3 Things Learned - Round 18, 2025 vs Adelaide

[Stevo]

1 Adelaide did Thilthorpe a disservice putting in a bid for Ugle-Hagan before selecting Thilthorpe. A powerful performance.
2 Our supporters look to scapegoat way to early. Coffield, Bevo and no Liam are far to easy of claims to explain the loss yesterday.
3 12 months back Adelaide supporters were wanting Nicks replaced but he's assembled a very strong side so good luck to him.

[1eyedog]

1 Adelaide did Thilthorpe a disservice putting in a bid for Ugle-Hagan before selecting Thilthorpe. A powerful performance.
2 Our supporters look to scapegoat way to early. Coffield, Bevo and no Liam are far to easy of claims to explain the loss yesterday.
3 12 months back Adelaide supporters were wanting Nicks replaced but he's assembled a very strong side so good luck to him.

Agreed point 2. Thought Bont was great but didn't impact like he has in the past but that's no slight on him he's carried this team for years. Richards was goodish but didn't live up to hype yesterday it was a vanilla game from him.

Kennedy and Freijah had mares and when two key midfielders fail to fire there's going to be issues. Bevo moved the magnets. West went into the midfield, Kennedy played deep forward, went early on the sub but nothing worked out.

The system of Darcy playing 10 minutes forward, 10 minutes off then 10 minutes ruck each quarter is flawed imo. Came off after kicking a goal straight away we need him deep for longer. Get Buku to second ruck and leave Darcy forward we're actually getting nothing from him in the middle.

[Sedat]

1. We are not defending the ground anywhere near to the level we did last year, and certainly not up to top 4 real contending level this year

2. ROB is a much better player than advertised but English was not assertive and proactive enough at all, either at stoppage or around the ground. ROB actually schooled him around the ground which is normally English's great strength.

3. Darcy and Naughton would have kicked 7 each if they were wearing Adelaide jumpers - their forwards received magnificent service with precision kicks to advantage side of them almost all game. By contrast, our key forwards had to contend with congestion and huge pack situations most of the game.

Also, our high half forwards were poo yesterday. Ball trampolined with ease out of our F50 time and again. We needed so much more from them as a collective.

[Pleather Sole]

Halfhearted tackling broke my heart, where was the Bulldog tenacity? (There were a few exceptions)

We drafted well in 24 for the near future. This year we need to prioritise trades for ready to play bona fide defenders. Pratt had our backlines in good order last year after Bubba was let go. Now the back 7 look cobbled together and panicky when the pressure is high. 2 experienced blue collar generals (to borrow a commentators phrase) I doubt Liam Jones can turn back the clock enough next year.

Bloody Snicko......

[doggies ftw]

There’s 2 sets of rules. One for our forwards and one for theirs.

Must be so easy to play the dogs you just scrag the **** out of every forward every single contest and the umps do nothing. Goes down the other end and you can’t even ****ing lay a finger on them. How many goals did they kick from free kicks 30m out?

genuinely cooked us in an 11 pt game, losing interest in this trash sport

[Jasper]

We were beaten by a better orgainsed team and we had way too many passengers

It's no good putting the blame on a handful of our players. We carried a number of players last night.

That goal by Darcy highlights he's not just a threat in the air.

[Mantis]

1/ I learnt nothing… the game played out how I thought it would.

2/ I hope that Kennedy was either ill or sore… that type of performance, which to be fair was his worst for us, is why Carlton were ok to move him on.

3/ We get to see how we respond in 4 days. We need to respond.

[Rusty12]

1 - 2nd Game lost at selection this year. I read the criticism above. Lobb and JOD were set up to fail. Hynes and Dolan were never ready for that game.
Coffield is just not very good, been over this multiple times; too slow for smalls and creatives, too small for bigs, can't keep his feet in a contest and butchers the footy. His positioning is good, and he gets the occasional uncontested intercept. There are 100s of players that could do that.
Poulter, not worth even discussing.
No Khamis, he has contributed so much more to this team when he has played, than so many being picked ahead of him, I can't stand Bevo talking about selection integrity.


2- It was a 2023-2024 Doggies team, top-heavy, too many passengers, killed on turnover, and can't defend 1v1.
Of the passengers:
Chugga was too bad to be true; he deserves a mulligan. Take it easy on him, folks. West same.
VDM, well, that's on us, we re-signed him..........
Freijah and Sanders are 19, pass. Do they need some stability in their roles?

3 - Back to Khamis, the more time Darcy is forward, the better. There is a clear fix here. Of his 80% game time, 20-30% of that was in the ruck, it is to much.

[Rusty12]

Slightly different note, but what a great crowd, good work Dogs!!