Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

[F'scary]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

I'm feeling a little calmer this morning. We clearly ran out of legs in the second half. We persisted with our "mayhem" style of play when we should have looked to close the game down by playing down the line, lots of out of bounds, resetting after taking marks and playing the percentages with long kicks to position, employing a defensive flood, etc. Perhaps we were flattered by our halftime lead and didn't realise how gone we were in the legs at half time?

[BornInDroopSt'54]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

The players may have been affected by fatigue but also the tragedy of Clay Smith, in the face of the team's Herculean efforts last week, as if even that supreme effort to raise the club's prospects were not enough to overcome ruthless Fate that cut Clay down three times and finished him off, despite him being the bravest of young warriors.
Psyches can work like this. I know mine did. It's just a feeling that plays in the back of the mind but is not terminal, although Clay's injury is.

[merantau]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

Many have commented on why we lost this game: inexperience, injury and exhaustion featuring prominently. But football is a game of mistakes - misdirected kicks/handballs, choosing the wrong option, poorly-laid tackles, dropped marks, missed shots, failure to shepherd and the list goes on. When you give up a 55 pt lead there MUST have been a lot of mistakes made. If I were on the coaching panel, I'd go through the 2nd half with a fine tooth comb, sit each player down and go over their performance. I guess this is done anyway, but now is NOT the time for it. I would forget about this game until we get our mojo back - then do the analysis. Right now, I'm sure the players are bleeding - far more than us supporters. I'm sure this loss can be turned around and turned into a positive by this young group. NEVER AGAIN should we give up such a lead, no matter WHAT the circumstances. We can, and will, bounce back from this.

[Doc26]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

As silly as it might sound, given that we got to a 55 point lead, there were danger signs from early on in this game, that were we to drop off in our endeavour we would be vulnerable, particularly if they could lift theirs further after half time. We gave their most damaging running players from early in this game too much space when going the other way.

They would too often cut through using the width of the ground to exploit our luck of defensive pressure and lack of leg speed. The likes of Stevens, Armitage, Billings, Montagna, even Dunstan simply got on top from our lack of defensive pressure, which is the bare minimum we, and all teams, must bring to every game.

I'm not as convinced that this was about physical conditioning but more in our mental conditioning to work hard enough defensively particularly when we see ourselves as the front runners. Taking out MBoyd and even Lin Jong, two of our hardest workers when going the other way magnified this current deficiency.

This gives the coaching staff and team something to address for the months ahead.

[Nuggety Back Pocket]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

You had to admire the Saints fight back with its 10 goal turn around in the second half. Our lack of run and experience was too obvious. Our midfield had minimal impact without Jong and Wallis plus the season loss of Liberatore. We had very few good players for 4 quarters with exceptions being Picken who was again outstanding and Easton Wood. Matthew Boyd was a huge out for us in particular with Robert Murphy struggling after half time. Young players such as Tom Boyd, Roberts Bontempelli Hrovat and Honeychurch simply showed their lack of experience when it counted most. This was an unfortunate let down after the fantastic win against the Sydney Swans but not entirely unexpected.

[Bulldog4life]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

Only Gold Coast had a younger team than us this week and only because their squad is full of drunks

And even with wholesale changes, they still had 1 more player with over 100 games experience than us.

20 players under 100 games experience would have to be close to a record, even for the expansion teams who topped up with some older guys.

I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I don't understand or feel comfortable with all the fretting going on. History suggests we're no chance at finals, let alone a flag this year so take the good with the bad, and yeah demand improvement over the course of the season but don't get tied in knots when weird stuff happens.

Looking forward to playing the Dockers next week to see how we'll respond.

Keep it up comrade I am with you brother.

[Hotdog60]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

We could of had a bigger lead if we didn't miss some easy shots on goal.

We could have had at least 18 more points in the kitty. But hey the first half was good to watch.

Let's see how we go against Freo this week. If we account for ourselves well then it's not all doom and gloom.

I'd go as far to say we may break Freo's run.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

It was all my fault as I tipped us for the first time this year!

[Ozza]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

We were never going to win in that jumper! History suggests we were massively against the odds wearing a one off gimmick Guernsey!

[soupman]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

We were never going to win in that jumper! History suggests we were massively against the odds wearing a one off gimmick Guernsey!

Hawthorn also suffered from the novelty jumper curse.

[1eyedog]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

I don't feel bitter either, just stunned and very disappointed. It just goes to show the type of game we play, we can't afford to lose players during the game, and we need a little bit more experience, ie some older heads like MBoyd to steady the ship. Like Bevo said in his press conference, its a game of inches. Another goal here and there and the Saints would not have caught us.

Another goal here or there, the Aints missing one, Tom Boyd kicking one isn't / wasn't the difference. There are a million instances in a game that affect the end result, pressure acts, tackles at critical moments, umpires giving Crywoldt a 50 and him goaling for no reason. Football is a motion of sliding doors and there are a myriad of causalities that directly affect where we are when the final siren sounds.

[Bornadog]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

Another goal here or there, the Aints missing one, Tom Boyd kicking one isn't / wasn't the difference. There are a million instances in a game that affect the end result, pressure acts, tackles at critical moments, umpires giving Crywoldt a 50 and him goaling for no reason. Football is a motion of sliding doors and there are a myriad of causalities that directly affect where we are when the final siren sounds.

No you misunderstand or I didn't make it clear. When you are so far in front, if you can kick those couple more goals, it puts it out of the reach of the other club. We allowed too many goals in the third quarter and they had a sniff. We only kicked three in the second half, which wasn't good enough.

[1eyedog]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

No you misunderstand or I didn't make it clear. When you are so far in front, if you can kick those couple more goals, it puts it out of the reach of the other club. We allowed too many goals in the third quarter and they had a sniff. We only kicked three in the second half, which wasn't good enough.

I agree and I understand what you were saying but how many is enough? We were 55 points up, which was surely enough (someone mentioned only three comebacks from so far back at half time in AFL history). I'm saying that rather than those 2 extra goals how about a few of our players actually touching some of the St. Kilda players / slowing the tempo of the game in the second half, then we wouldn't have needed to be 70-80 points up in order to win the game. There's more to winning than just being 12 goals up.

[Bornadog]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

I agree and I understand what you were saying but how many is enough? We were 55 points up, which was surely enough (someone mentioned only three comebacks from so far back at half time in AFL history). I'm saying that rather than those 2 extra goals how about a few of our players actually touching some of the St. Kilda players in the second half, then we wouldn't have needed to be 70-80 points up in order to win the game. There's more to winning than just being 12 goals up.

Yes agreed. I wonder if they took the foot off the pedal for the first 15 minutes of the third quarter?

[1eyedog]

Re: Game Day Round 6 2015 - Western Bulldogs V St. Kilda

Yes agreed. I wonder if they took the foot off the pedal for the first 15 minutes of the third quarter?

It was a bizarre second half for us and I have thought long about what happened. It must have been part that because we thought we'd done enough, part Clay going down and our attention focused elsewhere and, later on, part fatigue from the previous week. That coupled with three very good players in Boyd, Jong and Wallis out of our side. It seemed like we clicked again for the start of the last, probably following a spray, but after we kicked the first two and were 4 goals up we sat back again. Can't do that with any team in the AFL like we saw with Carlton yesterday.