Significant Injuries - Are we mentally fragile when they happen?

[westdog54]

The way the players went on with the game yesterday has been raised a couple of times in the wash up of Libba's ACL tear.

We didn't start well to begin with, but the wheels seemed to really fall off once Libba went of the ground.

I don't know if its correlation or causation, but what I do know is its not an isolated incident.

When Clay Smith did his second ACL against StKilda in 2015, we blew a 55 point lead.

When Jack Redpath and Mitch Wallis went down against StKilda in 2016 we had a scoreless final quarter. In an indoor stadium.

If it happens once you can dismiss it, twice you can cautiously dismiss it. Three times in four seasons? That's an emerging pattern.

Are we mentally fragile if we cop a major injury in-game? Why have we capitulated so badly on all three occasions?

There are no right or wrong answers here, folks, let the discussion begin.

[Sedat]

Mentioned this elsewhere but our actual best period of the game was the 10-15 minutes immediately after Libba's injury, where we piled on 3 unanswered goals to close out the 1st qtr. I can't mount a case that Libba's injury was the cause of our complete and utter lack of defensive pressure on the GWS mids, nor was it an excuse for our piss-poor delivery into our F50. We actually won the clearance stat easily yesterday, which is the one great area of strength for Libba in any event.

If you look at the marks differential and the uncontested possession differential from yesterday, you can only deduce that it was a lack of acceptable workrate that was the primary reason for yesterday's pitiful performance. Also losing the tackle count when you lose a game by 13 goals is another clear indication of lack of workrate if you needed any further convincing.

[bornadog]

Mentioned this elsewhere but our actual best period of the game was the 10-15 minutes immediately after Libba's injury,

A counter to that argument, maybe the players learnt about his injury at 1/4 time and it affected them psychologically.

[Ozza]

You could see in the first 10 minutes of the game - when Libba was out there - that we weren't set up, equipped or adequately prepared to handle what GWS were going to throw at us. Libba and Crozier's injuries may have contributed to how far we got beaten by - but I don't see how we can link the performance too strongly to Libba's injury.

[Eastdog]

You could see in the first 10 minutes of the game - when Libba was out there - that we weren't set up, equipped or adequately prepared to handle what GWS were going to throw at us. Libba and Crozier's injuries may have contributed to how far we got beaten by - but I don't see how we can link the performance too strongly to Libba's injury.

Sure it hurts those injuries but if anything you would think we would try and show some fight after it happened. For 5-10 mins we did but after that no fight whatsoever.

[Go_Dogs]

I'd like nothing more than to put the performance on the injury and write it off and go into next week confident we won't see that level of effort again, but I don't think it's right to let the coaching staff and playing group off.

[Topdog]

Nope that effort was nothing to do with mental frailty. It was a terrible effort in the first 10 minutes and continued on.

The clay Smith one definitely shook the players up but that was understandable.

[boydogs]

Losing a player for the game affects rotations, so it's not really a surprise that a team is more prone to losing when someone goes down