Bankers & Anchors: Rnd 1, 2023 vs Melbourne Demons

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

This is the Round 1, 2023 edition of the weekly Bankers and Anchors thread. Once the game against Melbourne is concluded post your nominations for:

The Bankers = 3 guys/aspects of the game that we banked on to do the right thing during the game
The Anchors = 3 guys/aspects of the game that weighed us down by their errors or poor play

Please limit it to no more than three of each player or aspect of the game, but feel free to make honourable/dishonourable mentions. As usual try to make it constructive criticism.

Try and restrict it to individual players rather than aspects of the overall match - I will allow more freedom now as the thread seems to be going down more of the aspects of the game path so you can have 3 for each made up of aspects of the game and individual players.

The thread is named in honour of a popular WOOF Contributor, The Banker, who passed away on 22/04/2012 after a six month battle with cancer.

[GVGjr]

Lets hear your thoughts.

[JanLorMill]

Bankers Libba Bruce and currently pick1/2 in draft
Anchors same ruck/centre clearance issue, out of ideas in the box? , Keath looks shot. Extra one of the 4 headed monster

[Grantysghost]

Bankers Libba, the most criminally under rated player in AFL history. Did what he always does, played excellent team orientated footy and led from the front.

Treloar, maybe his best game for us. Increased midfield minutes in Dunkley's absence looks like a winner for him.
English. Battled two of the best rucks in the game and held his own. 22 hit outs to Gawns 21, Grundy 12.Top effort.

Anchors .

Bont, he constantly misses goals in big moments and sprays kicks to forwards. He's the best player ever but should be called to account at times.

Duryea. Just not very good.

Keath. See Duryea.

[AshMac]

Bankers :

Libba, outstanding but that much expectation shouldn’t be on a bloke at that stage of his career.
English - outstanding bursts throughout the game, great tap work first half

Anchors

Demons pressure - Real or perceived they boxed us up all game
Goal kicking - same old s***
The sprays into 50 - constant rushed kicks
Bailey Smith looked terrified of the ball
Liam Jones injury - hope he is ok

[westbulldog]

Bankers
Liberatore
English, pretty good job against 2 of the best.


Anchors
Hannan ,consign him to the VFL and get it over with.
JJ
Lobb
(and there are others)

[JanLorMill]

Bankers
English, pretty good job against 2 of the best.

I disagree strongly.
If that was a good job what is a bad job then? Gawn/Grundy kicked 3 between them and love to know how many they stopped too. Gawn would be in line for 3 votes.
I don’t know if 2 top line rucks can work all season but it worked tonight.

[anfo27]

Bankers

Ed Richards
Libba
English

Anchor

Bevos anti-defence football ideas
Alex Keith- boy oh boy
Hannan- How does he get a gig in front of West?
Apologies to 3/4s of the side as they all deserve to be in the anchors category.

[westbulldog]

I disagree strongly.
If that was a good job what is a bad job then? Gawn/Grundy kicked 3 between them and love to know how many they stopped too. Gawn would be in line for 3 votes.
I don’t know if 2 top line rucks can work all season but it worked tonight.

English rated better than both individually, problem is he didn't have any support i.e Lobb 2 kicks 4 handballs 2 marks 0 tackles 3 hit outs when he (Lobb) spent 95% of the time on the ground

[JanLorMill]

English rated better than both individually, problem is he didn't have any support i.e Lobb 2 kicks 4 handballs 2 marks 0 tackles 3 hit outs when he (Lobb) spent 95% of the time on the ground

Well the ratings are crap is then. Assume these are the same ratings that had Macrae and Daniel as our 3rd and 4th best
Gawn was close to best on ground. English wasn’t named in our best 5.
Lobb is a forward, English is our main ruck. Would say he did approximately 80% of ruck contests. Gawn less

[westbulldog]

Well the ratings are crap is then. Assume these are the same ratings that had Macrae and Daniel as our 3rd and 4th best
Gawn was close to best on ground. English wasn’t named in our best 5.
Lobb is a forward, English is our main ruck. Would say he did approximately 80% of ruck contests. Gawn less

Every woofer voting had English in our top four. Put your votes up.

[comrade]

English was terrific for the most part. His positioning and body control at boundary throw ins was the best it’s been.

Got torched a bit towards end of quarters especially before half time, have no idea why Lobb didn’t chop him out in the middle.

[JanLorMill]

Every woofer voting had English in our top four. Put your votes up.

I’ll agree to disagree here. Struggled to find one 4 quarter player. Again his direct opponent close to best on ground in a thrashing. If people are happy with that then so be it.

[JanLorMill]

Just for the record
English 62 ruck contests 27 centre bounce
Gawn 38 & 13 Grundy 29 & 16

[AshMac]

I thought English had an excellent game for the most part - faded in and out at times but overall easily one of our best.

To do that alone against two of the best ruckman over the last 5 years is even better.

As for the stats:

English won 43.5% of HO’s
Gawn 34%, and
Grundy 55%

Overall that is a solid game for hit outs alone.

English also had an impact around the ground - particularly in the second quarter. Gawn was more influential overall - he is a more mature and better player at the moment - but English was still outstanding and I’m really pleased with his performance