Bankers and Anchors: R1, 2024 vs Melbourne Demons

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

This is the Round 1, 2024 edition of the weekly Bankers and Anchors thread. Once today's 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

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Bankers

1. JJ- thought his desire to run and work hard stood out
2. Jamarra's marking was a real highlight
3. Lachy Bramble - great workrate too.

Anchors

1. McNeil, Buku and VDM - do not expect you to suddenly turn into top 5 players during the off season, but if you're not improving on your deficiencies by now, then perhaps its time for them to go back and have to re-prove themselves, not for 1 or two weeks, but for several weeks and only until they've re-won the position.. I just have not seen anything from any of these beyond those initial 'potential' qualities we saw when they got their debut's.. It's just flashes of nice things, and then failure to deliver on their bread and butter.

2. Jamarra's goalkicking. Was really expecting him to show goal-kicking improvement in this first game especially.

3. AFL scheduling. Can someone please explain to me the point about 'Opening Round?'? I thought it was to take advantage of the NRL being away in Las Vegas? But they got if that's the case, the AFL got the timing wrong by a week .There was LOADS and LOADS of League on TV last weekend, and sweet P1ss all football, except for 4 teams.... You could see this week it was a significant advantage for a team who played last week to play against a team who hadn't.
Absolutely dumb from the AFL.

[Scorlibo]

Bankers

Johannisen & Bramble - both showed plenty of composure and drive off half back, impressive.

The Bont - another brilliant game. Even when getting caught HTB he looked a class above.

Caleb - could be forgiven for melting into the background in the sub role, but came on and involved himself in everything, showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that his non-selection was a huge error.

Anchors

Team Defence - was looking forward to seeing improvement in this area after some positive signs in our praccy matches against Hawthorn. Unfortunately our pressure was two or three notches below Melbourne's, and our defensive line being our weakest can't handle clean ball coming in.

Fringe players - biggest takeaway for me was that none of these guys except Bramble performed. Some had redeeming qualities to their game eg. Gallagher's goal, he and Harmes laying a team high 5 tackles apiece. Khamis started the game well. Overall very disappointing given we knew it had to be the last 10 players selected to take us forward this year.

English and Lobb - Gawn was the most influential player on the ground for mine. English did some damage himself, but missed a couple of easy goals. You'd expect that together on a hot day they could have got the better of Gawn, notwithstanding that he's a gun.

[westbulldog]

Bankers
Liam Jones - didn't do much wrong imo.
Rhylee West - tenacious and never stopped trying.
Bontempelli - can't be everywhere all the time, needs support.

Anchors
Naughton - overpaid in this game and underperformed.
McNeill and Vandermeer - let us never see them again.
Coaching - another 5 goal run allowed.

[azabob]

Bankers
*Liam Jones has picked up from where he left off. He knows when to attack and when to defend. If we can put more ariel support around him he will only get better.

*JUH His second and third efforts in the middle part of the game were great to see. Shame his goal kicking let him down and he had very limited support.

*Bramble was the best of the new crew. After half time he settled and attacked the game. Great to see his composure after fumbling and kick his first goal.

Anchors
*Naughton signed a new deal over summer, started the game like a house on fire but gee whiz after that May owned him. Extremely disappointed he did nothing to try anything different to get himself into the game.

*Weightman had a couple of early opportunities to put scoreboard pressure on Melbourne and he did not. Honestly it was really disappointing, as that is his bread and butter. He needs to do better and be more consistent.

*Dale had another disappointing game, which follows on his 2023. I?m unsure what we do with him next. He isn?t taking the opposition on with his run and he isn?t nailing or taking those kicks to break the game open. He doesn?t defend well enough and for mine is close to being dropped.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Bankers
*Liam Jones has picked up from where he left off. He knows when to attack and when to defend. If we can put more ariel support around him he will only get better.

*JUH His second and third efforts in the middle part of the game were great to see. Shame his goal kicking let him down and he had very limited support.

*Bramble was the best of the new crew. After half time he settled and attacked the game. Great to see his composure after fumbling and kick his first goal.

Anchors
*Naughton signed a new deal over summer, started the game like a house on fire but gee whiz after that May owned him. Extremely disappointed he did nothing to try anything different to get himself into the game.

*Weightman had a couple of early opportunities to put scoreboard pressure on Melbourne and he did not. Honestly it was really disappointing, as that is his bread and butter. He needs to do better and be more consistent.

*Dale had another disappointing game, which follows on his 2023. I?m unsure what we do with him next. He isn?t taking the opposition on with his run and he isn?t nailing or taking those kicks to break the game open. He doesn?t defend well enough and for mine is close to being dropped.

Dale needs to be moved.

Swap him with Williams.

[Dry Rot]

B

West - great Hf game
JJ - good counter attacking, only spark back there
Jones - brick wall

A

Midfield - been overrated for years?
Karmis, o'Neil, VDM
Slow indirect ball movement

[bornadog]

*Dale had another disappointing game, which follows on his 2023. I?m unsure what we do with him next. He isn?t taking the opposition on with his run and he isn?t nailing or taking those kicks to break the game open. He doesn?t defend well enough and for mine is close to being dropped.

Although he picked up 23 disposals, I was disappointed in his game. I thought he was under done, despite Bevo saying only players cherry ripe to go would be included.

I will cut him some slack for this week

[bornadog]

Bankers

1. Loved watching JUH marking, one grab marks

2. Bramble seems like a good pickup. Hopefully he continues.

3. Bont's goal was a ripper

Anchors

1. Harmes - I was worried when we picked him up. He couldn't get into the Melbourne side most pf last year.

2. The bfumbles as mentioned by quite a few, but McNeil, honestly - so frustrating.

3. Naughton - was he even on the ground at times? One disposal till sometime in the 3rd quarter - not good enough

Plenty more anchors but I have run out of space

[Grantysghost]

Bankers

Marra. Now our best forward he has the craft. Just kick straight farken.

Bramble : great offensive play. Loved his game.

West. Intensity that put his team mates to shame.

Anchors :

McNeil : he's still a kid but he looks over awed under pressure.

Naughts : just put him back not a natural forward abd we would look so much more balanced.

Harmes : why. Slow, when we need pace. Worse than expected.

[Ozza]

Bankers:

Jones - you can bank on him to be strong in the air and give great effort always.
Bont - gave us a chance early.
JJ - Tried to break lines and took the responsibility to kick and be creative.

Anchors:

VDM and McNeil - enough said. They aren't up to it.

Naughton - Standard game for him against May. 6 possessions while May has 25 and 13 marks. I couldn't think any less of the way Naughton played today, and I have no idea why we sabotage our list management by playing him as a forward.

Selecting so many newbies - did it occur to anyone in the lead up that playing ALL of Sandars, Gallagher, Bramble, Coffield, Harmes may be too many new players and throw off the wider group. To start Caleb Daniel as a sub too.