Round 1 Autopsy - Dees vs Dogs

[DexterT]

Hi,

Didn't see an official autopsy thread. Pls delete or merge if there is one. I will also be posting this with Mongrel Punt.


The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I?m in a toxic relationship. The Western Bulldogs keep hurting me but I just can?t walk away.

They are my ride or die.


The Good

There were flashes of what the Dogs are capable of - quick ball movement, good decision making and giving the forwards a chance with clean delivery to the forward line.

A few debutants for the club played well and contributed ? Gallagher, Bramble and Sanders.

JJ showed flashes of his best, Rhylee West with some solid contributions, only if he could have taken that speccy!

Weightman was busy and was a great connector with the tall forwards.

JUH was a consistent option up forward, with sticky hands.


The Bad

The most obvious - goal kicking. Johnno?s got his work cut out. Normal reliable kicks such as Weightman and English missing gettable goals and JUH was still erratic in front of goals.

The skills were just not there to navigate through congestion quickly to give clean forward fifty entries, one too many handballs, fumbles and smothered kicks led to momentum changes and snowballed into the Dee?s forwards getting too many clean looks.

The three talls setup failed yet again to fire, with JUH the only one to give the Dees backline trouble.

The inability of the forwards to keep the ball inside forward 50 crippled the dogs aim of building enough pressure on the Dees backline to cause mistakes. When the ball hit the deck in the forward 50, the Dees easily took possession and set up another offensive thrust to a beleaguered Dogs defence.


The UGLY


Where to Start?


The (maybe) Million Dollar man in the middle got taught a lesson by Max Gawn. Tim English could have been affected by a big collision early in the game because after that, Gawn did what he wanted. Winning taps and clearances at will and being a huge pain in the backside for down the line kicks. English could be omitted for the next game for soreness and give the dogs a chance to look at a ruck tandem of Lobb and Sam Darcy.

Some bad skill errors from a ?senior? player like Lachy McNeil, who should and must be dropped after some unforgivable fumbles and stray kicks which lead directly to Melbourne scoring opportunities. Those were coach killers that destroyed momentum and would have lead to a Dogs supporters meltdown on Social Media.

The selection of two KPDs. There were plenty of pros and cons discussion about having Buku Khamis playing the third tall/interceptor role against Ben Brown. Buku started well but with fast break footy, sometimes Ben Brown was covered by a half back flanker. Seeing Richards competing with Brown in the first quarter made me want to throw the remote at the tv.

Too many times, all the defenders jumped at the high ball, with the smart small forwards of the Dees waiting for the crumb and easy goal.
The question is, should the Dogs persist? A costly turnover by Buku in the fourth quarter could have made their decision easier.

Naughton after an early goal and mark was a non factor. He didn?t do anything of significance until he was a part of scoring chain late in the game.

The pet peeve of Dogs supporters of the coaching panel from last year seems to still not have been rectified in anyway. The inability to stop a run of goals by opposition, puzzling selections and a lack of changing the gameplan to allow the Dogs to get back in the game.


To backseat coach, here are some obvious tweaks to the gameplan that could have made a difference.




James Harmes was brought in to fill in the void of having a tagger if needed. An opposition midfielder was out of control (Clayton Oliver) yet again but not even a whiff of a change in how to curb his influence.





Naughton was giving the Dogs nothing, perhaps swap him with Khamis? Bailey Dale was awful in defence with some careless possessions, move him to the forward line of even the wing. I mean as someone once said??DO SOMETHING!?





Subbing of Sanders. I hope that it was because Sanders couldn?t run out the game because if anyone needed to be subbed it was either McNeil or Vandermeer or even Lobb (who is in real danger of being dropped for Sam Darcy if English is good to go for the next round).




Changes for the next game against the Suns.




With O?Donnell entering concussion protocol, Khamis may keep his spot, King has Jones to deal with and Coffield should be able to handle Casboult.
Otherwise there?s always break in case of emergency Keith or Gardner.
McNeil and Vandermeer should be a direct swap with Bedendo (4 goals) and Daniel, Darcy for Lobb and Macrae for Dale.



If the Dogs lose to the Suns, the ?Fire the Coach? drums will be getting louder for Beveridge.

[Uninformed]

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Thanks for the great summary. Didn't see the game. Where did you rate Coffield's game?

(Compared to Billings?)

[DexterT]

I purposely didn't mention him having a good or bad game because I wasn't sure if he played the majority on van Rooyen. Because if he did, 3 goals was just too much of a cost to keep him in the side. As for Billings. Who the hell was playing on him? He was a prime candidate for tagging by Harmes.

[Prince Imperial]

Hi,

Didn't see an official autopsy thread. Pls delete or merge if there is one. I will also be posting this with Mongrel Punt.


The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I?m in a toxic relationship. The Western Bulldogs keep hurting me but I just can?t walk away.

They are my ride or die.


The Good

There were flashes of what the Dogs are capable of - quick ball movement, good decision making and giving the forwards a chance with clean delivery to the forward line.

A few debutants for the club played well and contributed ? Gallagher, Bramble and Sanders.

JJ showed flashes of his best, Rhylee West with some solid contributions, only if he could have taken that speccy!

Weightman was busy and was a great connector with the tall forwards.

JUH was a consistent option up forward, with sticky hands.


The Bad

The most obvious - goal kicking. Johnno?s got his work cut out. Normal reliable kicks such as Weightman and English missing gettable goals and JUH was still erratic in front of goals.

The skills were just not there to navigate through congestion quickly to give clean forward fifty entries, one too many handballs, fumbles and smothered kicks led to momentum changes and snowballed into the Dee?s forwards getting too many clean looks.

The three talls setup failed yet again to fire, with JUH the only one to give the Dees backline trouble.

The inability of the forwards to keep the ball inside forward 50 crippled the dogs aim of building enough pressure on the Dees backline to cause mistakes. When the ball hit the deck in the forward 50, the Dees easily took possession and set up another offensive thrust to a beleaguered Dogs defence.


The UGLY


Where to Start?


The (maybe) Million Dollar man in the middle got taught a lesson by Max Gawn. Tim English could have been affected by a big collision early in the game because after that, Gawn did what he wanted. Winning taps and clearances at will and being a huge pain in the backside for down the line kicks. English could be omitted for the next game for soreness and give the dogs a chance to look at a ruck tandem of Lobb and Sam Darcy.

Some bad skill errors from a ?senior? player like Lachy McNeil, who should and must be dropped after some unforgivable fumbles and stray kicks which lead directly to Melbourne scoring opportunities. Those were coach killers that destroyed momentum and would have lead to a Dogs supporters meltdown on Social Media.

The selection of two KPDs. There were plenty of pros and cons discussion about having Buku Khamis playing the third tall/interceptor role against Ben Brown. Buku started well but with fast break footy, sometimes Ben Brown was covered by a half back flanker. Seeing Richards competing with Brown in the first quarter made me want to throw the remote at the tv.

Too many times, all the defenders jumped at the high ball, with the smart small forwards of the Dees waiting for the crumb and easy goal.
The question is, should the Dogs persist? A costly turnover by Buku in the fourth quarter could have made their decision easier.

Naughton after an early goal and mark was a non factor. He didn?t do anything of significance until he was a part of scoring chain late in the game.

The pet peeve of Dogs supporters of the coaching panel from last year seems to still not have been rectified in anyway. The inability to stop a run of goals by opposition, puzzling selections and a lack of changing the gameplan to allow the Dogs to get back in the game.


To backseat coach, here are some obvious tweaks to the gameplan that could have made a difference.




James Harmes was brought in to fill in the void of having a tagger if needed. An opposition midfielder was out of control (Clayton Oliver) yet again but not even a whiff of a change in how to curb his influence.





Naughton was giving the Dogs nothing, perhaps swap him with Khamis? Bailey Dale was awful in defence with some careless possessions, move him to the forward line of even the wing. I mean as someone once said??DO SOMETHING!?





Subbing of Sanders. I hope that it was because Sanders couldn?t run out the game because if anyone needed to be subbed it was either McNeil or Vandermeer or even Lobb (who is in real danger of being dropped for Sam Darcy if English is good to go for the next round).




Changes for the next game against the Suns.




With O?Donnell entering concussion protocol, Khamis may keep his spot, King has Jones to deal with and Coffield should be able to handle Casboult.
Otherwise there?s always break in case of emergency Keith or Gardner.
McNeil and Vandermeer should be a direct swap with Bedendo (4 goals) and Daniel, Darcy for Lobb and Macrae for Dale.



If the Dogs lose to the Suns, the ?Fire the Coach? drums will be getting louder for Beveridge.

Gardiner is injured and unvailable. Keath played well in the VFL yesterday and is a certainty to come in for the GC tall forwards. Coffield or Khamis are too short to be able to handle Casboult.

[ledge]

I’m going to be unpopular here but I thought Sanders looked like he was just going through the motions, didn’t seem to have any urgency and strolled a lot.
Yes it was his first game I understand it all but I also understand him being subbed off.
That last kick of his was atrocious, he had time he had space but just slammed it down a Melbourne players throat.
MC Neill was horrid but he kept up the urgency and was in a lot.
Rather a player getting in the heat than strolling around.

[angelopetraglia]

I?m going to be unpopular here but I thought Sanders looked like he was just going through the motions, didn?t seem to have any urgency and strolled a lot.
Yes it was his first game I understand it all but I also understand him being subbed off.
That last kick of his was atrocious, he had time he had space but just slammed it down a Melbourne players throat.
MC Neill was horrid but he kept up the urgency and was in a lot.
Rather a player getting in the heat than strolling around.

The difference is of course is that McNeil is in his fouth season. He has played 30 games. He is 22. He had 14 touches, but 7 of those were clangers.

Sanders is playing his first game. He had 15 touches. Sanders had two clangers.

[jeemak]

I purposely didn't mention him having a good or bad game because I wasn't sure if he played the majority on van Rooyen. Because if he did, 3 goals was just too much of a cost to keep him in the side. As for Billings. Who the hell was playing on him? He was a prime candidate for tagging by Harmes.

Billings was a prime candidate for recruiting by the Dogs last year more than anything else.

Great example of an amazing footballer who has had body trouble, and everyone focusing on what he isn't over what he is.

[ledge]

The difference is of course is that McNeil is in his fouth season. He has played 30 games. He is 22. He had 14 touches, but 7 of those were clangers.

Sanders is playing his first game. He had 15 touches. Sanders had two clangers.

And that’s the difference right there one kept trying the other went into stroll mode . No doubt Sanders was probably mentally drained too.
4 years on a list to one game and 18 years old is why i would say McNeill stayed on.
Don’t get me wrong Sanders will be good and learnt a lot today of what he needs to do.
I expect O’Neill to be dropped and maybe Sanders too, but we had a few were horrid today so who knows.

[Dazza]

I’m going to be unpopular here but I thought Sanders looked like he was just going through the motions, didn’t seem to have any urgency and strolled a lot.
Yes it was his first game I understand it all but I also understand him being subbed off.
That last kick of his was atrocious, he had time he had space but just slammed it down a Melbourne players throat.
MC Neill was horrid but he kept up the urgency and was in a lot.
Rather a player getting in the heat than strolling around.

He wasn't great but I don't think subbing him was the right move with so many other worthy options on the field.

[Dazza]

Jj was good, Bramble looked the part, West great, Gallagher looks promising, JUH was mostly good other than the finishing.

I won't get into too many negatives but to lose the way we did was extremely deflating. We just keep losing to Melbourne in the same way. Really need to stop dropping our heads as a team. That should have been a 3-4 goal loss not a 7 goal demolition.

[bornadog]

My one disappointment with JJ is he didn't take any running bounces and get the ball moving faster. Melbourne were able to run back and defend and clog up our Forward 50.

Melbourne's defence today was way too good for us, so we need to refine the gameplan to over come similar tactics by other clubs.

[whythelongface]

My one disappointment with JJ is he didn't take any running bounces and get the ball moving faster. Melbourne were able to run back and defend and clog up our Forward 50.

Melbourne's defence today was way too good for us, so we need to refine the gameplan to over come similar tactics by other clubs.

Absolutely we do but surely we knew this before the game and we continually played into Melbourne?s hands. We started well but then fell into the old trap of banging it long playing into the hands of May, Lever and even Hore. Sometimes i think we are better off with a smaller forward line where players lead into space-this requires quick ball movement which we just don?t have.

Our tactics may work on occasions but against class defences we need to create space in the forward line to allow separation of our talls. Surely they would have worked on this in the preseason.

[jazzadogs]

I’m going to be unpopular here but I thought Sanders looked like he was just going through the motions, didn’t seem to have any urgency and strolled a lot.
Yes it was his first game I understand it all but I also understand him being subbed off.
That last kick of his was atrocious, he had time he had space but just slammed it down a Melbourne players throat.
MC Neill was horrid but he kept up the urgency and was in a lot.
Rather a player getting in the heat than strolling around.

That indecision was created by the players in front of him. Bont and Bramble were standing beside each other with no urgency to create an option...eventually they jogged 5m apart from each other and Sanders tried to split the indifference. His only other option was to hoof it long to where Gawn and May had set up.

There's no doubt in my mind that Sanders was subbed off because he was physically cooked, not because of any issues with the quality of his game. I saw there was an article online, Fox or Hun or something, about Dogs fans being annoyed that Sanders got subbed out. Cmon, seriously?

[jeemak]

That indecision was created by the players in front of him. Bont and Bramble were standing beside each other with no urgency to create an option...eventually they jogged 5m apart from each other and Sanders tried to split the indifference. His only other option was to hoof it long to where Gawn and May had set up.



I was filthy at Bont for staying narrow and not doing the hard running wide and longer to pull Pickett away. It was just a little glimpse of something that's been plaguing us for a while, and that's offensive running not being as hard as it should be. Our leader needed to be better in that instance.

[jazzadogs]

I was filthy at Bont for staying narrow and not doing the hard running wide and longer to pull Pickett away. It was just a little glimpse of something that's been plaguing us for a while, and that's offensive running not being as hard as it should be. Our leader needed to be better in that instance.

Yep. I was hard on Treloar for being lazy today, but I definitely saw some very laboured efforts from Bont in the second half too.

[Dazza]

Hmm I'm not sure Sanders was cooked. He's one of our better runners

[Ozza]

I can handle losing, but what I can't handle - is turning up to Melbourne in the exact same way we do every single time and expecting the result to be different.

Ruck - English was shown the blueprint to beating/competing with Gawn last week with the way Grundy positioned himself. Both English and coaches obviously ignored.

Mid - Every time we play Melbourne Oliver and Petracca run riot. Oh yes, we don't tag.

Forward - Every time we play Melbourne (or any time he has to play on one of the best) Naughton is a witches hat. Melbourne always trap us along the wings, you reckon Naughton could ever lead up or provided a contest? Geez we had a real chance last year with Sydney offering him $12m.

Defence - undersized. Made Brown look terrific. Buku tried to play tall and he is athletic - but he's 4-5 inches shorter than most tall forwards.

[Dazza]

On a positive Jamarras goal celebrations suggests he's staying.

[AshMac]

Agree w your suggested changes. If Dale is actually fit then leave him down back and he?ll be better for another run at it.

I?d like to see naughton moved back and Darcy brought into the forward line and Lobb put on a flight back to Perth.

If naughton doesn?t go back - which he won?t - then I want him up high in the centre square taking that mark that always eludes us 80-90m out from goal. Run a key defender out of the F50, bring him and keep him in the game for a full 4 quarters and control the tempo in the part of the ground I thought we largely lost the game yesterday

[Curly5]

For god's sake, bring Caleb and Macrae back asap.

[josie]

On a positive Jamarras goal celebrations suggests he's staying.

Also felt his misses were close ones. Cannot recall a bad goal spray (out on full) which he did a lot last year. Hoping the accuracy improvement continues and more of those points are converted to goals.

[EasternWest]

This is a great thread Dexter.

[FrediKanoute]

I?m going to be unpopular here but I thought Sanders looked like he was just going through the motions, didn?t seem to have any urgency and strolled a lot.
Yes it was his first game I understand it all but I also understand him being subbed off.
That last kick of his was atrocious, he had time he had space but just slammed it down a Melbourne players throat.
MC Neill was horrid but he kept up the urgency and was in a lot.
Rather a player getting in the heat than strolling around.

I don't thnk he lacked urgency, I think he was surprised byt he speed and intensity. For a guy who has a high kick to handball ratio, his most effective stat's yesterday were handballs, because he struggled to find the space to kick.

Subbing him was the right decision! He will be a star, but needs time to adjust.

[jazzadogs]

Also felt his misses were close ones. Cannot recall a bad goal spray (out on full) which he did a lot last year. Hoping the accuracy improvement continues and more of those points are converted to goals.

He comfortably made the distance from a 55m set shot as well, which was an improvement (even though he missed to the right).

[Can Bar]

Turning point for me was English collision, we were a different team from that point. Gawn took over, he was allowed to control the ball drop & distributed the ball with ease. Grundy didn't allow that last week. The other concerning thing for me was our willingness to guard a piece of real estate and not adjust to prevent easy hit up kicks in general play. If that's our new defensive style. Expect to have record uncontested marks against us. Thought Melbourne were able to chip the ball around with ease. No pressure on the kicker or receiver. Would rather see a ball kicked along the ground into our F50 than the high balls we delivered into F50. Oliver pushed back and mopped up everything. we looked slow

[GVGjr]

Turning point for me was English collision, we were a different team from that point. Gawn took over, he was allowed to control the ball drop & distributed the ball with ease. Grundy didn't allow that last week. The other concerning thing for me was our willingness to guard a piece of real estate and not adjust to prevent easy hit up kicks in general play. If that's our new defensive style. Expect to have record uncontested marks against us. Thought Melbourne were able to chip the ball around with ease. No pressure on the kicker or receiver. Would rather see a ball kicked along the ground into our F50 than the high balls we delivered into F50. Oliver pushed back and mopped up everything. we looked slow

Nice pick ups. Noticed the guarding territory aspect rather than going more to the contest and ball at times which I haven't seen at training.