WB Game Day V Melbourne R11 2021

[Grantysghost]

We weren't in the game in terms of actually winning it from about the 20 min mark of the first.

No it was as comprehensive as it comes. You almost felt Melbourne knew they could break it open with insane pressure then backed their defence to absorb what we had after that. The played in phases and read the game situation brilliantly it was very impressive.

They’ve got the structure to go all the way, my doubts were off about them.

[Mantis]

We weren't in the game in terms of actually winning it from about the 20 min mark of the first.

I’m not so sure about that... whilst we were mostly at arms length we were winning enough of the ball and territory to give ourselves a chance. If we had kicked the first goal of the second half I felt we were a big chance. We had lots of the play in the first 5-6 minutes of that qtr with Bruce missing a snap he probably should’ve kicked it felt like a big momentum shift when Fritsch milked a free and goaled especially when Naughts missed a sitter soon after.

The first qtr was very poor, but the things we were poor at can be fixed pretty easily.

[Grantysghost]

I’m not so sure about that... whilst we were mostly at arms length we were winning enough of the ball and territory to give ourselves a chance. If we had kicked the first goal of the second half I felt we were a big chance. We had lots of the play in the first 5-6 minutes of that qtr with Bruce missing a snap he probably should’ve kicked it felt like a big momentum shift when Fritsch milked a free and goaled especially when Naughts missed a sitter soon after.

The first qtr was very poor, but the things we were poor at can be fixed pretty easily.

There was similar sentiment IF Lippa doesn’t hit the post against the Tigers? If Bruce doesn’t stuff it late against the Saints in the final.

I’m probably going too hard to make a point and I’m not as advanced in my position as it sounds but geez I see some worrying patterns.

Big positive was English back to be upbeat our forward line looks good.

[Mantis]

There was similar sentiment IF Lippa doesn’t hit the post against the Tigers? If Bruce doesn’t stuff it late against the Saints in the final.

I’m probably going too hard to make a point and I’m not as advanced in my position as it sounds but geez I see some worrying patterns.

Big positive was English back to be upbeat our forward line looks good.

None of us like losing and I’ve gone as hard as anyone on this forum over the journey, but we were marginally off last night and we were punished for it... it happens against good teams, but we’ve shown enough good signs this year to show we’re up to our necks in it.

We aren’t even 1/2 way through the season and the positives far our way the negatives and whilst we’ve been shown up a couple of times it’s not like all other teams haven’t either.

Let’s see where we are at come the last month of the season when we should (hopefully) have a healthy list and the 5-6 players who were missing last night are back and have some games behind them.

Our big advantage against everyone is the depth of our midfield and when that is disrupted we come back to the pack against the very best.... so let’s see how we go when we have our one wood in the bag... I’m thinking we will be happy with the results.

[Grantysghost]

None of us like losing and I’ve gone as hard as anyone on this forum over the journey, but we were marginally off last night and we were punished for it... it happens against good teams, but we’ve shown enough good signs this year to show we’re up to our necks in it.

We aren’t even 1/2 way through the season and the positives far our way the negatives and whilst we’ve been shown up a couple of times it’s not like all other teams haven’t either.

Let’s see where we are at come the last month of the season when we should (hopefully) have a healthy list and the 5-6 players who were missing last night are back and have some games behind them.

Our big advantage against everyone is the depth of our midfield and when that is disrupted we come back to the pack against the very best.... so let’s see how we go when we have our one wood in the bag... I’m thinking we will be happy with the results.

Great post well said.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

To me this loss is about 2 things

1. Our work rate and efforts off the ball.
2. Our system, or lack thereof, to expose Melbournes defence.

The first is obvious.

The second a lot more tricky. Melbourne last night revealed their whole gameplan. Block the corridor. Force us wide. Tag Libba to stop the source for our mids. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

I’ve no doubt we’ll be much better with the return or Dunkley and Treloar and we’ll hopefully not butcher the ball like last night again.

However the work rate off the ball has been seen before. I’m not sure we can withstand immense pressure consistently. And the gameplan seems 1 dimensional. How do we break down melbournes defensive system?

[bulldogsthru&thru]

I’m one more injury away from setting up a taskforce to track down these so called injury gods. I’ve had a gutfull of them. Have we had to use the injury sub every game since rd 5? We’re one injury to a key play away from this whole season being flushed down the toilet.

[The bulldog tragician]

I am really disappointed with the loss and we have to learn from it but the goals from turnovers early on were morale killers from which it was hard to recover and set doubts in. They weren’t a result of insane Melbourne pressure as much as dumb footy or poor execution, Libba’s kick to Bont being a case in point. Melbourne would have felt inspired, and our heads dropped, after seeing our two best players in recent weeks involved in a bungle.

You’d have to hope that all of the Baileys could never play as badly again or at least not all at the same time.

As for the idea this is the same songbook, our win against Port was one of character and commitment. We have improved this year, but injuries are biting and I do feel we thrive on crowd energy and maybe our mini comebacks last night could have gone further if we were there cheering like crazy and helped put a few more doubts in the minds of the Dees.

[comrade]

I don't know if it's a positive or not but Melbourne's prime ball movers Salem, Langdon and Hunt were all ineffective yet they were still able to gap us by 5 goals. So our plans for them worked, but it didn't matter in the end.

[SonofScray]

Awful performance that has put a dent in my overall assessment of what we can do at the pointy end. Not completely catastrophic, I still think that on our day we can beat anyone. Our best > Your best.

We’ve seen us stall significantly under pressure twice now. Needs to be sorted out.

For most of the game, despite Melbourne looking dominant, we only were 3 goals from our mistakes + 1 McDonald lead and mark down. Marginally better execution up the field eats into that. One decent small forward performance inside 50 eats into that. Bailey Smith straightens up and runs through the corridor, the tide turns.

Disappointing, but we play the game 10 times, I’d back us in to win at least half of the time.

[Go_Dogs]

When we put some more control on the ball and took field position with shorter kicks and sharper leads we looked good. When the run and overlap and switch isn’t working, we need to take a different approach more often. We just played into their hands last night and we’re left out numbered and out positioned once the turnover came.

Besides what seemed having one of their key defenders playing a zone like defensive game, it appeared to me (and I could be completely wrong because it’s so hard to tell from TV) that they kept pretty tight to our forwards on the turnover and defensive transition. Lots of 1:1s and they were confident they would win them. Crowd the drop and create the run.

I’m optimistic. We won’t play that badly again. We have plenty of players coming back and will be a different side come September.

Treloar, Dunkley, Martin, Wood, Scott, Hannan, McLean, Richards, JUH. We have plenty of competition for spots coming and lots of points of difference that we didn’t see / have last night.

[bulldogtragic]

I don't know if it's a positive or not but Melbourne's prime ball movers Salem, Langdon and Hunt were all ineffective yet they were still able to gap us by 5 goals. So our plans for them worked, but it didn't matter in the end.

If good ball users of ours didn’t inexplicably and unusually gift them 7 goals, the game is a close run thing. I reckon we made more embarrassing howlering turnovers in one game than the last 10 games. It’s confusing as it is frustrating.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

If good ball users of ours didn’t inexplicably and unusually gift them 7 goals, the game is a close run thing. I reckon we made more embarrassing howlering turnovers in one game than the last 10 games. It’s confusing as it is frustrating.

I think the inferred pressure of the demons defensive setup up the ground lead to these turnovers. Granted under the same conditions, we don’t do them again next time, but it certainly contributed to them last night. We were clearly instructed to switch quickly last night.

[Happy Days]

One thing that is potentially annoying that we didn't seem to take anything away from Adelaide's performance last week. We didn't use the corridor, like, at all, which is frustrating because we clearly had the appetite to bite off a lot of risk with our kicks evidenced by some of the switches we tried to pull and resulting turnovers.

I left the game being more impressed by Melbourne than dismayed by us though. For better or worse I think we brought a fair amount of heat to the contest ourselves, but Melbourne were able to break through it with the sort of handball/possession chains I'm used to seeing us pull off.

[bornadog]

None of us like losing and I’ve gone as hard as anyone on this forum over the journey, but we were marginally off last night and we were punished for it... it happens against good teams, but we’ve shown enough good signs this year to show we’re up to our necks in it.

We aren’t even 1/2 way through the season and the positives far our way the negatives and whilst we’ve been shown up a couple of times it’s not like all other teams haven’t either.

Let’s see where we are at come the last month of the season when we should (hopefully) have a healthy list and the 5-6 players who were missing last night are back and have some games behind them.

Our big advantage against everyone is the depth of our midfield and when that is disrupted we come back to the pack against the very best.... so let’s see how we go when we have our one wood in the bag... I’m thinking we will be happy with the results.

Good summary Mantis, I am still bullish about the season sitting at the half way mark at 9-2.

If we break down the game, how good was Melbourne? or how bad were we in that first quarter trying silly kicks across the ground and not hitting our targets.

The next three quarters, Melbourne didn't get away from us, they outscored us by ONE point, but they did stop us getting on top of them and pegging back the 28 point lead established in the first quarter.

I really think we need to rethink our backline game plan. This is where we lost as we couldn't move the ball quickly enough. How many times have we seen a JJ type running and bouncing the ball through the middle of the ground? Our strategy seems to be to hit the wings and then if there is no way through to switch play. We tried this v Tigers and it didn't work.

Bevo needs a new plan for teams that set up to stop our run.

We will learn from this. May premierships don't exist, and once Melbourne hit a few injuries, they will find out. Langdon is out due to concussion, so there is a test for them next week.