward line of Dahlhaus, Jong, Dunkley, Daniel, Gowers - plus one other midfielder. Seriously. We just don’t give ourselves a chance. And don’t try and tell me ‘oh we had English down there at times’....the kid is absolutely miles off being ready to be consistently competitive in a forward marking situation. And just like last week - its not like we stick with anything anyway. Naughton and Trengove get thrown forward. Caleb Daniel goes from a no-influence forward, to a no influence defender embarrassingly trying to fly to spoil blokes 6 inches (or more) taller than him. Dahlhaus forward all day so we could put it on top of his head for him to get crunched. And the defence....could we have set up with a less equipped defence? To play the combination of Ed Richards in his first game, Naughton in his second, Bailey Williams (who has some dash, but his defensive instincts are not there yet) and Trengove for the most part, who hasn’t played down there with any of his team mates before...along with JJ and Woody - we were dreadfully exposed. To go in with LESS experience, than last week where I believe we were the least experienced team in the comp - is absolutely inexcusable. The $2.30 West Coast to win that the bookies were giving was a fair dinkum gift. For Bevo to walk into the presser and say ‘it wasn’t as bad as last week’ is laughable, and speaks volumes about where his head is at. We were playing at home this week, against a West Coast side with plenty of very young players themselves - and we looked absolutely rudderless, whilst the Eagles just picked us off with ease - without Josh Kennedy!!

[ratsmac]

Bankers
1. Macrae - this guy has got to be the most underrated player in the comp by the stretch of the Flemington straight.

2. Ed Richards - I feel sorry him (and Naughton) who are thrown into such an unbalanced side right now but he looks to be a ripper. He has a very nice turn of speed. I love that hair too.

3. Wood - he looks much more comfortable starting in defence. He's the new captain with a lot on his plate right now and he shouldn't have to worry about trying to learn a new position. Now he is back where he belongs he has a better chance to actually lead. He'll get better every week now I'm sure.

Anchors.

1. Rucks -Nic Nat was off the ground for 40% of the game time and still got 33 hit outs. Our 3 rucks we used had 13 combined. With English there is something there but he is miles off at the minute. Roughead isn't a very good player anymore. He can't win the hit out and he can't mark the ball down the line. Trengrove is only a good pinch hit type ruckman to give others a rest.

2. Available personnel. No Morris, Picken, Redpath, Dickson, Wallis and now probably Libba has exposed our young list probably a bit unfairly in a sense. The experience we have left in the team have clearly struggled to cover the loss of the game experience missing right now.

3. MC - play the senior players first then the kids. Anyone would think it's round 20 and we can't make finals so we choose the kids to get them game time and experience.

[Remi Moses]

1. I thought McLean was a good contributor all day
2. Great Easter weather ( I’m struggling here )
3. I thought young Richards showed a bit

1. The lack of effort and skill execution. Just embarrassing
2. The side selected
3. Some players have literally gone backwards

[MrMahatma]

A:
Getting beaten by a team that can't travel.
Getting beaten by a team that didn't have a senior coach.
Getting beaten by a team missing their best fwd.

B:
Having the chance to play an interstate team who rarely win in Melb, to get our season up and running
Having the chance to play the eagles without Kennedy
Having the chance to play the Eagles without a coach.

Bonus A: The "we were better than last week" rubbish the club is running with. For all the reasons above we should actually be considering the fact we went backwards. Forget the margin. That's as winnable as it gets and we lose by over 50. We're irrelevant, and should be embarrassed. Beveridge and Gordon need to own this and cut the spin.

[Rocket Science]

A:
Getting beaten by a team that can't travel.
Getting beaten by a team that didn't have a senior coach.
Getting beaten by a team missing their best fwd.

B:
Having the chance to play an interstate team who rarely win in Melb, to get our season up and running
Having the chance to play the eagles without Kennedy
Having the chance to play the Eagles without a coach.

Bonus A: The "we were better than last week" rubbish the club is running with. For all the reasons above we should actually be considering the fact we went backwards. Forget the margin. That's as winnable as it gets and we lose by over 50. We're irrelevant, and should be embarrassed. Beveridge and Gordon need to own this and cut the spin.

Stop it. The nightmares are bad enough without pondering how much worse the damage would have been if Kennedy had played.

I'm picturing a dozen goals and as many opponents.

[G-Mo77]

Stop it. The nightmares are bad enough without pondering how much worse the damage would have been if Kennedy had played.

I'm picturing a dozen goals and as many opponents.

Just wait and see what Daniher does to us, it's going to be very ugly.

[Bulldog4life]

1. Macrae is now kicking goals. Something we should be all happy with.
2. Williams tried hard all game and was in our bests in my opinion.
3. Richards showed he will be a regular with us in the years ahead. Took a nice mark and is a reliable kick.

1. The lack of tackles is deplorable.
2. The kicks to the forward line haven't changed. In fact they might have got worse.
3. As others have said some of our players have gone backwards which is a major concern.