Are we soft?

[Dry Rot]

Just saw Hawks Brown sort out Kruezer on Ch 10. Immediately heaps of Blues came in to fly the flag.

Go back to last week. Similarly, Aker gets taken out. Our players do nothing.

Are we just soft?

[hujsh]

Well are you talking physically or mentally? Even though we have bulked up a case could be made for both

[Dry Rot]

Well are you talking physically or mentally? Even though we have bulked up a case could be made for both

Agreed.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Physically we're improving (at last), but it's too hard to call that this early in the year. I would assume we still need far more work, though. Few opportunities to really hit players/packs hard on Friday Night and we took it pretty lightly. Whether that's because it's the NAB Cup, I don't know.

Mentally though this side is very, very soft. We've seen that for quite a few years. Whenever pressure is applied we crumble every time. The best sides apply this sort of pressure and thus have our number every time. Geelong murdered us later in the year, as did The Crows & Saints early on. Sydney & The Kangaroos too. Not too sure how a coaching panel can rectify this, whether it's something that can be improved or whether it's how the players individually are. Either way, we're very poor in this area. We don't respond to any sort of pressure; be it physically on the ground, expectation coming from the media/supporters or returning from interstate games. We fail miserably in those areas and until we sort this out, we'll probably always be mentally soft.

It's easy to put a seriously negative spin this early on after getting belted in a meaningless match, but I think the club's kidding themselves if they have nothing to worry about. Changes have to be drastically made and that should have been evident from the outset of 2008. We've seen our first hiccup two weeks in. They've got a while to fix it - let's see what they do.

[MrMahatma]

Absolutely, I think we're weak as P155... even when the hawks were full of kids 3 years ago they'd still stick up for each other. Blues are all kids now, and they stick up for each other. We get pushed around and intimidated all the time.

Williams got hit last year and no one did anything, and I'm pretty sure there were a couple of other incidents with Aker last year where we should've flown the flag, but didn't.

[Go_Dogs]

Mentally I think we're incredibly fragile.

[wimberga]

This may be coming from left field but could this be as a result of the coaches? for example, has Eade had enough of playes not keeping focused on the game, and therefore making sure they keep there eye on the ball and not the man?

I know its pretty ridiculous but thought i would throw it out there. Against the Bombers, Mcdougall was roughing up some of there Attackers and was immediately dragged.

[Dry Rot]

Mentally I think we're incredibly fragile.

Interesting observation nb "we're".

Here we're talking about the group as a whole, and you're probably correct, rather than a particular player.

How did this come about?

[gohardorgohome]

IMO you need a few hard heads in the team that can play football at the same time. From the outside it seems that there is no one in the Carey, Voss, Brown, Worsfold type mould at the Dogs. Will Minson seems to give it a go, but at the moment he is still establishing himself.

I loved it when we were hated, with guys like Libba, Southo, Dimma, Kretiuk, Dent, Romero stirring the pot.

I'm not sure if the football police would allow it too much these days, but it would be good.

I'd love to get a guy like Luke Hodge to the Dogs and make him captain.

It was terrible when no one stood up for Aker when he was layout out in the NAB cup in Darwin.

[bornadog]

IMO you need a few hard heads in the team that can play football at the same time. From the outside it seems that there is no one in the Carey, Voss, Brown, Worsfold type mould at the Dogs. Will Minson seems to give it a go, but at the moment he is still establishing himself.

I loved it when we were hated, with guys like Libba, Southo, Dimma, Kretiuk, Dent, Romero stirring the pot.

I'm not sure if the football police would allow it too much these days, but it would be good.

I'd love to get a guy like Luke Hodge to the Dogs and make him captain.

It was terrible when no one stood up for Aker when he was layout out in the NAB cup in Darwin.

No one seems to come to Akers aid. It happened a few times last year, and every one just stood around. Are they scared of fines for wrestling? or are they just not acting as a cohesive unit backing each other up through thick and thin?

[bornadog]

Interesting observation nb "we're".

Here we're talking about the group as a whole, and you're probably correct, rather than a particular player.

How did this come about?

Is the problem lack of leadership from the older players. We know that over the past 5 years we have had a gap between the older brigade and the younger. The Wests, Darcy's, Grants, Smiths, Johnno's etc have at least 5 years in age gap to the next bunch that we recruited, ie the Gia's, Murphy's, Hargraves, Hahn's etc. maybe this older brigade have not been good enough leaders for the younger group? Has this gap contributed to the fact that as a team we don't have that link between age groups and therefore we have seperate teams within the team and therefore we don't bond together as one team? This then leads to other problems such as a mental thing? The older guys are slowly retiring and the next bunch have to show leadership and mental toughness for the next bunch coming through.

This year the boys went off to Wilsons Prom for a bonding session, maybe that will help bond the team together and improve toughness.

[LostDoggy]

I think we're soft, very soft. I know footballers get told they're playing like girls when they're soft, but I play youth girls and even we act tougher than some of them. I'm not asking them to get suspended for these things, but they could at least show some heart.

[Dry Rot]

Physically we're improving (at last), but it's too hard to call that this early in the year. I would assume we still need far more work, though. Few opportunities to really hit players/packs hard on Friday Night and we took it pretty lightly. Whether that's because it's the NAB Cup, I don't know.

Mentally though this side is very, very soft. We've seen that for quite a few years. Whenever pressure is applied we crumble every time. The best sides apply this sort of pressure and thus have our number every time. Geelong murdered us later in the year, as did The Crows & Saints early on. Sydney & The Kangaroos too. Not too sure how a coaching panel can rectify this, whether it's something that can be improved or whether it's how the players individually are. Either way, we're very poor in this area. We don't respond to any sort of pressure; be it physically on the ground, expectation coming from the media/supporters or returning from interstate games. We fail miserably in those areas and until we sort this out, we'll probably always be mentally soft.

It's easy to put a seriously negative spin this early on after getting belted in a meaningless match, but I think the club's kidding themselves if they have nothing to worry about. Changes have to be drastically made and that should have been evident from the outset of 2008. We've seen our first hiccup two weeks in. They've got a while to fix it - let's see what they do.


Is the problem lack of leadership from the older players. We know that over the past 5 years we have had a gap between the older brigade and the younger. The Wests, Darcy's, Grants, Smiths, Johnno's etc have at least 5 years in age gap to the next bunch that we recruited, ie the Gia's, Murphy's, Hargraves, Hahn's etc. maybe this older brigade have not been good enough leaders for the younger group? Has this gap contributed to the fact that as a team we don't have that link between age groups and therefore we have seperate teams within the team and therefore we don't bond together as one team? This then leads to other problems such as a mental thing? The older guys are slowly retiring and the next bunch have to show leadership and mental toughness for the next bunch coming through.

This year the boys went off to Wilsons Prom for a bonding session, maybe that will help bond the team together and improve toughness.

After yesterday, fairly prescient posts IMO.

[Go_Dogs]

After yesterday, fairly prescient posts IMO.

I want to see some swagger and arrogance. For all the improvement we've made across the board this year, we seem to lack that confidence unless a more senior bloke like Aker or Johnno is having a great game and doing the hard things both ways.

FWIW though, there is 2 and a half months of football left, and we have a pretty important game this week to turn our attention to.

I think the squad is strong enough to rebound and move on quickly. We'll need to.