AFLX match Saturday February 17, 2018

[Twodogs]

I know we didn't take it seriously but Webb was bloody poor yesterday. There is no way he is an inside mid and he also struggled behind the ball. For mine he plays forward if he gets an opportunity or else I can see him off the list by the end of the year.

One things for sure Bailey Dale is made for AFLX he would have torn it up if allowed to play.

Those first two tap outs in the first half that went straight to Webb were instructive I thought. We set up our whole centre circle strategy around him getting first hands on the ball but the first time he went half heatedly at it with one hand (I really, really hate when a player only uses one hand. It's two hands for beginners.) and then the second time he actually got his hands on the ball first but just stopped. There are a lot of places and times where you can stop what you are doing and have a bit of a think and get it right. The centre bounce at a game of footy isn't one of them.

[Testekill]

Is that it for AFLX for this year?

Yup, fingers crossed it's the last time they ask us to take part

[craigsahibee]

I reckon that if we had the option then we wouldn't have even bothered turning up

I have been told by someone that works at the club that our guys only flew into Sydney on the morning of the games and had their first and only AFLX training session 45 min prior to their first game, and were back on the plane almost immediately after the second game.

[bornadog]

I have been told by someone that works at the club that our guys only flew into Sydney on the morning of the games and had their first and only AFLX training session 45 min prior to their first game, and were back on the plane almost immediately after the second game.

So we did take it seriously

[Twodogs]

So we did take it seriously

As seriously as it deserved.

[Eastdog]

Is that it for AFLX for this year?

Yes.

[GVGjr]

I like the way he was moving around, looks like he is trained hard for this year.

Redpath has been selected in the leadership group because he apparently doesn't cut corners and calls out others who might be trying it. When he is available for selection he will be ready to go.

[Eastdog]

Redpath has been selected in the leadership group because he apparently doesn't cut corners and calls out others who might be trying it. When he is available for selection he will be ready to go.

Jack at times when he has played in the seniors has looked very good up forward. Certainly was given us that forward presence.

[BulldogBelle]

Sydney Swans 88 d Western Bulldogs 36
Aaron Naughton
Tim English
Lukas Webb
Patrick Lipinski
Callum Porter
Jack Redpath
Nathan Mullenger-McHugh
Billy Gowers
Fergus Greene
Lewis Young

Gold Coast Suns 87 d Western Bulldogs 22
Richards
Tim English
Lukas Webb
Patrick Lipinski
Callum Porter
Jack Redpath
Nathan Mullenger-McHugh
Roarke Smith
Fergus Greene
Lewis Young

Not a nice week-end with the AFLW side getting beaten as well.

I am not happy with the club's effort, sure I don't want injuries to good players, but not doing any training in this form of the game before going up to Sydney and picking possibly our worst possible side is not my idea of giving it a good go. There are a couple of players that you could have put into that side to made it worse, so I suppose it wasn't our worst. Our opposition also had young players.

This game is for fast, agile and accurate kicking players. Some of our players such as Gowers and English are not suited to the game. The matches showed that we have not improved our kicking for goal, quite a few misses including a few from Young. There was a lack of proper tacking. The intensity wasn't there from most of the players.

Here is my take on a few of the players:

Lucas Webb
He might have been our best player as he played in both matches. He did nice long-kickins from behind the goal line but needed to better spot-up a man. Did win a contested ball once and passed to Redpath who snapped a goal. He kicked a nice long goal that bounced through. A great run down tackle by Webb was one of the plays of the night.

A bit slow paced at times, unsure ball-handling and made a few sloppy kicks such as that one after he received a hand-ball from Smith.

Didn't do his stocks much good although being one of our best

Jack Redpath
He covered quite a bit of ground and it must have been a reasonable hit-out for him. He kicked a wonderful long-range snap goal.

He dropped simple marks and his kicking was often poor. He has to show more intensity and passion; not just sort-of go for a mark and sort-of chase the opponent. But then again, most of our guys seemed to be like that.

Gowers
He was involved in some good clever play that showed that he had a good football brain. He only played in the first game so had limited opportunity to show his skills.

He has to be a bit cleverer when going for a high mark over an opponent who is straight in front of him. Stick your knee in his back and nudge him forward a bit. FFS. And no more one-handed marking attempts please. He was shown up for his lack of pace, firstly by Towers then later by Marsh, both of whom comprehensively beat him. In one of those chases he had, it really looked like he was just going through the motions.

Not a good hit-out for him.

Tim English
He got the first hit-out for us in AFLX history. It went a bit short to Webb who lost it. He took a few nice high contested marks and showed some agility around the ground. Did a couple of good accurate kicks.

He has to mark those high balls that come to him. Not just stick his hands up and hope the ball falls to one of our guys. At the tip-off for the second game English went for a micro-nap just as the ball was being thrown up - and of course missed everything. I didn't like his lack of desperation in chasing marks and letting a ball, (that we had last touch on), dribble out of bounds.

He is not suited to this game.

Naughton
We can get excited about this prospect as he took some nice high contested marks on the forward line and kicked well at the goals.

Young
Two matches but not a lot of game time. He is able to mark well in the forward line but his kicking was terrible, nothing like KT I'm afraid. Also he showed little desperation and intensity especially that time when he was outmarked and he let a free-kick against us ball just slowly roll out of bounds.

Greene
Some nice intercept marks and goals. But a shocking kick at goal too. He will have to improve on that performance.

Lipinski
Some nice play, some poor kicking.

Mullenger-McHugh
Showed that he can take a good grab and kick well. Just please do it more than once.

Richards
Showed he has some class with good run and carry and accurate passing. Was a promising debut.

Smith
Some nice things but not up to this level. VFL may suit better.

Porter
Seemed to try hard.

[Bulldog Revolution]

Sydney Swans 88 d Western Bulldogs 36
Aaron Naughton
Tim English
Lukas Webb
Patrick Lipinski
Callum Porter
Jack Redpath
Nathan Mullenger-McHugh
Billy Gowers
Fergus Greene
Lewis Young

Gold Coast Suns 87 d Western Bulldogs 22
Richards
Tim English
Lukas Webb
Patrick Lipinski
Callum Porter
Jack Redpath
Nathan Mullenger-McHugh
Roarke Smith
Fergus Greene
Lewis Young

Not a nice week-end with the AFLW side getting beaten as well.

I am not happy with the club's effort, sure I don't want injuries to good players, but not doing any training in this form of the game before going up to Sydney and picking possibly our worst possible side is not my idea of giving it a good go. There are a couple of players that you could have put into that side to made it worse, so I suppose it wasn't our worst. Our opposition also had young players.

This game is for fast, agile and accurate kicking players. Some of our players such as Gowers and English are not suited to the game. The matches showed that we have not improved our kicking for goal, quite a few misses including a few from Young. There was a lack of proper tacking. The intensity wasn't there from most of the players.

Here is my take on a few of the players:

Lucas Webb
He might have been our best player as he played in both matches. He did nice long-kickins from behind the goal line but needed to better spot-up a man. Did win a contested ball once and passed to Redpath who snapped a goal. He kicked a nice long goal that bounced through. A great run down tackle by Webb was one of the plays of the night.

A bit slow paced at times, unsure ball-handling and made a few sloppy kicks such as that one after he received a hand-ball from Smith.

Didn't do his stocks much good although being one of our best

Jack Redpath
He covered quite a bit of ground and it must have been a reasonable hit-out for him. He kicked a wonderful long-range snap goal.

He dropped simple marks and his kicking was often poor. He has to show more intensity and passion; not just sort-of go for a mark and sort-of chase the opponent. But then again, most of our guys seemed to be like that.

Gowers
He was involved in some good clever play that showed that he had a good football brain. He only played in the first game so had limited opportunity to show his skills.

He has to be a bit cleverer when going for a high mark over an opponent who is straight in front of him. Stick your knee in his back and nudge him forward a bit. FFS. And no more one-handed marking attempts please. He was shown up for his lack of pace, firstly by Towers then later by Marsh, both of whom comprehensively beat him. In one of those chases he had, it really looked like he was just going through the motions.

Not a good hit-out for him.

Tim English
He got the first hit-out for us in AFLX history. It went a bit short to Webb who lost it. He took a few nice high contested marks and showed some agility around the ground. Did a couple of good accurate kicks.

He has to mark those high balls that come to him. Not just stick his hands up and hope the ball falls to one of our guys. At the tip-off for the second game English went for a micro-nap just as the ball was being thrown up - and of course missed everything. I didn't like his lack of desperation in chasing marks and letting a ball, (that we had last touch on), dribble out of bounds.

He is not suited to this game.

Naughton
We can get excited about this prospect as he took some nice high contested marks on the forward line and kicked well at the goals.

Young
Two matches but not a lot of game time. He is able to mark well in the forward line but his kicking was terrible, nothing like KT I'm afraid. Also he showed little desperation and intensity especially that time when he was outmarked and he let a free-kick against us ball just slowly roll out of bounds.

Greene
Some nice intercept marks and goals. But a shocking kick at goal too. He will have to improve on that performance.

Lipinski
Some nice play, some poor kicking.

Mullenger-McHugh
Showed that he can take a good grab and kick well. Just please do it more than once.

Richards
Showed he has some class with good run and carry and accurate passing. Was a promising debut.

Smith
Some nice things but not up to this level. VFL may suit better.

Porter
Seemed to try hard.

Pretty reasonable summary

Greene's passage where he converted a nice set shot then stole the kick in and snapped the goal was probably the highpoint of the two games. A few of Naughtons were nice grabs and his kicking looked solid.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Watched it last night. Horrible on all aspects is AFLX.

I take little from it but one thing to note is our poor skills.

The amount of simple missed kicks from Webb, Redpath, Lipinski, Smith and Young was criminal. I also have grave concerns about Webb's severe lack of pace.

As crap and modified as AFLX is, it didn't alleviate any of my concerns about those who were playing for us (ie. Young's kicking, Webb's pace, Lipinski's pace, Greene/Smith being up to the elite level).

Although he made a few mistakes by foot, at least Richards looked dangerous and was trying to make a positive impact on the game by running and carrying the footy. Looks like he has 'it', ditto Naughton who moves well and takes a nice mark. I can't say the same for some of our other younger players yet.

[Greystache]

Watched it last night. Horrible on all aspects is AFLX.

I take little from it but one thing to note is our poor skills.

The amount of simple missed kicks from Webb, Redpath, Lipinski, Smith and Young was criminal. I also have grave concerns about Webb's severe lack of pace.

As crap and modified as AFLX is, it didn't alleviate any of my concerns about those who were playing for us (ie. Young's kicking, Webb's pace, Lipinski's pace, Greene/Smith being up to the elite level).

Although he made a few mistakes by foot, at least Richards looked dangerous and was trying to make a positive impact on the game by running and carrying the footy. Looks like he has 'it', ditto Naughton who moves well and takes a nice mark. I can't say the same for some of our other younger players yet.

That's pretty much how I saw it. I didn't take the game seriously, but it's reassuring to know our depth can also be relied upon to turn the ball over by foot consistently (particularly at half forward), bomb the ball long inside 50m exclusively to the disadvantage of the forwards, and be little better than a 20% chance of kicking a set shot anywhere outside the goal square.

Early indications are the areas we were the worst at in the competition last year should be worse again this year.

[jazzadogs]

Thanks for the summaries of how the players went. I didn't watch any of the Dogs games but it is a slight concern that individually our players did not perform well.

Having said that, I don't see any criticism of the club's approach to AFLX being warranted. We effectively treated this as a training drill for our 1-3 year players, as such a silly format deserved. The fact that we didn't perform well as a team is inconsequential - however, just like we would comment on training sessions, missing simple skills and not showing appropriate intensity is not good enough.

[Twodogs]

That's pretty much how I saw it. I didn't take the game seriously, but it's reassuring to know our depth can also be relied upon to turn the ball over by foot consistently (particularly at half forward), bomb the ball long inside 50m exclusively to the disadvantage of the forwards, and be little better than a 20% chance of kicking a set shot anywhere outside the goal square.

Early indications are the areas we were the worst at in the competition last year should be worse again this year.

Why can't we fix it? It's not difficult to take your profession seriously enough that you'd want to be able to perform a fundamental aspect of the game.

This whole "we are shit kicks but there is nothing we can do about it" theory has holes in it.

[Eastdog]

Why can't we fix it? It's not difficult to take your profession seriously enough that you'd want to be able to perform a fundamental aspect of the game.

This whole "we are shit kicks but there is nothing we can do about it" theory has holes in it.

Surely it's something that can be addressed. How hard could it be. Speed is really at the forefront of the game nowadays but what's concerning is skill level of players which really need addressing.