West vs Hannan
McNeil vs JJ
Garcia vs Darcy/Bruce?
All provide a contest at ground level and in the case of McNeil and Garcia - pace!
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This start has the feeling of 1993......3 ganes in, 3 heavy losses bye bye coach.
Yes the players failed to execute, but the coaching group need to be accountable as well, How we went into a game without sufficient ground level coverage is beyond me. Lets give up truing to make JJ a forward - he isn't and has never been. Hannan in the 3 or so seasons he has been with us has been gifted game after game and does f*ck all to deserve it.
Our tendency to pick the wrong team too often is our achilles heel
There’s no fix apart from sticking at it. You don’t train all preseason then change after 1 match.
We have to assume the coaches know why things are happening, and they’re trying to get the players to change a few things in order to get it right.
I 100% agree with this. And with respect to FK I don't see the similarities between now and '93. At all.
I am worried about our leadership and I think we have gotten it wrong. If we had fixed it, then the 2021 GF would have been the last collapse of that nature...it felt like a weekly event this time last year and - whilst I was somewhat surprised at the collapse on Saturday night can anyone here really say they were shocked?
I actually got worried when Melbourne started announcing who was out (May, et al) because if there is one thing the team in RWB do NOT need it's even the HINT of a thought that they might be able to take their foot off the pedal. It honestly feels like our group has the opposite of the 'Anytime, Anywhere' type mentality that great sides (in world sport, not just Oz sport) seem to bring to a contest...they are the Ron Clarke of Australian footy (setting record after record in between the major events) and could break a scoring record at a game in Kalamazoo but stick us on prime time vs a contender, well...much like Ron in the Olympic games you can mark us down for a DNF.
Please re read what I posted. I said that my main criticism is how Bevo and the club let the problems of throughout 17 fester and that I think it impacted us for a few years. We were on a roll and had a gap year and losing that momentum hurt us.
I don't think I can make my thoughts on Bevo any clearer given that I'm firmly in the supportive camp.
At times I have absolutely seen some faults in him along his journey with us and I think it's okay to add them to the discussions.
For the record in my opinion we didn't grasp our chances in 21 and could have won it.
These comments make a lot of sense. I would add the likes of Maclean to your possible ins. To play talls up forward in Marra
Lobb and Darcy and then add Hannan at the expense of West, Garcia or Maclean was nonsensical. Without Jones in defence we are very vulnerable to have Keath and Bruce playing as key defenders. Apart from English Naughton and Bontempelli our emphasis on taller players shows an unbalanced team selection.
I liked what I saw of McNeil last year, except for some of his goal kicking. His fwd pressure is good and he makes an effort. Its a shame we don't give him a string of games to play out. If his kicking was better and accurate he would be a start up as a small fwd in our team
I don't think the issue and/or solution is in recruiting. To me we have a very talented and capable list. The comparison that illustrates this the most after Sunday was the Saints. We have a far better list profile than the Saints even without their horror list of injuries. And, though the Dockers are no Melbourne, the Saints win had great merit and was very surprising. The elements that contributed to their improvement seemed to be game plan, discipline and fitness. Their game plan seemed to be what our coaches have been saying that we are concentrating on over the pre-season. Better team defence, transition and attacking method. To me, that is the fix. The problem is we couldn't implement what we have been training to do on Saturday. The solution is to make sure we do next week and every week thereafter.
With a couple of days distance and having processed my extreme irritation at the loss, I think this is right. The psychological wilting isn't the problem, it's the symptom of the problem; it's just what our guys do when they don't have faith in the game plan. It's irritating in the extreme because we have seen it so often before and it seems like there's no progress.
But also - any team that didn't yet know their new game plan would look like exactly we did on Saturday - a confused rabble. Why run hard when you don't know what the output of the running will be? How can you trust your teammates when you don't know where they'll be because they are also still learning the new gameplan?
I think the 'fix' is, stick with the new system, as much as I hate to say it. It might take a month to get right and it's a hard road back from there, and I still have concerns about the balance of our list, but I'm less despairing than I was on Sunday morning.
Terrific assessment and perspective re: solution.
The issue for me is, they won’t. We won’t see that, because the pattern of behaviour consistently tells us that this group will wilt.I can’t trust that they’ll fight tooth and nail for the best outcome and I can’t trust that the coach has set them up for success, because he hasn’t been able to address this pattern of behaviour over an Olympiad.