Bankers & Anchors: Rnd 4, 2025 vs Fremantle

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

This is the Round 4, 2025 edition of the weekly Bankers and Anchors thread. Once this evening's game against Fremantle has 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

[GVGjr]

Bump

[The bulldog tragician]

I’ve always liked this thread, where is everybody?

B. Darcy is just magnificent. He is so exciting to watch, and he never shirks the chance to tackle or smother. We need to make sure though not to resort to mindless bombs, which is where the poor form of Naughton and absences of Marra and Weightman really hurt us.
B. Coaching team. It looked like an ugly blowout was looming at half time. Kudos for steadying the ship.
B. Libba, our heartbeat.

A. I am finding it excruciating to watch Naughton at present. It is hard to watch someone become so bereft of confidence especially at his greatest asset contested marking.
A. The defence looked raggy today. imagine if Darcy could have the wide open forward spaces they so easily created in their F 50. Jones seemed to struggle.
A. Not getting enough from that bottom 6 or on the other hand getting burnt by their skill errors.

It’s not a B or A, just mulling over what the impact might be of games played in warm temperatures…we’ve had two very hot matches under the roof at Marvel, and commentators kept referencing the heat today too.

[ArsenalFC]

B - Credit for the fight back and if just JOD held onto that mark in the final 5mins, we could have ran home with that momentum.
B - Darcy the unicorn.
C - Naught - I don’t want to say it but put him behind the ball to build up some confidence. Can’t hurt our structures but it would’ve been handy if we have all forwards fit and available.

Free hit this week against the premiers, lets see how we go.

[merantau]

Bankers
Darcy, Darcy, Darcy

Libba - heart abd soul

Sanders - he is tracking well

Anchors

We butchered and they pounced

Naughton- he is so out of form

English - he HAS to be better.

[Rusty12]

Bankers:
1 - Darcy, just wow
2 - We didn't lie down, on the road, similar games in years gone by, we have had big losses. Good teams don't have big losses.
3 - Sanders ball use, especially when he is surrounded by butchers

Anchors:
1- Shape and structure (First half mostly), whether at contest, deep forward or packs. Too many numbers were committed to the wrong places. It fuled there run, making it look like we got out run.
2- Forward half ball use, just deplorable.
3 - Too many passengers, singling out our small forwards. How do you not get more easy ball, in the vacuum that is Darcy.

[Bornadog]

Bankers

1. Must be Darcy - he could be anything - I love watching him
2. Harmes - what a great goal snapped from the boundary on the run
3. Libba, Libba, Libba - he has taken on the capoatincy and is relishing it in the role.

Anchors

1. Second quarter - that was the difference in the end.
2. Jones - time to blood Buss - I can't see Jonesy going on after this year. He is a very good fullback, but does leak goals, and father time is catching up.
3. The ball coming out of our forward line with little pressure and going all the way down.

[SquirrelGrip]

Bankers

1. Darcy - can't wait to have Bont delivering to him out of the middle.
2. Sanders - his best first quarter for the club. The breakout game is not far away.
3. Harmes goal (although I didn't think he should have shepherded for Laith at the time)

Anchors

1. Naughty's not right. Give him time to get over whatever he needs to recover from.
2. Too many of our players still butcher their kicks. Baker, Harmes, Laith ... Turnovers killed us.
3. Our onfield leaders didn't put things in place to stop the run in the second quarter. We miss Duryea for this.

[Dry Rot]

Bankers

Darcy

Libba and Harmes

Davidson and Sanders

Anchors

Bottom 4–6 players simply are not up to AFL standard

Is the problem our delivery to Naughton or Naughton himself, or as usual, a bit of both? He came down close to clunking a lot of marks and maybe in the next few games will come good.

How many times did Freo and move the quick move the ball quickly forward finding two or three unguarded forwards near the goals? Why does this happen?

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Bankers

1. We didn't fold - as others have highlighted, that hasn't always been our strong suit, especially in Perth. I think this is a sign the group is aligned and in a good space belief wise.
2. Darcy - I didn't think he was as developed as he is showing. I rated him, but I must admit I didn't have him pegged as potentially being the premier key forward if not player in the entire competition be end of the year, but if he keeps this up, that's where he will land.
3. Lobb - His performances since moving down back have been super consistent. He really looks confident and knows his role. I am coming around to big Rory, slowly.. It takes a lot to erase all of the 'badwill' attached to his GWS days.

Anchors
1. Whatever we did in the 2nd quarter for about 10 minutes can just p1ss right off!!!
2. Naughty's first big dip in form since his debut. I think he'll be fine, but needs some love right now
3. The dumb turnovers in transition they're just killers for momentum, and just are impossible to plan for and mitigate. You simply have to have expectations in your game plan that 9.5/10 times the most elementary skills will be executed effectively.