Honest reflection and the path forward

[Grantysghost]

We need a tall defender, a second ruck, a fit and firing Bruce and a medium sized forward.

Hit the draft to get a good ball user, rookie a ruck or pick one late in the main draft.

Get a decent psychologist to remove the bed shitting from the bed shitters, and players who can't just keep a clear head and do the simple things. Shake up the leadership group and put them on notice that if they can't adapt and lead in-game then we'll find leaders who can.

Finally, get some quality coaching in there to replace the clear quality we have lost. Keep everyone we have, sure, but actually get some reputably good people in there.

Don't we have medium forwards Jee?

Weightman, Hannan, VDM, West all kind of medium types?

Who would you get perfect world? Elliot?

I honestly think we need hit the ground players we've got all this aerial presence and nothing when it's spilt.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Daniel is a good player, but I think we need to rebuild and he's a cream type of player given his size.

If Dunkley leaves I'd rather we shop a few others to see if we can take a really strong hand into the draft

[Vred]

I'm just embarrassed.
Unless a bigger choke happens this final series, we will be known as the 2022 chokers from here on out.

Just, embarrassing.

[Grantysghost]

He is the worst boundary line ruckman I’ve ever seen… The guy is 205cm tall and never, ever takes front position.

He really doesn't show much passion either. That was the big question prior to being drafted.

I know it's a different era but having a lovely chat with one of your old Perth mates out on the ground after your season ends just pisses me off.

Shake hands, get off.

Call him later.

[jeemak]

Don't we have medium forwards Jee?

Weightman, Hannan, VDM, West all kind of medium types?

Who would you get perfect world? Elliot?

I honestly think we need hit the ground players we've got all this aerial presence and nothing when it's spilt.

I'm talking someone who is 188-192 and quick, with the ability to actually kick goals. However, like a perfect second ruck, they're ridiculously hard to find at the moment.

[jeemak]

I'm just embarrassed.
Unless a bigger choke happens this final series, we will be known as the 2022 chokers from here on out.

Just, embarrassing.

Put it into the game day thread. This is a what to do thread. I'm all for self flagellation but keep it out of here.

[Sedat]

He really doesn't show much passion either. That was the big question prior to being drafted.

I know it's a different era but having a lovely chat with one of your old Perth mates out on the ground after your season ends just pisses me off.

Shake hands, get off.

Call him later.

English is simply not a competitive animal and never will be. He is an athletic beast with elite endurance, but that is not helpful at neutral stop-play situations. He is a big part of our game plan problems.

[jeemak]

With English we just need to do what we can to put pressure on him. Get Lobb in, make sure English realises he has someone we can depend on so he has to be the best he can be. Develop Darcy, make sure Tim knows he can be replaced if he leaves by Darcy and anyone else.

He's outed himself as a player who is only for him, so we need to make the most of that and keep him accountable.

[Grantysghost]

English is simply not a competitive animal and never will be. He is an athletic beast with elite endurance, but that is not helpful at neutral stop-play situations. He is a big part of our game plan problems.

When we bring in Lobb we will have 85 tall forwards so he cant play there.

[jeemak]

English is simply not a competitive animal and never will be. He is an athletic beast with elite endurance, but that is not helpful at neutral stop-play situations. He is a big part of our game plan problems.

He'll compete if his life and status depends on it. We need to make him as uncomfortable as we can and if that make him leave then fine, we'll benefit from the performance along the journey.

[Doc26]

The majority of our players behind the ball must be coached and developed as to how to make the most of the forwards we have.

There would seem just too much focus on speed of entry rather than quality of delivery. Whilst he’s far from alone, Bailey Smith might be enticing with his outside run but his delivery is generally wanting. Our entries into the forward half generally offer our forwards no more than a 50/50 chance, at best. Think of how many of our mids / wingers we can reliably be comfortable in hitting up one of our forwards. Very few other than say Libba, Dale and maybe Daniel. Unfortunately two of these better users by foot, Dale and Daniel, ‘generally’ play too deep defensively to bring our forwards into play. It is apparent each week that our mids and forwards do not work together but as very distinct units.

And as to our forward structure, there’s little separation created, and little effective crumbing options when the ball more often than not comes to ground. As such, we appear to be one of the easier Team’s currently to create a turnover against.

For mine, our greatest need is in improving our mid / forward synergy, and in finding means to improve our effective delivery by foot. This should sit with our coaches in the off-season as a priority but also in identifying who of our players ( and indeed coaches) can be improved in this regard, and where they can’t we might be best considering them for trade / delisting.

[Vred]

I had a feeling this season was cooked when the players were talking per-season about not addressing/reviewing what happened in the grand final.

You cannot glaze over a collective team trauma like that and not think it won't have some type of psychological effect on you or the group as a whole, I am 100% convinced, players and coaches alike are still reeling from last years GF.

At any level of business or organizational, a loss like what happened to us in 2021 would of been thoroughly investigated, addressed and worked through as individuals and a group, hearing players talk about ''yeah we haven't reviewed it, we don't need to, we just want to go into next year'' never sat right with me and honestly I think it played a much bigger part on our up and down season than people might want to admit.

I'm hoping someone steps up and takes charge of fixing our mentally weak group during this off season, because after tonight's showing, we need it.

[Sedat]

I had a feeling this season was cooked when the players were talking per-season about not addressing/reviewing what happened in the grand final.

You cannot glaze over a collective team trauma like that and not think it won't have some type of psychological effect on you or the group as a whole, I am 100% convinced, players and coaches alike are still reeling from last years GF.

If you don't address a problem you are bound to repeat it. We threw away a premiership last year in 8 minutes of utter madness. The madness was more of a slow burn this year but the same mistakes reared their ugly head again.

1. Smashed at stoppages as the game wore on
2. Inability to halt opposition momentum
3. Inability to cover the ground defensively
4. Lack of competitiveness when the pressure tightens
5. Dump kicks out of congestion and predictable long bombs to the top of the square time and again

We have stuttered along all year, and then we come to September and play white hot finals footy from the start and should have put the game away. This looked for all the world like a repeat of the Port PF but instead the demons emerged again.

We have some undeniable psychological scars within the group, and we also have endemic structural issues that prevent us from reaching our absolute best. And we have personnel limitations that haven't been addressed.

Going to be a watershed year in 2023 one way of another.

[SonofScray]

Going to be a watershed year in 2023 one way of another.

Agree with your post.

Re: last point. It will be. My expectations are rock bottom now. Nothing will improve. This group are broken now. We’re staring down the barrel of them crumbling.

[bornadog]

English is simply not a competitive animal and never will be. He is an athletic beast with elite endurance, but that is not helpful at neutral stop-play situations. He is a big part of our game plan problems.

We have to play him in the areas he has strengths not weaknesses.