WB Game Day V Melbourne - 2021 AAMI Community Series

[Happy Days]

Wing suits him ok, imo. More running and kicking, less handballs (which he is surprisingly bad at).

He really is a terrible handballer. Its really weird how bad he is at it and kinda can’t believe no one at any level ever taught him how to do it properly.

[comrade]

He really is a terrible handballer. Its really weird how bad he is at it and kinda can’t believe no one at any level ever taught him how to do it properly.

Yeah, it's a shocking technique. Gets away with it in space but as soon as pressure is applied, he invariably coughs it up by hand.

[EasternWest]

Shaun Higgins pointing to a stain on his team mate's shorts.

Wondering how in the hell somebody got dirt on their shorts.

[comrade]

I think we're quickly heading to a crossroads with Naughts as a forwards and a decision will need to be made. It's obvious that he and Bruce don't gel together. One has to play a blocking/decoy type role and neither are either capable or willing and just lead to the same ball, crash the same packs etc.

I think it's time to shore up our defensive group and send Naughton back for good (beyond a few cameos up forward when required) and back in Bruce and English to be our main talls. Bring in someone like Cavarra to provide pressure and we're much better structured up at both ends.

Will we do it? I doubt it.

[soupman]

Positive performance overall. That felt like soccer where one team just dominates possession for an entire game.

It was basically a carbon cop of all our good games last year, which is what concerns me. We were a good side last year, but I would like to see something change tht could make us a better one.

The ruck situation may be that, Martin and English seem a great combo and for a 34 year old Martin looks great. I'm looking at this season with Martin almost as an experiment, if we are better with a proper ruck supporting English then that means we should go out and get one, a kind of try before you buy a main ruck for that role for 10 years. I would already be sending out the feelers to try and see who we can snag to replace Martin as ruck number 1. Anyway English forward looks good, and with these two we might be able to turn a half weakness into a bit of a headache for other teams.

I still have huge question marks on our defence. It's possibly the worst collection of one on one defenders we have ever had, and we appear to have done nothing to improve it. Gardner is fine, but he is a stop gap type and so easily pushed around physically, the Gawn mark on him right at the end an easy example of how he can just lose contests. The contrast between our defence and Melbourne was significant, May especially is great to watch in how he literally pushes his opponents around and just asserts himself. The more of Bailey Dale to half back/wing was ok from a run perspective but I hate the idea of putting our worst one on one player into a backline that already sucks at that. Anthony Scott acquitted himself well yesterday but he is another we seem to be trying as a defender and I don't know his actual stats but he seems tiny and I don't want another weak guy back there when we are already featuring Caleb Daniel (who is fine fwiw but more than one guy that size is pushing it). I don't know how we fix it, Naughton is the only guy on the list that I think could make a significant difference nd I am very reluctant to take him from the forward line, Wood and Duryea are atleast competent one on one so I think I'd prefer one of them in at least but they aren't exactly A graders either. basically I'm a little flat still that we haven't appeared to address the backline weakness at all.

The forwardline also hasn't had an obvious improvement yet. Well English looks competent there which is good, however Naughton and Bruce continue to play like they both think they are the top dog, and we suck at finding space. Maybe this game was a bad example of that because we dominated possession so much that we never had a chance to draw the Demons defenders (and mids and forwards) out properly. Our inside 50s continue to be poor, we hate rewarding leads 35+ out, and we love long bombs that are frequently in an awkward spot for the guy getting bombed to to get. Almost everytime we bombed it to the hotspot we did so in a manner that only helped May/Lever.

So while we played well and i am somewhat optimistic and hopeful I think the only thing I have seen that looks to have addressed a clear problem is the ruck scenario. I have no doubt we will be very competitive though, I just think that we continue to make it hard for ourselves to be as good a side as i think we are by generally playing dumb and relying on quantity over quality.

[GVGjr]

Did Smith play in the middle at all? I can't remember whether he did as I saw him mainly on the wing.

I think he was in the centre square just once but I might be wrong.

[comrade]

One of the big positives from yesterday was Lipinski. Looked quicker and stronger, and his kicking was a highlight. Reckon he has the potential to be a Mitch Duncan type for us, playing that roaming wing/half forward role. I have him locked into the round 1 side.

[comrade]

I still have huge question marks on our defence. It's possibly the worst collection of one on one defenders we have ever had, and we appear to have done nothing to improve it. Gardner is fine, but he is a stop gap type and so easily pushed around physically, the Gawn mark on him right at the end an easy example of how he can just lose contests. The contrast between our defence and Melbourne was significant, May especially is great to watch in how he literally pushes his opponents around and just asserts himself. The more of Bailey Dale to half back/wing was ok from a run perspective but I hate the idea of putting our worst one on one player into a backline that already sucks at that. Anthony Scott acquitted himself well yesterday but he is another we seem to be trying as a defender and I don't know his actual stats but he seems tiny and I don't want another weak guy back there when we are already featuring Caleb Daniel (who is fine fwiw but more than one guy that size is pushing it). I don't know how we fix it, Naughton is the only guy on the list that I think could make a significant difference nd I am very reluctant to take him from the forward line, Wood and Duryea are atleast competent one on one so I think I'd prefer one of them in at least but they aren't exactly A graders either. basically I'm a little flat still that we haven't appeared to address the backline weakness at all.

I think we're one of the few teams in the league that doesn't have a defender that can be counted on to win regular one on one contests, not simply neutralise at best. It's a massive hindrance to your attacking motives if you're unable to win it across the defensive 50 in the air.

A very big list management failure.

[soupman]

On a personnel front, some were good others not so much.

Bont was amazing. I think from what I've seen across both practice matches more than ever before we've been able to find him on the run and looking to kick it inside 50. This is obviously a very good thing and bodes very well for our season if we can keep it up once teams start trying to lock down harder.

Macrae was back to his usual best.

Hunter is good but i don't love him as an actual forward. He is such a good worker and quality link player up the wings. He is one of the guys who was super bad at inside 50s at times, the main one being where we ignored Naughton on a good lead and instead bombed it over English's head to no one which was dumb dumb dumb. Also his goal kicking is infuriating so the less shots the better (that aren't from the boundary obviously where he clearly spends 95% of his practice time).

Lipinski played very well, he is so clean. I think he is severely underrated, he is such a smart footballer and plays at such a good pace. Still remains to be seen if he has addressed his weaknesses though which are his ability to win the contested possession and even more importantly not just be brushed aside when he is an obstacle.

McNeill was pretty quiet but that goal was beautiful. I don't think he should play round one but I suspect he will. Either way an early debut is certainly on the cards.

Scott was actually pretty impressive. Moves like a slower Vandermeer, really good at accelerating out of contests. A touch smaller than I'd like, but a very tidy kick. Don't like him in defence though, looks weak in aerial contests to me and not sure we can carry another guy like that.

Dale off half back is similiar, he played fairly well but he is the last guy I want defending in our lineup.

Khamis had some good moments, wasn't exactly assertive, more the Gardner style of defender where he just gets a fist in but doesn't clear the area but I'll admit it was a small sample size.

Bruce wasn't terrible, so that automatically makes it the second best game I have seen him play with us. First quarter he did his usual thing of being 3 metres behind the drop of the ball every time but he rectified that later.

Bedendo looked super raw. I'm all for giving guys a taste but I'd be super shitty if I was Ben Cavarra and after two excellent VFL performances in a role we desperately need filling i didn't get a chance to earn my round one spot to give a kid that seems to have earnt it through turning up to training with the right attitude (classic Bevo selection). I'm all for giving him a taste but there is no way we don't see him as at best a late 2022 selection so what is the rush?

Wallis was poor, couldn't mark and he now offers us nothing if he isn't doing that. Can't play anywhere else but deep forward, and offers little pressure while he does it. I am prepared to cut him some slack, especially with the complete lack of space for him to outbody defenders in, but two or three more games like that and I think our vice captain may be in the reserves.

Williams was great. Hard to tell off a small sample size but he may have improved one on one which would be a huge help.

Keath was ok, everytime i watch him though I just wonder how much better he would be if we had a proper tall defender alongside him to help.

Gardner was also ok, but I wouldn't say much better than that.

[soupman]

I think we're one of the few teams in the league that doesn't have a defender that can be counted on to win regular one on one contests, not simply neutralise at best. It's a massive hindrance to your attacking motives if you're unable to win it across the defensive 50 in the air.

A very big list management failure.

It's also one of the key reasons why when we have bad quarters they lose us games. When the tide turns and we are faced with repeat oppositon inside 50s we wilt, we have no ability to hang in there. I mean look at how May and Lever managed to stem the tide and at worst neutralise a lot of our attacking movements and then look at who is even capable of that in our defence. Maybe 2016 Wood and Keath on his best days. We have no ability to absorb a bad performance upfield.

And with this new kick in rule we are in big trouble i think. We rely on locking it into our forwardline with a team zone as such but when the kicks outs make it to the wing then that isn't feasible anymore. We are going to need to kill those initial contests big time because teams will pretty quickly realise if they have two or three guys forward of the ball from there who are at worst not terrible at one on ones then they are going to have a good time.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Are we honestly just better off putting Naughton down back? Solves our defensive woes but also doesn't make us that much worse up forward given he and Bruce just seem incapable of co-existing. Aside from a couple of games, he hasn't really dominated up forward. I know he's still developing his craft down there but with the addition of Bruce and English's forward development, perhaps Aaron is needed more down back right now.

[comrade]

It's also one of the key reasons why when we have bad quarters they lose us games. When the tide turns and we are faced with repeat oppositon inside 50s we wilt, we have no ability to hang in there. I mean look at how May and Lever managed to stem the tide and at worst neutralise a lot of our attacking movements and then look at who is even capable of that in our defence. Maybe 2016 Wood and Keath on his best days. We have no ability to absorb a bad performance upfield.

And with this new kick in rule we are in big trouble i think. We rely on locking it into our forwardline with a team zone as such but when the kicks outs make it to the wing then that isn't feasible anymore. We are going to need to kill those initial contests big time because teams will pretty quickly realise if they have two or three guys forward of the ball from there who are at worst not terrible at one on ones then they are going to have a good time.

Without May or Lever, Dees lose by 10+ goals yesterday.

It's a good point about our bad quarters. All sides face momentum swings, and your midfield can't dominate 4 quarters every single week, especially against good sides. So you have to trust your defence to hold the fort at times. Ours simply can't...putting Naughton back would help though.

[kruder]

Wing suits him ok, imo. More running and kicking, less handballs (which he is surprisingly bad at).

He needs to improve defensively also Smith, looks like he loses all athletic traits as soon as he doesn't have the ball in hand. He was excellent in his first year with his pressure, has dropped off noticeably since then.

[1eyedog]

He really is a terrible handballer. Its really weird how bad he is at it and kinda can’t believe no one at any level ever taught him how to do it properly.

He nearly throws the bloody thing, oh wait that's Hunter not Smith. Well at least Hunter's usually make their intended destination in a loopy slow way unlike Smith's which often land somewhere between him and a team mate.

[bornadog]

Without May or Lever, Dees lose by 10+ goals yesterday.

It's a good point about our bad quarters. All sides face momentum swings, and your midfield can't dominate 4 quarters every single week, especially against good sides. So you have to trust your defence to hold the fort at times. Ours simply can't...putting Naughton back would help though.

Although May and Lever are good, we still had 31 shots with 64 inside 50s.