3 things learned from Rd 4 vs Geelong 2024

[BornInDroopSt'54]

Ryley Sanders is ready to improve our side.

[BornInDroopSt'54]

Moreover, Sanders and West have similar builds, strong short legs and big hips, great for balance and changing direction a la Leigh Matthews and good for breaking and landing tackles and negotiating traffic.

[BornInDroopSt'54]

Buku too will improve us now.
Backed his judgement against the best marking forward line and won with Liam.

[BornInDroopSt'54]

I'd use Buku as a swing man, great goal kicker too but we won't.

[BornInDroopSt'54]

Naughton was ok but can do a lot better.

[Rocket Science]

Naughton's such a fearsome athlete but after seven years in the system might still well be the most agricultural footballer in the comp.

Unless he's taught better forward craft and prepared to work smarter not harder to evolve his game we're basically looking at the finished product which makes me worry we're overpaying for a decoy forward with one trick who's too easily curbed.

We need more impact, more regularly beyond laying the odd tackle.

[mighty_west]

1. Hopefully Liam Jones has another 6 years in him like Lobb.

2. Too many passengers, our depth is supposed to be good now, but is it really? Do we get enough out of our bottom 6? and if not, do the next best 6 knocking the door down make that difference?

3. Weightman and West are good small forwards, but we still need a sneaky crumbing type and we have one developing, i've been against playing Charlie until he's really ready and banging the door down like Darcy did, like Garcia is and like Lobb is doing but perhaps it's time to unleash the little beast and give us a spark up forward.

[Critter]

1. I can't help but feel we contributed to this loss at team selection. Cameron roamed free, up hill and down dale, while his nominal opponent stayed back to play the interceptor role. When the opposition has a gun key forward such as Cameron, we need to respect his ability and assign a defender to stand him. JOD should have been selected with the brief to run with Cameron all day and negate him as best he could.

Buku is an interceptor. His ground skills and tackling skills are very shaky, particularly the latter. That telling free kick he gave away demonstrates this. He's a third-tall defender, no more.

Better yet, why not play Naughton where he belongs? At CHB. Leave JUH as the main lead-up forward and have a mix of Darcy, English & Lobb share the ruck and deep forward role. (It would have been nice to have Lobb to relieve Tim when Stanley once again took him to school and had the Cats midfielders exiting from the front of the centre bounce.)

2. Our entry into the forward line isn't improving. Too many long, loopy kicks to clusters of players. We now have a kicking coach, how about we get a forward coach who understands leading patterns and forward structure. Let's train leading patterns, creating space, feinting and kicking hard and low to dangerous positions. How about we aim to kick 3 or 4 four straight forward simple goals per game.

3. A defence strategy that includes abandoning your structure to allow defenders to push up deep, regardless of the positioning of their opponent, is fraught with risk. If there is a turnover, the opposition forwards have a clear path to goal. And if one of them is Gryan Miers you will pay. We did.

[AshMac]

Agree with your first 2 points but not the 3rd - Collingwood still haven't shut up about Wayne Harmes 45 years ago and Anthony Rocca in 2002, nor Richmond about Tom Lynch review against Brisbane a couple of years ago.

It was sobering to once again see us get absolute maximum output from our top end players but still always look off the pace last night against a methodical, professional, much more even outfit. I do think we are closing the gap against the very best though, and have made strides in changing our game plan both when we have the ball and when we don't - we lose that game by 5+ goals in 2022-2023. We are still prone to hack kicking it out of a stoppage - our clearance numbers are skewed because they are generally dirty clearances that the best teams structure up behind the ball to intercept, whereas the opposition get very clean and dangerous looks from their clearances against us (no better example that 2021 GF, but insert about a dozen games since then).

We are definitely growing our intercept marking game - there is a shift. But we are still behind the likes of Geelong and Melbourne who have a very well-established and robust defensive intercept game.

I suspect we are itching to get the likes of JOD and Freijah into the senior team as soon as they are bashing the door down. Ditto Arty and Clarke in the front half.

Which point are you arguing? Doesn?t read the Stengle mark

[AshMac]

Sam Darcy is ready to improve our side.
Rhylee West is ready to improve our side.
Harvey Gallagher is ready to improve our side.

I cannot wait for the game where westy puts a show on for all 4 quarters. It?s coming - he is so smart.

Loved the note about his brother Levi looking like a good player for his age. The idea of 2 west boys mirroring the Daicos boys is an exciting prospect - albeit it entirely speculative at this stage

[Jeanette54]

Kingy consistently on Fox Footy says "don't be beaten by what you know". Well Jeremy Cameron was instrumental in our defeat, which was discussed ad-nauseum before the game. And yet we just allowed him to run riot. There didn't seem to be a plan for him, or a suitable selected opponent.

So often we seem to be hamstrung by selection process and a lack of forethought.

Also we need a defensive forward coach, someone to teach forwards that it is their responsibility to stop the opposition spring boarding attacks from their defensive 50. Just as a midfielder must learn to run both ways, so do our forwards.

[1eyedog]

1. Hopefully Liam Jones has another 6 years in him like Lobb.

2. Too many passengers, our depth is supposed to be good now, but is it really? Do we get enough out of our bottom 6? and if not, do the next best 6 knocking the door down make that difference?

3. Weightman and West are good small forwards, but we still need a sneaky crumbing type and we have one developing, i've been against playing Charlie until he's really ready and banging the door down like Darcy did, like Garcia is and like Lobb is doing but perhaps it's time to unleash the little beast and give us a spark up forward.

Where is the double like button.

[1eyedog]

I kinda maybe sorta think that Naughton is a better back than forward. Kinda. Well at least against a top 6 team. When we are being flat track bulies he should play forward but against decent opposition he needs to go back.

[Grantysghost]

I kinda maybe sorta think that Naughton is a better back than forward. Kinda. Well at least against a top 6 team. When we are being flat track bulies he should play forward but against decent opposition he needs to go back.

You've always been an astute poster 1ED.

[AshMac]

I kinda maybe sorta think that Naughton is a better back than forward. Kinda. Well at least against a top 6 team. When we are being flat track bulies he should play forward but against decent opposition he needs to go back.

This is lunacy! We have no one else on our list that can play as a tall forward.