Bankers & Anchors: Rnd 18, 2023 vs Sydney

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

This is the Round 18, 2023 edition of the weekly Bankers and Anchors thread. Once this evening's game against Sydney 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

First quarter - lead should’ve been bigger though
Bont
West

A

Duryea & Keath need to retire
McNeil needs to go
JOD injury
Umpire cheating

[josie]

B
Bont tried his guts out
Naughts tries his guts out
Richard not only tried his guts out he took the game on-bravo young lad

A
Blind, dumb kicks - ok in wet weather maybe but not tonight (Treloar, English, Williams)
Stupid football - VDM, Dale, Treloar (worst game he has played for us)
Umps - a few especially in last quarter and that free against Gardner in first half - sheesh

[westbulldog]

Bankers
Naughton, effort every time he went near it.
Richards, continued his good form.
Libba, gave his all, 7 tackles and 11 clearances.

Anchors
Umpiring , noticeably inconsistent.
Duryea, Keith, McNeill
Tactics, SCG has no wings, go down the middle, not sideways.

[lemmon]

Bankers

Naughton - he's right back into form, excellent performance

Poulter - smooth mover and is composed with the footy, lot to build on

Laith - controversial but I thought it was the best he's looked at AFL level. Started to use that speed as a weapon


Anchors:

Gardner and Keath might be the worst defensive double act in footy right now. Keath spends most of his time getting sucked up to the contest and lost out the back while Gardner does a lot of yelling and pointing while his direct opponent marks the ball

Garcia and McNeil really need to bring more pressure to that front half. Both lack composure going inside 50, they need to make up for it with relentless pressure. Think we're paying a price for trying to shoe-horn two junior mids into specialist small forward positions

Duryea - you just can't drop that chest mark in the last

[azabob]

Bankers

Naughton - he's right back into form, excellent performance

Poulter - smooth mover and is composed with the footy, lot to build on

Laith - controversial but I thought it was the best he's looked at AFL level. Started to use that speed as a weapon


Anchors:

Gardner and Keath might be the worst defensive double act in footy right now. Keath spends most of his time getting sucked up to the contest and lost out the back while Gardner does a lot of yelling and pointing while his direct opponent marks the ball

Garcia and McNeil really need to bring more pressure to that front half. Both lack composure going inside 50, they need to make up for it with relentless pressure. Think we're paying a price for trying to shoe-horn two junior mids into specialist small forward positions

Duryea - you just can't drop that chest mark in the last

Nice observation on VDM. I think once he understands how much of a weapon his pace can be he will take the game on more and more.

I think you are a bit harsh on Garcia considering, he was more involved than McNeil and unfortunately my man Anthony Scott.

[Mantis]

Bankers:

Naughton - had presence on the ground & in the air and converted reasonably well.. his kicking action doesn't lend itself to kicking goals from outside 40m, but looked safe in close.

English - dominant performance as we expected and I'm thinking he would've been more proficient if he didn't have to shoulder the load in the 2nd half.

Bont - did all he could to get us over the line and bar 2 ordinary kicks in the last qtr he drove us forward all night... he was immense.

Anchors:

Jamarra - after looking like he was becoming ''the man'' up forward last night was a big step back... didn't compete in the air strongly when 1 on 1 and lacked energy... he did keep presenting as referenced by a few marks late in the piece, but with Lobb out of the team and Darcy off injured we needed more from him.

MC - the lack of respect given to Gulden was embarrassing.. I know we don't like to run with players, but he was the ONLY Sydney mid who looked likely to hurt us and we let him run around by himself.. I'm over this philosophy!

Defensive transition - we've been working all pre-season on defending the ground better said Bevo, well it's no better than it was.. teams run through the middle of the ground against us at will when the going gets tough and it sucks.

[SonofScray]

I was playing ice hockey last night and had the game on the bench and in the rooms, so my perception will be warped.

B

English, seemed to be driving a lot of our positive play out of the contest.
Bont. Waste of a champion’s game, though disposal efficiency looks bad on paper.
JUH . Quiet game, but sounded like when his time came, he kicked true.

A

Club leadership, coach and football department. They are failing us.

[EasternWest]

Laith - controversial but I thought it was the best he's looked at AFL level. Started to use that speed as a weapon.


Nice observation on VDM. I think once he understands how much of a weapon his pace can be he will take the game on more and more.

Insanity

[azabob]

Insanity

That is exactly the same word that came to mind when you said you watched the second half this morning!

[EasternWest]

That is exactly the same word that came to mind when you said you watched the second half this morning!

Only because I only watched to halftime last night and didn't know the result.

We do so much good work and undo it with so much shit work. It's infuriating.

[bulldogtragic]

Only because I only watched to halftime last night and didn't know the result.

We do so much good work and undo it with so much shit work. It's infuriating.

Nah. A couple more Lobb trades with our first rounders this year and we are golden. A three peat beckons.