Round 1 - Western Bulldogs V North Melbourne - Sat 15/3/25 Marvel Stadium 7:35PM AEDT

[merantau]

Watching the reply. Brereton is so masterful at making the most mundane observation seem as it's something that only he, with his vast experience, is capable of noticing and UNDERSTANDING. Who doesn't love being talked down to?

[kruder]

Did you use Chat GPT to summarise Brereton Merantau? I'm not sure a human could come up with such a perfect description! 100% bang on mate, so hard to listen too.

[merantau]

I claim credit for the post. Good to know it struck a chord with you. It's almost as if he's describing play for the visually challenged.

[Mofra]

Watching the reply. Brereton is so masterful at making the most mundane observation seem as it's something that only he, with his vast experience, is capable of noticing and UNDERSTANDING. Who doesn't love being talked down to?

I actually think he could be a good special comments man if he used 50% fewer words to say the same thing

[jeemak]

I actually think he could be a good special comments man if he used 50% fewer words to say the same thing

He thinks pursing his lips, being verbose and over expressive makes him seem intelligent.

[hujsh]

Interesting narrative about the teams in the live reporting by The Age - Dogs hold off young Roos. Here's the profile:

Average Attributes
	Western Bulldogs	Attribute	North Melbourne
189.0cm	Height	186.8cm
85.6kg	Weight	84.5kg
25yr 4mth	Age	25yr 3mth
86.4	Games	102.0
Total Players By Games
	Western Bulldogs	Games	North Melbourne
9	Less than 50	8
4	50 to 99	4
4	100 to 149	4
4	150 to 200	4
2	200 or more	3

North have changed up their age profile a lot and many of their players are well into their career from being early picks. Guys like Simpkin (27) and Davies Uniacke (25) are older than I realised (cause North have been shit and you don't hear about them as much).

They really should be more competitive this year and be pushing to the underside of the the 8. More St.Kilda than West Coast

[bulldogsthru&thru]

The intent was good for the most part, especially in trying conditions. The execution was poor at times but largely from inexperienced players.

The major concerns:

- clearance work. Just awful.
- English. His efforts are deplorable. As usual.
- Dureya and Williams. Worrying form for experienced players.
- Defence without Jones wasn't flash. Lobb did his best and thought JOD played well but if either or both can't get up for next week we'll be in a world of hurt. The smaller defenders were poor. Got caught ball watching too many times.

But the performances of some of our younger players was promising, particularly Davidson. There's a lot to work with Dolan. He faded late but can't blame a first gamer in thise conditions. Dale and Richards really stepped up which was what we needed.

I don't think it'll be pretty next week against better opposition. We just need to hang tight until the reinforcements arrive and that's what we did last night.

[GVGjr]

I reckon the main person we missed was L Jones, we looked very vulnerable down back with JOD IMO. Good to see Vandemeer justify his constant selection.

No doubt we miss Jones in a big way.

[doggies ftw]

Well glad that’s over. It’s round 1 so is what it is just take the win and move on. Can never take too much out of a scrappy round 1 game

Hope Cleary is okay that was nasty. VDM stepped up big time and shut me up, he was really really good. I’m sorry but English is terrible, he’s genuinely terrible and the next 5 years of us being stuck with him as number one ruck on a million a year is going to seriously hamper us, he’s just not good.

Glad to see Sanders hit the scoreboard, but yeah I don’t think he’s it either. Just a very very nothing player at this stage, the goals were nice though hopefully he gets some much needed confidence from that.

Darcy and Naughty were terrific, were clearly missing the extra tall though, I’d play Croft next week if fit. Man I want Marra back though.

We got pretty well beaten in the midfield too, Freijah started slow but really looked like he belonged by the end, keen to explore this more because yeah without Bont our midfield is very very vanilla - to be fair it must be hard when we have the worst ruckman in the league leading our midfield. We were a bit chaotic with our ball movement and didn’t always pay off but was glad to see us try to play with some intent and a real endeavour to move the ball quickly, it will start to pay off more and more

[jeemak]

English didn't have a great night against a very good ruck last night, but you're well over the top with your assessment. And calling Sanders a very very nothing player when he's just starting out in his career is again, well over the top.

[doggies ftw]

“English didn’t have a great night”

Sorry that’s not acceptable anymore, he’s 28 years old and one of the highest paid ruckman in the league, Xerri would be on half his wage.

Accepting his constant poor performances is why we’re in this situation. How many poor nights can he have? It’s every second week

[doggies ftw]

Also last point on English, his general ineptness forces our hand to play Darcy through the ruck for bulk minutes. Which completely robs us of a tall forward, with Marra out its killed our structure. Unfortunately we have literally zero ways to fix this because our list management in regards to ruckman has been diabolically poor

[The bulldog tragician]

Watching the reply. Brereton is so masterful at making the most mundane observation seem as it's something that only he, with his vast experience, is capable of noticing and UNDERSTANDING. Who doesn't love being talked down to?

It’s what happens when a bogan tries to be pompous

[ReLoad]

Was an interesting game last night and im glad we played Norf first up, if like last year we played a team that had played the week before, i fear a much different result.

some of our skill level at times was woeful, but we were operating at the level of our opposition.
I was super worried about Sanders who is a real plodder, then his first few big steps to kick his second made me rethink, that was classy and reminded me of why he is rated so highly. I was hoping for a Macrae Mk2, but i think ill settle for a Jose Romero Mk2.

Were really undermanned, especially down back, we need the fridge back there, albeit his midfield time was awesome last night. (which is also undermanned)

Im not sure there is a place right now for Dolan or Cleary, with others to be way more suitable for roles.

I wish JOD and Cleary both well in recoveries.

And a huge welcome back to Danny and his banners!!!!!!

[jeemak]

Also last point on English, his general ineptness forces our hand to play Darcy through the ruck for bulk minutes. Which completely robs us of a tall forward, with Marra out its killed our structure. Unfortunately we have literally zero ways to fix this because our list management in regards to ruckman has been diabolically poor

Does anyone know where you can get stats for time in the ruck vs. otherwise/ TOG? I didn't think there was a huge difference in the ruck minutes between English and Xerri with the latter often replaced by Darling, but I wasn't concentrating on it too much.

It would be an interesting stat to view.

[doggies ftw]

Does anyone know where you can get stats for time in the ruck vs. otherwise/ TOG? I didn't think there was a huge difference in the ruck minutes between English and Xerri with the latter often replaced by Darling, but I wasn't concentrating on it too much.

It would be an interesting stat to view.

Not sure that would be recorded somewhere for us normies to access unfortunately, best thing we have is probably Centre bounce attendances but obviously that doesn’t tell the full picture. Gut feel without any stats to back it up is I thought Darcy started to play more and more ruck minutes after half time, when mostly forward first half, but could be wrong

[Mofra]

Does anyone know where you can get stats for time in the ruck vs. otherwise/ TOG? I didn't think there was a huge difference in the ruck minutes between English and Xerri with the latter often replaced by Darling, but I wasn't concentrating on it too much.

It would be an interesting stat to view.

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_player_compare?playerStatus1=A&tid1=8&pid1=6345&fid1=S&playerStatus2=A&tid2=13&pid2=6534&fid2=S&type=A

83% to 79%, Xerri's way.

Surprising as Timmy normally has a higher TOG.

Xerri is a gun but we really need more from English. Xerri even beat him for DE

[jeemak]

Thanks. Pretty clear where Tim needs to improve, contested possessions, contested marks and marks generally if he's going to deliver value in lieu of not ever going to decisively win the ruck contests themselves.

People underrate Xerri, or at least are only starting to really appreciate how competent he is. He was part of the 44 man AA squad with numbers close to competing with Gawn's who made the eventual team (that didn't have a genuine second ruck selected).

[Boots]

I'm going to buck the trend here and be glowing about last night. Would that performance have beaten, say, Geelong in Geelong, or (more pressingly, a Collingwood midfield of Houston and Naicos)? No... but they did what they needed to against North and a lot of pressure, intent and discipline was on show.

Q1 our better discipline was solidly on show - faster and more precise handballs resulting in a decent lead.
Q2 they reverted to a plan they stuck with for the rest of the game - stretch our slow mids away from the contest by spreading quickly to the wings, giving up ground to do so. When they got out of clearance, we simply couldn't catch them. But we adjusted! And ground out more ground balls and more scrappy clearances. That's a cause for celebration.
Q3 was marred by some real clangers in defence. Gardner turnovers, sure, but Lobb was the worst for me - there was one North goal that resulted from him giving up the chase, expecting the ump to call a free. Stupid error.
Q4 it was clear everyone was tired - lots of sloppy play form both teams - but Richards, and Kennedy (good pickup!) and the other more disciplined, fitter, older players kept us in it.

It wasn't a performance for the ages, but when the game wasn't on our terms, we brought it back to our terms. that's a good, solid win given our outs.

I'm nervous as hell against Collingwood. I don't think we've got their number across attack, defence, or the mids. It might be a drubbing. But I'm going to try and stay optimistic. I took footy way too personally last year, I didn't go to a single game, and just got too mired in the online commentary. This year I want to enjoy it again.

[jeemak]

Cast our minds back to late 2023 and finals are on the line vs. WCE who really brought the pressure at Docklands, and did us because of it. The side we put out that night was well credentialed vs. the one we did last night against similar pressure and intent from the opposition. It's all about perspective.

[azabob]

Gardner did not play.

[Boots]

Hm I’m rusty on the team lineup. Maybe it was Gags?

[ArsenalFC]

I was worried heading into this game without some of our more consistent performers however Dale, Richards and Kennedy really showed some class. We have a big four weeks coming up before Bont and co come back.

I loved our forward craft and inside delivery but it will get tested with better opponents coming up.

whilst I know it was the first game and really hot conditions, hopefully the blowing up in the final qtr was isolated because we were really out of legs and a better side would’ve capitalised.