Bankers & Anchors: Grand Final edition, 2021 vs Melbourne

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

This is the Grand Final 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

Treloar
Bonts
Daniel
R. Smith


A

Turnovers, shockingly awful and easy, that led to scores all game
Blowing a 19 point lead, to smashing by more than double our score
Inability of the mids, on field leaders and coaches to do anything to stop the rot

[Sedat]

B
Roarke did the common things uncommonly well yet again. Really good performance.
Treloar was terrific in kick-starting us
Bont was in everything in the middle of the match and had one hand on the Norm.

A
Williams and Dale were uncharacteristically dreadful out of D50 with their basic skill execution early on.
Collective lack of defensive cover from our mids at stoppages. We completely fell apart in the middle during the 3rd qtr

[azabob]

B
Roarke did the common things uncommonly well yet again. Really good performance.
Treloar was terrific in kick-starting us
Bont was in everything in the middle of the match and had one hand on the Norm.

A
Williams and Dale were uncharacteristically dreadful out of D50 with their basic skill execution early on.
Collective lack of defensive cover from our mids at stoppages. We completely fell apart in the middle during the 3rd qtr

Melbourne shut down our three outlets in Dale, Williams and Daniel. Little to influence from them three really hurt. At stages it seemed we even tried JJ back there.
Dale unfortunately set the tone early, unsure on his ability to stand up when the whips are cracking early

[AshMac]

Bankers
- The second quarter and first half of the third
- Caleb Daniel
- roarke smiths goal

Anchors
- Wiliams errors due to nerves in the first quarter
- Watching a lost grand final for a whole quarter
- dropping our heads when they brought the head and fading away

[SonofScray]

Bankers

Marcus deserved to walk away from this game being hailed as one of the absolute greats. His performance when the heat was on was superb. The goals should have been fatal blows as others joined him in the effort. Wild to think that for how good he was this year, and how close to a Brownlow, Premiership and Norm Smith, he walks away with nothing. Brutal.

Roarke demonstrated the best characteristics of the club in his play. Didn’t get enough boys matching his effort in playing to strengths and taking their moments. He was pivotal in some really important areas. Kept us in it with his goal.

Adz was superb, especially once he got into the guts. Landed big shots. Filled us with belief. It is hard to fathom that the scores dried up so quickly after his awesome burst.

Anchors

Coaches - our inability to have a robust counter to plug that phenomenon of the ball flying out of the middle, down the guts and deep inside 50 has looked ugly for years. Whether it’s the way we ruck, or the attitude of the mids, or the tactics. It’s never been put to bed, just plugged up. Melbourne pulled the plug and it’s cost us a GF. Some credits earned in this campaign, but I need to see ongoing improvement. Hard gig with diminishing returns.

Wood - injured, looked out of sorts early though and got absolutely towelled up. For me, that’s a game that you reflect on in the next few days and opt out afterwards. Harsh, but he looked a spent force. Completely ineffective.

Defensive 50 turnovers - gifted them three early goals from uncharacteristic turnovers. Swallowed up by the final margin but they set us up for spending tickets working our way into the game. 19 points up from our best shots instead of at least 30. Simplistic view, but in a game where our best was proven to be good enough, and we didn’t get our best for long enough, those errors kill you.

Libba and Dunkley were well beaten (I think) needed more impact from them. Libba was working hard but it just didn’t seem to get going for him. Dunkley got bullied out of it quite a bit.


Finally:

Think we made a bad call with the backline. Could and should have played all of Cordy, Gardner and Keath.

[Mantis]

Bankers:

- Bont & Treloar - sparked us into gear in the 2nd qtr.
- Roarke - he's a limited player, but you know whet you're going to get from him. Solid performance from him.

Anchors:

- Forward group - pretty much non-existent. 4 inside 50 marks for the evening... 4!!! 2 were from the Bont, 1 was from JJ (which Bont would've marked) and the last from Cody in junk time. I'm not sure where Tim English is at as a player, but this version isn't what we need. Completely non-effective & timid performance. Schache did a a few nice things, but that's about what we expected as he was man-handled way too easily and Naughts & Cody just never got into it. Just couldn't get separation and bar the goals from the Skipper it all looked messy and hard work.

- Midfield group - battled back into the contest in the 2nd qtr, but when the whips were cracking it was like bees to a honey pot. Just no appetite to defend at all. All are rated as ''A'' graders, but is it the right mix of players?? Super disappointed with Macrae, just so stagnant at the stoppage and never put anytime into defending around the contest. I feel he thinks his worth to the team is about how many touches he can get when we need more from him.

- Defensive group - just lacked cohesion & poise. So many switch overs that didn't work which left for unwanted match-ups and it seemed we were always chasing our tail. Both the Bailey's were horrible early with poor handling errors, but improved as the game went on. The mix of players wasn't right... We've been questioning the Wood & Cordy roles all year and they weren't up to it when it mattered the most. Obviously got caught in a tidal wave late, but I don't think as a group they played anywhere near the level you'd want in such an important game. Going forward we need 3 talls in that group which leaves Wood without a spot.

[Ozza]

Bankers:

Bontempelli - Obviously has some amazing grand final moments, and a shame they probably get somewhat lost in history being in the heavy loss.
Treloar - kept fighting, kicked 3...look forward to seeing what he can produce next year if he has a full pre-season and season.
Roarke - really proud of his efforts

Anchors:

Williams/Dale - unfortunately seemed really spooked by the occasion early. Both fought on and Williams was ok for the remainder of the game.
English - doesn't compete hard enough in the ruck. A number of efforts that were below where they should have been,
Naughton - we needed so much more from him to be able to win. Rarely seemed our obvious target demanding the ball.

[SonofScray]

Bankers:

Bontempelli - Obviously has some amazing grand final moments, and a shame they probably get somewhat lost in history being in the heavy loss.
Treloar - kept fighting, kicked 3...look forward to seeing what he can produce next year if he has a full pre-season and season.
Roarke - really proud of his efforts

Anchors:

Williams/Dale - unfortunately seemed really spooked by the occasion early. Both fought on and Williams was ok for the remainder of the game.
English - doesn't compete hard enough in the ruck. A number of efforts that were below where they should have been,
Naughton - we needed so much more from him to be able to win. Rarely seemed our obvious target demanding the ball.

Just on Naughty, it looked like he was doing all the blue collar blocking, and decoy running for others.

I hated that. Give him the space and the ball.

[Mantis]

Just on Naughty, it looked like he was doing all the blue collar blocking, and decoy running for others.

I hated that. Give him the space and the ball.

I listened to a bit of the Monday’s mean test with David King & Whateley on my drive back from regional Victoria to Melbourne this afternoon and they mentioned in the 1st qtr we had 16 inside 50’s…. Not once was Naughton the target. Given we knew May had hamstring concerns and later learnt he has a considerable tear we should’ve cleared out some space and allowed Aaron to be the focus of our entries.

[FrediKanoute]

B's

1) The Bont- kicked 3 straight and led from the front. Did all he could to get us over the line;
2) Treloar - quiet 1st quarter, but gave us the spark we needed in the 2nd and ran riot
3) R Smith - couldn't fault the guy today. One of a few who can say he played well.

A's

1) Our middle tier players - Williams, Dale, Dunks, Hunter, English, JJ to name a few just seemed overawed by the event and made uncharacteristic errors;
2) Libba, The Bont, Dunks with a minute to go in the 3rd - shut it down. We are 5 points down. Lets end the quarter 5 points down and regroup for a massive tilt in the 4th!
3) Woody on Fritsch - poor match up and BF nailed him

[azabob]

I listened to a bit of the Monday’s mean test with David King & Whateley on my drive back from regional Victoria to Melbourne this afternoon and they mentioned in the 1st qtr we had 16 inside 50’s…. Not once was Naughton the target. Given we knew May had hamstring concerns and later learnt he has a considerable tear we should’ve cleared out some space and allowed Aaron to be the focus of our entries.

King made the same observation after the prelim and said we should make sure we change it up for the GF. I wonder if it was game plan driven or just they way it turned out?