2024 Round 4, EFC v Port Adelaide

[MH_Bomber]

To be dropped:

Parish, Cox, Menzie

To be moved from backline: Martin

That was rubbish. We will slaughtered next Friday.

Those on big contracts better start earning their dough.

[Windy Hille]

Well… there are some positives from my perspective. The pressure and intensity in the first quarter was quantum. Absolutely fetched. Zachy was a beast. He tackled and gathered possessions with gusto. It was a pity the hard work (by the whole team) wasn’t reflective on the scoreboard.

Apart from a bad 5 minute patch, the second quarter was equally hard working.

The let down was the constant centre clearance demolition. Drapesy was totally out of kilter, and Soldo had plenty of influence to the Port middies - JHF and Ringa. They blitzed us there.

Great effort by Big Ben McKay despite a torrent of i50 entries by Port. Doc Martin was busy again… mopping up plenty of footy. Good to see Doc Jones moving freely again and getting his hands on the pill. Kicked a lovely savaloy from the boundary too. Not an easy gif to play on Alir Alir, but I thought he won the contest on the night - despite our lack of forward thrusts.

Gresho made some honey from limited nectar. He is a very good opportunist.

I’m not sold on Poppy Cox in defence. He was flung around easily by Finlayson all night. Play him on the wing. Same for Doc Martin. He’s too good an attacking player to be wasted in the D50. We need more thrust forward of centre.

Flick the switch!

[nudder12]

Well… there are some positives from my perspective. The pressure and intensity in the first quarter was quantum. Absolutely fetched. Zachy was a beast. He tackled and gathered possessions with gusto. It was a pity the hard work (by the whole team) wasn’t reflective on the scoreboard.

Apart from a bad 5 minute patch, the second quarter was equally hard working.

The let down was the constant centre clearance demolition. Drapesy was totally out of kilter, and Soldo had plenty of influence to the Port middies - JHF and Ringa. They blitzed us there.

Great effort by Big Ben McKay despite a torrent of i50 entries by Port. Doc Martin was busy again… mopping up plenty of footy. Good to see Doc Jones moving freely again and getting his hands on the pill. Kicked a lovely savaloy from the boundary too. Not an easy gif to play on Alir Alir, but I thought he won the contest on the night - despite our lack of forward thrusts.

Gresho made some honey from limited nectar. He is a very good opportunist.

I’m not sold on Poppy Cox in defence. He was flung around easily by Finlayson all night. Play him on the wing. Same for Doc Martin. He’s too good an attacking player to be wasted in the D50. We need more thrust forward of centre.

Flick the switch!

1st quarter pressure didn't show on the scoreboard - because....having 30 blokes in your F50 actually makes it harder to score.

Absolutely smashed out of the centre. Drapes and Goldy hopeless. And Brad Scott hopeless too - did almost nothing to stop it.
We "won" hitouts, but barely any went to advantage. Draper especially just slapped it any-old-where. He needs to add a lot more to his game than "excitement".

Martin in defence is a bust. It doesn't take much talent at AFL level to be a "mop up guy". He's wasted there.

For wingers, we have Duursma, Durham, Martin, Tsatas, and Roberts is a real prospect. Cox isn't ahead of any of them in that position. If he can't play defence he needs to play VFL.

[s'dreams]

Why blame Cox?

He has played 38 games (a handful of them as sub) and is in a different position each week.

It is a soft and sad option to pick on Cox as the reason we lost.

Sure we can drop him, trade him out at the end of the year and then watch him become a star in another club.

Radio commentators (Ling, Franco) identified 5 main culprits last night.

1. 2. and 3. Parish, Stringer and McGrath were not only poor, they provided no leadership and made really dumb decisions that were not befitting people on big contracts and in leadership positions.

Parish had 21 possessions and 1 tackle for a total of 54m gained at 60% accuracy. In contrast, Merrett had 36 possessions and 5 tackles for a total of 721m gained at 55% accuracy.

Stringer had 9 possessions and 1 tackle - most in the first quarter. He then disappeared.

McGrath had 16 possessions, though he had minimal impact. IMO he should have been put on a run-with role on Horne-Francis who cut us up in the middle.

4. Draper and Goldman. Sometimes this works, last night it didn't. Draper had 8 possessions at 25% efficiency. Goldstein had 8 possessions at 87% efficiency. These two got pantsied by Solodo for god's sake. He dominated the center clearances. Especially in the second half. It would have been better to take draper off and leave Goldy rucking the whole game.

5. Gameplan. We kicked high into our forward 50, even though Port has the premium tall defense. Mongrel kicks into the forward 50 and letting our smalls get the ball would have been a better approach.

No-one stood Rozee for much of the game. he cut us up. JHF's opponent was ineffectual.

Over use of handball. They had 117 handballs to our 190. And many of our handballs were in a panic to just get rid of the ball to avoid getting caught.

Oh... and Laverde was likely playing with a mild concussion after Rioli got him in the head in Q2. He may not be available next week.

Finally - it is sad when a guy I thought should have hung his boots up 2 years ago, wound up being one of our best.

[F111]

Q1 we weren't too bad. We should've been even better. Menzie hit the post from an easy set shot. Hobbs tended to turn the ball over twice as often as not.
Our Q1 F50 time was very good, but we allowed too many easy exits throughout the whole game.
Generally, we belted the ball forward without a real target, with height, far too often.
We missed real targets far too often.
We fumbled far too often...often at the end of too many handballs.

Rozee pantsed us for most of the game. Last year it was mostly Q4...and they won that after a panic clearance kick from us.
We do get shown up by strong, fast accelerating mids far too easily. Bring back Peverill!

McKay and Heppell were two players with more opportunity at the ball than most. They battled well.

[s'dreams]

Finlayson being investigated for a "homophobic slur" against one of our players.

[grassy1]

Finlayson being investigated for a "homophobic slur" against one of our players.

As long as we didn't run off to the Umps complaining about it,then investigate.

[nudder12]

Why blame Cox?

He has played 38 games (a handful of them as sub) and is in a different position each week.

It is a soft and sad option to pick on Cox as the reason we lost.

Sure we can drop him, trade him out at the end of the year and then watch him become a star in another club.

Radio commentators (Ling, Franco) identified 5 main culprits last night.

1. 2. and 3. Parish, Stringer and McGrath were not only poor, they provided no leadership and made really dumb decisions that were not befitting people on big contracts and in leadership positions.

Parish had 21 possessions and 1 tackle for a total of 54m gained at 60% accuracy. In contrast, Merrett had 36 possessions and 5 tackles for a total of 721m gained at 55% accuracy.

Stringer had 9 possessions and 1 tackle - most in the first quarter. He then disappeared.

McGrath had 16 possessions, though he had minimal impact. IMO he should have been put on a run-with role on Horne-Francis who cut us up in the middle.

4. Draper and Goldman. Sometimes this works, last night it didn't. Draper had 8 possessions at 25% efficiency. Goldstein had 8 possessions at 87% efficiency. These two got pantsied by Solodo for god's sake. He dominated the center clearances. Especially in the second half. It would have been better to take draper off and leave Goldy rucking the whole game.

5. Gameplan. We kicked high into our forward 50, even though Port has the premium tall defense. Mongrel kicks into the forward 50 and letting our smalls get the ball would have been a better approach.

No-one stood Rozee for much of the game. he cut us up. JHF's opponent was ineffectual.

Over use of handball. They had 117 handballs to our 190. And many of our handballs were in a panic to just get rid of the ball to avoid getting caught.

Oh... and Laverde was likely playing with a mild concussion after Rioli got him in the head in Q2. He may not be available next week.

Finally - it is sad when a guy I thought should have hung his boots up 2 years ago, wound up being one of our best.

What are you on about? No one blamed Cox as the reason we lost.
Not any more than you blamed Draper.

Parish had a poor game, but comparing him to Merrett makes no sense. And FYI Merrett's 55% efficiency is atrocious for him and his role.

You answered your own question about over-use of handball - many were in a panic.

From the 5 things you mentioned, the most important should be Gameplan - in my opinion.
It seems widely accepted that Scott wants us to be a "forward half" team - i.e. get it inside 50 and lock it in, repeat entries blah blah.
My view is that that's an obsolete gameplan from a couple of years ago.
Can't think of any other team going with that in 2024. The game has moved on. It's all about turnover and speed of ball movement now.
As a result, even when we have it inside 50 we can't score because it's far too congested, and, the opposition is drilled to turn it over and counter-attack - funnily enough that's where we get killed - on transition. That style might work for us if we had a couple of really talented small forwards that could create goals from nothing, but we don't.
Adding to that, we must be the worst team going around in terms of having forwards leading up to the kicker. (Because we'd rather have "chaos" F50 entries even though we don't have the small forwards capable of capitalising on that, and nor do we have smart forwards capable of finding space to lead into).
To me, that all smacks of a gameplan that ignores the current trends and the capabilities of the list.
If I was a nuffie fan I'd be calling for Scott to be replaced, but I'm willing to give him time to get his systems working. But he doesn't have long to do so because plenty of other teams/coaches have shown they can make an impact more quickly.

[MH_Bomber]

To be honest I blame Scott.

We are trying to implement a game plan that seems to be easy to breakdown. Once Port went man on man we didn’t trust our players to win a contest.

For a start can we get back to some footy basics.

• Forwards GET IN FRONT and lead.

• Tackle with intent

• Tag the opposition best clearance player

• First option is the best option

• Play players with pace and drop these dodderers Kelly, Parish.

• Try and WIN