Bankers & Anchors: Rnd 11, 2021 vs Melbourne Demons

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

This is the round 11, 2021 edition of the weekly Bankers and Anchors thread. Once the game against Melbourne 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.

[bulldogtragic]

B

Very little.
Three headed monster kicked most of our goals. English marking around the ground.
Weightman kept the run and pressure up all night. Nice to see effort.

A

Everything
8.11 and several on the full. Missing easy set shots are killers
Bailey Smith worst game
Turnovers, *!*!*!*!ing easy ones, worth about 50 points
Lack of leadership. JJ MIA.
Lipinski, to be traded now
Poor Garcia out after 23 minutes
Out coached
Panic ‘defending’
Losing top of the ladder and 11.3%
Keep adding...

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Bankers
Struggling here
1. Tim. Good call by the Match Committee to let him 'get right'. He was a minor shining light.
2. Roarke Smith. yep he coughed up one late, when he shanked one.. But otherwise I thought he defended well when he needed to, and took the right option attacking when it was on. He's improved a lot

That's all

Anchors
1. Our mids- our one wood, the protector of our shaky defense. They sucked balls tonight. All of them. Yes Jack got his 30 plus...bully for him.
2. Our energy around the ball - especially the first half - which set the tone. We fumbled, we weren't 'kamikaze', we allowed them to get it on their terms outside.
3. Lipinski - If he hasn't learned to tackle by now, it ain't happening. Either reinvent him in a role where that isn't essential (nowhere) or look to move him on. Shit that sucks to say: I had high hopes he'd improve that aspect of his game by now.

[bornadog]

Bankers

1. Macrae and Bont just kept going and going trying to lift the team. 9 and 8 tackles each.

2. Bruce - great set shots

3. Naughton Marking, took another 8

Anchors

1. Turnovers first quarter, cost us, as we matched them for the rest of the game.

2. Some dumb forward entries, kicking it straight to Gawn, or Lever.

3. Some easy misses at goal

[jazzadogs]

Bankers
1. English was undoubtedly the shining light. I was worried that we would get a shell of the player we saw earlier in the year, but he was at his best with his movement around the ground and marking. I wonder if we could have prolonged Liam Picken's career with similar management (understanding that this was not quite best practice back then).

2. I thought Lipinski was the cleanest he has been with his disposal and decision-making for a while. He clearly enjoyed the ball-winning aspect of being back in the midfield rotation. Unfortunately, until he improves his physicality I'm not sure that we can persist with him in the midfield.

3. My favourite passage of play was the Sweet tap back over his head to Baz streaming through, long kick forward to a contest with Cody front and centre for the perfect crumbers goal. I felt like it was the only time we effectively crumbed a contest.

Anchors
1. The television coverage. It is absolutely pathetic. These useless morons know that everyone is stuck at home and watching their coverage - so to reward us, they constantly zoom in so tightly that you can only see the 3m directly around the ball. You can't see what they're running towards, what they're running away from, whether they're about to get chased down, whether they've missed an open teammate. It is immensely frustrating.
And then to top it off in last night's game they keep talking about how well the Demons are setting up across the ground. Well then FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SHOW US!!!! Just one shot from behind the goals, that is not from a kick in. You're not on the radio - use the visuals to help you demonstrate WHY the Dogs kept trying to switch from side-to-side. At one point, Carey said that the Demons players were always spreading to the side of the switch before the Dogs players - SHOW US.
I would LOVE to watch a game where 90% is shown on a wide angle lens which gives us at least 50m coverage. Think of soccer coverage - almost all of the time it is the long shot from up top which shows sideline-to-sideline, and probably 40-50% of the length of the pitch. Why do AFL broadcasts think we are too dumb to appreciate that angle?
Defensive setups are a key part of the game, and they are negligent in not showing it to their viewers.

2. Libba getting tagged. Hopefully it doesn't give any other teams ideas, because it showed how vital he is to us.

3. Our refusal to kick it long to our talls, and when we did being outnumbered at ground level. A) we played 3 tall forwards, so let's actually give them a chance to do what they're in the team to do. B) we knew that most of the time the long kick would create a contest rather than a mark, so why were we consistently outnumbered? Lazy or poorly coached?

[Grantysghost]

2. Libba getting tagged. Hopefully it doesn't give any other teams ideas, because it showed how vital he is to us

As dissapointing for me was the complete lack of any support from his team mates to give him a chop out and hassle Harmes.
Don't think I recall seeing it at all.

[jazzadogs]

As dissapointing for me was the complete lack of any support from his team mates to give him a chop out and hassle Harmes.
Don't think I recall seeing it at all.

What percentage of game do you think Libba actually played midfield? There was a point in the 3rd I checked if he was injured because I couldn't recall seeing him on the field.

[Grantysghost]

What percentage of game do you think Libba actually played midfield? There was a point in the 3rd I checked if he was injured because I couldn't recall seeing him on the field.

I think he was moved forward at times to try and break the tag? It's impossible to tell from the TV, your astute observations I am in total agreement with on that front.

His heat map indicates he was mainly in the middle?

https://i.postimg.cc/mkhkHkbM/Screenshot-20210529-111200-AFL.jpg (https://postimg.cc/4HkXCJHN)

[bornadog]

Anchors
1. The television coverage. It is absolutely pathetic. These useless morons know that everyone is stuck at home and watching their coverage - so to reward us, they constantly zoom in so tightly that you can only see the 3m directly around the ball. You can't see what they're running towards, what they're running away from, whether they're about to get chased down, whether they've missed an open teammate. It is immensely frustrating.

Top it off with the annoying voices of the commentators - very difficult to watch

[westbulldog]

[QUOTE=Yankee Hotel Foxtrot;734870]Bankers
S
Anchors[/B]
1. Our mids- our one wood, the protector of our shaky defense. They sucked balls tonight. All of them. Yes Jack got his 30 plus...bully for him.

Yes Melbourne mids won conclusively on Friday and we are all disappointed but would you prefer Jack didn't have the most disposals after 11 rounds in vfl/afl history ? Would you prefer that he didn't lay 9 tackles v Melbourne ? 19 woofers have cast their votes to date, 9 voted Jack our best, 6 for 3 votes, 2 for 2 votes and 1 for 1 vote. Only 1 didn't include him in votes. It seems you don't rate him. Also after 11 rounds, virtually half the season, (upcoming games won't change this) we have the 2nd lowest points against in the comp, just 10 behind Melbourne and 1 ahead of Geelong so what is shaky about our defence ?

[Mantis]

Surprised no-one has given a slap to the umpires (specifically Ray) on their inability to bounce the ball straight & high... Melbourne had a huge advantage on at least 3 occasions by poor bounces.

[The bulldog tragician]

Surprised no-one has given a slap to the umpires (specifically Ray) on their inability to bounce the ball straight & high... Melbourne had a huge advantage on at least 3 occasions by poor bounces.

Why aren’t they recalled any more? I’ve noticed this in other matches too.

[Cyberdoggie]

Bankers:

1. Bont tried but just didn't come as easy as the previous week for him
2. Naughton also tried to make things happen and ran some serious distance to shake his defender
3. Tim i thought came back not too bad. I thought he would be a bit sheepish after being out for so long.

Anchors:
1. Lipinski. This kid can play, he's got great skills and at times i've seen him actually go in hard and lay some good tackles. But then other times he goes missing and too often has his tackles broken. There was a particular patch where he made two bad mistakes where he just needed to be harder and more desperate and he wasn't.

2. Dale. Really poor under pressure again. Looks like gold when there isn't any but the opposition bring the heat his skills go missing.

3. Our poor/slow ball movement from the back half. Daniel, Williams, Dale, Crozier, Duryea, Cordy, Keath.
This has happened 3 times this year now. Two times against top opposition when we went in favourites, and the other against Carlton. For the latter it took a bit of run and carry from Treloar to wake us up and then we started moving the ball better.

We really missed this from him once again. The biggest culprits were Daniel Williams and Dale. They went into their shell and played so slowly, switching play like treacle on to get picked off, or kicking it directly to an opponent. Then when there are no option they tried to kick the most difficult kick which was never on.
Here's what actually works, you have to take the game on and use your legs, when you are opening space on the run, then more spaces open up ahead. Otherwise it's just a stationary zone that picks you off every time.

4. (one extra)
Melbourne were so predictable yet we couldn't work it out. They just applied pressure and picked us off, then they did the same 1-2 combo and opened us up like a tin of sardines. They handball backwards against the direction of play and they have a runner streaming past through the open space behind them.

[Mofra]

Bankers

Roarke - late kick aside, played his role with aplomb
JJ - ditto, Salem had little say on the night
Naughton - without his attack on the ball we lose by a lot more

Anchors

Our lack of support for player getting tagged - Daniel last year, Libba last week. If you're a bulldog and you're getting tagged, you're on your own
Garcia injury - give the kid some luck you footy god bastards
Turnovers - 10 goals + from bad kicks. Terrible

[bornadog]

JJ - ditto, Salem had little say on the night

Good point. No one else (including me) has given praise for the work JJ did. Salem was hardly sighted.

[boydogs]

Good point. No one else (including me) has given praise for the work JJ did. Salem was hardly sighted.

I gave him a vote

[Ozza]

Bankers:

So we were well down. It felt like a big loss.....BUT....we ended up with only 3 scoring shots less than the Dees - and the team we had in was the weakest we've had all year. Dunkley, Treloar, VDM, Martin, Wood to come in, plus Hannan & McLean as options.

Roarke - really like how he is playing at the moment.

Hunter - hasn't really missed a beat post injury.

Anchors:

Looking like deer in the headlights at stages where the pressure went right up. Bit like the 3rd quarter v Richmond. Thats the biggest worry out of the game for me.

Team balance - we just went 1-2 too many inexperienced players. When you already have so many out, I don't think its the time to have Garcia/Butler in the team when you already have Weightman, Sweet, McNeil as really inexperienced players.

Libba & Baz - kicking errors extremely costly. Unusual for Libba. Unfortunately all too common for Baz, who at his talent level should be a far more reliable kick than he is.

[Mantis]

Libba & Baz - kicking errors extremely costly. Unusual for Libba. Unfortunately all too common for Baz, who at his talent level should be a far more reliable kick than he is.

There's quite a few more to add to the list... Macrae, Caleb & the other 2 Bailey's also made crucial kicking errors which led to Melb goals... as did Alex Keath who when switching play kicked one of the side of his boot to Crozier which cost us time & territory and I'm reasonably certain Melb kicked a goal in the next bit of play.

As I mentioned in the Game Day thread we kicked the ball as bad as we ever have in the 1st qtr.. and Melb made us pay.

[comrade]

Team balance - we just went 1-2 too many inexperienced players. When you already have so many out, I don't think its the time to have Garcia/Butler in the team when you already have Weightman, Sweet, McNeil as really inexperienced players.


Yeah, this was a problem.

Melbourne had 8 players under 50 games to our 6, but all our guys had less than 10 games to Melbourne's 0.

We need to find a way to nurse Martin through so he's close to full fitness for the finals because we're not beating Melbourne with Sweet as our #1.

[Mantis]

Yeah, this was a problem.

Melbourne had 8 players under 50 games to our 6, but all our guys had less than 10 games to Melbourne's 0.

We need to find a way to nurse Martin through so he's close to full fitness for the finals because we're not beating Melbourne with Sweet as our #1.

But when we have 8-10 players in our top 30 out injured you're forced to play the young guys aren't you?

And whilst Melbourne had 0 under 10 games, they did have 6 in the 11-25 range so I'm not sure we can read a heap into that stat.

Agree on Martin, we need him performing as he did in the first month of the season so hopefully we can manage his workload and the achilles stays sound.

[comrade]

But when we have 8-10 players in our top 30 out injured you're forced to play the young guys aren't you?

And whilst Melbourne had 0 under 10 games, they did have 6 in the 11-25 range so I'm not sure we can read a heap into that stat.

Agree on Martin, we need him performing as he did in the first month of the season so hopefully we can manage his workload and the achilles stays sound.

Yeah, it's not a knock on us just that it was a problem that played into Melbourne's hands. We reached a tipping point of sub 10 game players, particularly when the ruck man is one of them up against an elite player in Gawn.

A fit Martin would have made a pretty big difference, maybe not enough to win but I doubt they jump us as easily in the first quarter.

[bornadog]

Yeah, it's not a knock on us just that it was a problem that played into Melbourne's hands. We reached a tipping point of sub 10 game players, particularly when the ruck man is one of them up against an elite player in Gawn.

A fit Martin would have made a pretty big difference, maybe not enough to win but I doubt they jump us as easily in the first quarter.

The disappointing thing to me was that first quarter. We hadn't lost one this year, and really stuffed up with poor disposal and gifting Melbourne goals.

[1eyedog]

Bankers:

So we were well down. It felt like a big loss.....BUT....we ended up with only 3 scoring shots less than the Dees - and the team we had in was the weakest we've had all year. Dunkley, Treloar, VDM, Martin, Wood to come in, plus Hannan & McLean as options.

Roarke - really like how he is playing at the moment.

Hunter - hasn't really missed a beat post injury.

Anchors:

Looking like deer in the headlights at stages where the pressure went right up. Bit like the 3rd quarter v Richmond. Thats the biggest worry out of the game for me.

Team balance - we just went 1-2 too many inexperienced players. When you already have so many out, I don't think its the time to have Garcia/Butler in the team when you already have Weightman, Sweet, McNeil as really inexperienced players.

Libba & Baz - kicking errors extremely costly. Unusual for Libba. Unfortunately all too common for Baz, who at his talent level should be a far more reliable kick than he is.

There is no-one else to bring in. Wallis hasn't played midfield in that sort of heat for 4 years.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

There is no-one else to bring in. Wallis hasn't played midfield in that sort of heat for 4 years.

Wouldn't have changed the outcome, but losing Garcia early hurt us. He was assigned to do some grunt work and once he went down, no-one picked up the slack and it affected our rotations. We really are missing Dunks.

[1eyedog]

Wouldn't have changed the outcome, but losing Garcia early hurt us. He was assigned to do some grunt work and once he went down, no-one picked up the slack and it affected our rotations. We really are missing Dunks.

Losing a first gamer hurt us? Agree we are missing Dunkley most of all.

[Mantis]

Losing a first gamer hurt us? Agree we are missing Dunkley most of all.

Why wouldn't it?

He is very much an inside player and with Lipinski failing in that role and then Butler coming on to play an outside role we lacked a bit of grunt & options in the middle.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Losing a first gamer hurt us? Agree we are missing Dunkley most of all.

Yes it's a sad indictment that we need to rely on a 1st gamer to do some heavy lifting at the coal face. Without Dunkley, we're expecting Libba to do it all by himself as Smith, Bont, Macrae, Lipinski etc just don't do it for long enough (nor should Bont have to).
Like I said, it wouldn't have changed the result but it would have helped us somewhat.

[comrade]

Yes it's a sad indictment that we need to rely on a 1st gamer to do some heavy lifting at the coal face. Without Dunkley, we're expecting Libba to do it all by himself as Smith, Bont, Macrae, Lipinski etc just don't do it for long enough (nor should Bont have to).
Like I said, it wouldn't have changed the result but it would have helped us somewhat.

Melbourne have lost Viney but had Harmes in waiting. We lost Dunkley but we also lost Jong who could fill the gap to an extent. You would also expect Baz to step up but he just hasn't.

It's flying under the radar a bit, but Bailey Smith has been incredibly underwhelming this year.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Melbourne have lost Viney but had Harmes in waiting. We lost Dunkley but we also lost Jong who could fill the gap to an extent. You would also expect Baz to step up but he just hasn't.

It's flying under the radar a bit, but Bailey Smith has been incredibly underwhelming this year.

Yeah he had a cracking first game but has been disappointing since except for a game or two. Considering he was poor last season too he needs to get going. I always though Walsh was the one with a low ceiling. Hope it’s not Bailey.

[Grantysghost]

Melbourne have lost Viney but had Harmes in waiting. We lost Dunkley but we also lost Jong who could fill the gap to an extent. You would also expect Baz to step up but he just hasn't.

It's flying under the radar a bit, but Bailey Smith has been incredibly underwhelming this year.

I'm worried. He has lost the fire in the belly. Where's the guy that was in Stringer's face in his first handful of games.

When he isn't playing with that edge he doesn't look half as effective. I'd tell him the Alan Border anecdote. If you're having a bad day start a fight with first slip to fire yourself up.
Dermott can jog on.

[1eyedog]

Why wouldn't it?

He is very much an inside player and with Lipinski failing in that role and then Butler coming on to play an outside role we lacked a bit of grunt & options in the middle.

Baz, Macrae and Libba can and all do play on the inside. Bont can and does (or used to) as well. We needed a reshuffle sure. Libba was tagged, he needed help, Bont played outside all game pretty much, Macrae worked hard and Baz, I don't know what his role was, inside and out?

Baz needed to step up big time and Libba needed more help. If Lippa can't get it on the inside he needed to work his arse off in there to chop Libba out. We were poor in the coaches box all night. We had zero run out of our back half (JJ back with instructions to run?), Bailey Williams was having a mare put him on the outside with instructions for Baz to go in. I know people think JJ did a job on Salem and maybe he did but we needed run off half back badly and he was wasted on Salem all night. We just did nothing.

Garcia started well with two nice touches but you can't expect a kid playing his first game to get it much or make a difference. We are down Dunkley and Jong but we have inside options we just didn't work hard enough, or were creative enough in the box, to maximise them.

I don't really know the game was so frustrating and while the stats say we broke even after half time it certainly didn't feel like it. We were embarrassed throughout most of the game. I really wanted this one. Beating Port over there, smashing St.Kilda and then beating the pretenders at Marvel would have created a psychological edge and generated a lot of confidence leading into the second half of our season. We're doing good and in a great position but as it stands now we can't be trusted.