Played poorly, kicked poorly, selected poorly......

[robbie67]

You know what I have noticed the most, the last 2 weeks? We can f****** not play re-active football. We have to hunt. We are f****** rubbish at being the hunted. This is what I mean by playing poorly. We went into our shell at crucial stages, and that was poor.

We obviously were not poor the whole night, but nothing much after the 20 minutes markof the second quarter was particuralrly good.

[Megan]

How the f*** did we win free kicks? I didn't think we got shit in that department.

Am I going to be hunted down and killed for suggesting that Fletch had a quiet night and maybe shouldn't have been there?

[nomolos]

You are never "due" a loss, no one ever goes out there and says shit we are winning to much better lose a game.

I think the idea of resting blokes for the sake of resting blokes against dud teams has merit. However Winderlich, Hurley, Heppell, and Carlisle not playing last week killed us this week. Also Fletcher to a lesser extent.

Addition of NLM was poor, would have preferred a Merrett or Kavanaugh in.
The non selection of Ryder was poor
Dempsey being out was no good too.

Tell me what NLM did wrong?

He got selected.

[dom_105]

Frustrating game to watch.

I remember thinking when Bartel tried to go long from a kick out and it came off the side of his boot that they had run out of options and were not going to work their way back into the game. Obviously they kicked a goal from that and then it all turned to shit. Bringing the ball out of the back line was painful to watch in the second half, and when they went the switch they always seemed to be one kick short when they got to the other side of the ground.

[tonysoprano]

Robbie - I thought our 3rd quarter was ok - just inaccurate.
Megan - Fletch was poor I thought.

[tonysoprano]

Frustrating game to watch.

I remember thinking when Bartel tried to go long from a kick out and it came off the side of his boot that they had run out of options and were not going to work their way back into the game. Obviously they kicked a goal from that and then it all turned to shit. Bringing the ball out of the back line was painful to watch in the second half, and when they went the switch they always seemed to be one kick short when they got to the other side of the ground.

Spot on Dom - I couldn't believe that moment - it was a shit kick that fell into their lap and got away with it.

[dom_105]

And if Hurley is going to keep leading to spots he can't kick goals from he may as well play back.

[ZeroEffect]

The thread topic says it all, but team selection hurt us the most. The combination of Ryder and Bellchambers is usually the second best ruck combo in the comp. I thought we would of jumped at the chance to expose West who is one of the worst No 1. rucks in the league and Blicavs who has only played 6 games. Instead Bellchambers was worked into the ground and Gumbleton was occasionally played out of position, allowing there tall defenders to roam forward. Lovett-Murray as sub probably should of been Colyer, we could of used his run and Melksham should be running around in the two's instead of Merrett who has been good. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[JockStraps]

Do you really think we played poorly Robbie? I thought we could have really been in it had we kicked goals that were there for the taking.

Lets not forget, they missed 3-4 sitters

[tonysoprano]

Hurley kicked a beautiful goal from beyond 50 late. At other times i wonder whether he was trying to kick to the top of the square or something? He should shoot if anywhere near the 50

[Gimps]

Do you really think we played poorly Robbie? I thought we could have really been in it had we kicked goals that were there for the taking.

This

And the umpiring. f*** me dead.

[DC2]

Due a loss, still a top 4 side.

Bizarre selections this week. Ryder has to play.

I agree with 2 of those points.

I said when team selection came around ryder had to play and it would be a mistake not selecting him. Gumby kicked 2 goals but he was very quiet outside of that. Plus he isnt a ruckman. Got to play paddy and belly ruck combo when its available...its money and has been money all season. Dont try and fix it if it aint broke.

And we are still a show for top 4, no doubt.

Dilemma: JD and Gumby. We are having difficulty playing just one of them let alone 2. JD has to play. The poachers will be coming for him next season and if hes not getting a game...he just may go. And if gumby is not getting a regular game and he is finally healthy he will obviously want to go where he will get a game.

[Sismis]

You know what I have noticed the most, the last 2 weeks? We can f****** not play re-active football. We have to hunt. We are f****** rubbish at being the hunted. This is what I mean by playing poorly. We went into our shell at crucial stages, and that was poor.

We obviously were not poor the whole night, but nothing much after the 20 minutes markof the second quarter was particuralrly good.

Spot on. We started questioning ourselves and pissing about going sideways instead of backing ourselves in. We simply did not believe enough that we could dominate them.

[robbie67]

Dilemma: JD and Gumby. We are having difficulty playing just one of them let alone 2. JD has to play. The poachers will be coming for him next season and if hes not getting a game...he just may go. And if gumby is not getting a regular game and he is finally healthy he will obviously want to go where he will get a game.

I am not basing this on tonight, I have been thinking about it for awhile. I think we need to look at packaging Gumby and Jetta, to a side like Freo, and trying to get something like Walters in return. We have to look at the situation without sentiment. Dont worry about JD. He is a long term franchise player, and we will wrap him in cotton wool this year, and rightly so.

[BenDoolan]

Some frustrating moments included;

* Quite a few rushed kicks out of defence (towards the boundary line) would annoyingly stay in play so that one of the their players would benefit possession (the same happened with a few spoils)

* A lot of our kicks (and some handballs) were smothered and the re-bound would fall into the lap of one of their teammates

* Missing dead set fecking sitters and then watching them ping goals from outside 50 or from sharp angles

The one big lesson from tonight (or any time we've played them in the past 6 years) is that you cannot afford to make many errors. They make you pay for every single one of them. They rarely make mistakes, and when they do, we need to capitalise - and we didn't.

[Crazyman]

I thought we were ok, but Geelong out pressured us after about midway through the 2nd qtr...as a result, players made some real bad mistakes and we went back to the bad old days of chipping it around instead of spotting up targets up the ground...missed far too many targets today...add to that our shitful kicking for goal...

[robrulz5]

One thing that really annoyed me was allowing their players to get goal side way too often at stoppages, or letting them be in dangerous positions without anyone going to to them. We let them play their uncontested style of footy and it cost us.

[Royza]

Kept shooting ourselves in the foot.

Howlett missed a set shot that would've put us 26 points up. Goes up the other end in classic style & they score.
Went into that possession in the back half crap that never works for us & we end up losing the lead at 1/2 time.
Defence looked disorganised for the last 10 mins from what I could see at ground level. All that hard work undone.

More inside 50s, but we just love to make it as difficult as possible & pass to the pocket near the boundary.
We will beat most teams just by weight of inside 50s, just not a geelong, etc.. without efficiency up there.

A lot of things didn't go our way. So many times a cats f***-up would bounce kindly straight back to them.

Some of our kick-ins would be aimed at a leading tall who would almost mark, & the spill would fall to a waiting 1 or 2 of their smalls with none of ours nearby.

Also noticed that their players would get up much quicker from dropping a high mark than ours.
They also seemed to always have a floating player running at pace at the back of most contests which helped them open up the corridor & counter far too easily.

Really missed the run of Demps & Stants.

[hop]

1 - Stupid, dumb-arse, selection not having Ryder in the side. Not the game to make a point.

2 - Bad kicking = Bad football.

3 - We look nervous with the ball. Perhaps it was the occasion - but the confidence wasn't apparent and they knew it.

4 - We were one runner short - Dempsey (and to a lesser degree Stanton) were a huge loss.

I don't think Hird and the Coaching Panel will lose too much sleep over this one. if it wasn't the loss we had to have -it maybe the loss that could very well define our season.

[paddyl90]

Not overly disappointed....more frustrating. But I still feel we matched them better than we have over the past few years. Even that win against them in 2011.

NEGATIVES
* Inaccurate kicking - obvious
* How easy did Geelong get it out of the defense? Frustrating. Stevie J was everywhere.
* Team selection - Fletch shouldn't have played. NLM as sub? Didn't work this time.
* Did what I worried about left the door open and couldn't get back.

POSITIVES
* The effort was even better than last week
* Keeping up that effort and beating teams we should over next few weeks than we are on the way to Top 4.
* That amazing 5-10min of the second quarter. Hibbos long bomb. I was left stunned after that passage of play. Then jinxed us.

Meh. Beat Sydney up there then will cancel it out for me. We're not gonna win every game. Just wanna win the rest with Sydney the other one I wouldn't be too upset if we lost. 10-2 or 9-3 is where I'd love to be.

Not good enough tonight. Moving on...