Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

[Dry Rot]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

I dunno why I stayed up to 3.30am to watch that rubbish.

Beaten all over the park.

Aside from Higgins and Hargrave, I can't really think of too many others who beat their man.

Poor lack of commitment NB the clearances.

Who were our "forwards"?

[Bornadog]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

Plenty of inside 50's but no one there to take the big grab or lead out. They really struggled in the mid field as well.

[Dry Rot]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

Plenty of inside 50's but no one there to take the big grab or lead out. They really struggled in the mid field as well.

Were there any talls playing forward? Saw Wight down there and McDougall.

Not much left after Harris, Grant and Darcy.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

McDougall did a few good things, but was very patchy.

I wouldn't read too much into though - clearances, forward lines, any of that.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

Were there any talls playing forward? Saw Wight down there and McDougall.

Not much left after Harris, Grant and Darcy.

Eade's coaching was confusing. He really didn't want to win the game at any point in time.

We barely HAD a forward line. It was chopped and changed every 2 minutes. McDougall particuarly was thrown from forward to back. Thus, at times we played with a stupid small forward line which saw it get destroyed.

When Doogs was down there, we looked a little better because he presented pretty well. They could've kicked it to him more though, they were either too slow to get it moving or ignored him and bombed it to the classic Robbins-on-4 defenders.

Hopefully next week Eade starts setting up a structured forward line that doesn't change every few minutes. Last night was horrible.

Oh, and we're unbelievably poor in the stoppages department. We'd be hoping Street, Griffen, Hahn, Akermanis, Cooney etc. can make a big, big difference because atm we're pittiful in there.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

Gotta say this is a much more rational and reasoned debate on last nights game than similar posts on BF...... seems as if some over there are ready to make final conclusions about players abilities on the strength of what essentially was only a practice match on steroids!

For me, in a game where most of our players seemd about 10% below there best , the positives were:

Higgins- oozing class, class class.....looking more and more like a deadset steal at pick 11 for us...
Harbrow- again showed he has the ability to be a very good player in future years for us, but needs to work on his ability to hit targets consistently
Cross- looks set to take a yet a further step toward ensuring Scotty West can one day (hopefuly not too soon) retire safe in the knowledge there is someone who will step into his very big shoes with relative ease. Looks like his upper body has strengthened, this will no doubt improve his already excellent overhead marking.. I think he is going to be increasingly become an extremely hard matchup overhead.

Wight- after looking a bit unco and out of his depth early on against Charman.. responded reasonably well and if he can just learn to use his body just a bit better in contests to compensate for his comparitively light frame he may have a decent future. Noticeably improved his timing of punches and closer checking as the game wore on. Which shows he can learn..still seems prone to making the odd howler though... needs to work on decision making under pressure.
McDougall... again showed he may feature as a positive for us in 2007 if he can continue to build on what he has shown in his first 2 hitouts for us. Adds a nice presence with his contesting abilities and mobility. As an aside I think it will be interesting if Eade tries to swap Grant and Mcdougall at times during some games as a temporary matchup exploitation.. swapping them between CHF and CHB??
Hargrave-can't wait to get him back to full match fitness I think fitness permitting he is in for a big year.
Power- his body finally looks ready, and he seems to have alot more composure. Also looks to have a noticeable steely resolve in his demeanour on the field this year to.
Will Minson... still expecting he will feature prominently this year for us.. but hasn't made the most of the first two weeks. However.. I am REALLY encouraged by his desire to try and get more involved as an option around the ground. I Noticed he really wanted the ball around the ground more and comign out of defence at times... Whilst he didn't necessarily excel at it last night, it is showing that both he and coach are looking to make a further step in his development by expecting more out of him than his ruck work. Still appears to need to work on curbing his high amount of silly free kicks... Having said that... I reckon you'd rather have to teach someone to pull themselves back as opposed to trying to teach them how to fire up!

The only genuine form concerns, amongst those who would perhaps consider themselves to be in the mix for first 22 selection come round 1 would be..

Farren Ray..for some reason appeared all of a sudden unsure of himself and not as switched on as usual... needs to refocus his efforts in training and remaining practice games.

Wayde Skipper- bodysize now looks right to compete, just needs to develop that look in his eyes like Sam Power has.. that shows he knows he deserves to be there and has the ability to make a difference. Looks still far too tentative when he has the ball and in contests.

[Dry Rot]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

I wondered about all the hype about Higgins from training reports and even last week's game.

Now I understand.

At the very least, adding Aker, Higgins, McDougall and a fit Hargrave to least year's team should make a big differnece (I'm not so confident about the ACL guys)

[GVGjr]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

McDougall... again showed he may feature as a positive for us in 2007 if he can continue to build on what he has shown in his first 2 hitouts for us. Adds a nice presence with his contesting abilities and mobility. As an aside I think it will be interesting if Eade tries to swap Grant and Mcdougall at times during some games as a temporary matchup exploitation.. swapping them between CHF and CHB??
Hargrave-can't wait to get him back to full match fitness I think fitness permitting he is in for a big year.
Power- his body finally looks ready, and he seems to have alot more composure. Also looks to have a noticeable steely resolve in his demeanour on the field this year to.
Will Minson... still expecting he will feature prominently this year for us.. but hasn't made the most of the first two weeks. However.. I am REALLY encouraged by his desire to try and get more involved as an option around the ground. I Noticed he really wanted the ball around the ground more and comign out of defence at times... Whilst he didn't necessarily excel at it last night, it is showing that both he and coach are looking to make a further step in his development by expecting more out of him than his ruck work. Still appears to need to work on curbing his high amount of silly free kicks... Having said that... I reckon you'd rather have to teach someone to pull themselves back as opposed to trying to teach them how to fire up!

The only genuine form concerns, amongst those who would perhaps consider themselves to be in the mix for first 22 selection come round 1 would be..

Farren Ray..for some reason appeared all of a sudden unsure of himself and not as switched on as usual... needs to refocus his efforts in training and remaining practice games.

Wayde Skipper- bodysize now looks right to compete, just needs to develop that look in his eyes like Sam Power has.. that shows he knows he deserves to be there and has the ability to make a difference. Looks still far too tentative when he has the ball and in contests.

YHF, thank you for your detailed response. It's far easier for some to be overly critical of a performance that we displayed last night rather than taking it into the context of the bigger picture of the full season.

Glad to see you have highlighted the positive performances of Higgins, McDougall, Hargrave Power and Minson and for what it's worth I agree with your assessments of Ray and Skipper as well.

We have plenty of work to do and I'm sure Eade and co will give the team a particularly tough week on the training track.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

It was a frustrating game to watch but surely given the players coming back we can steady the ship in the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to this season like none other that I can remember and I refuse to let last nights game wreck my resolve. A couple more though and I will be as bitter as all hell.

[alwaysadog]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

Well firstly the night got off to a good start because I caught up with part of the AAD clan.

Before the game commenced I listened to an interview with Peter Street (DR was jealous when I called him) and Tim Walsh. Both players talked well and answered the questions honestly and with a bit of fun.
Walsh talked about all the work he was doing coming back from his injury and gave a good insight to the 6 days training week. He indicated that there was currently 2 training sessions with running, a number weights sessions, pilates/yoga which they do not do during the season, and a couple of swimming sessions.
Walsh thought McDougall was a good addition and that he seemed to be enjoying himself here in Melbourne. Apparently he quite enjoys the Brunswick st lifestyle.

Street talked about his injury which is calf related. I think the fact that he is a ruckman and jumps off one foot means that he had to be careful. He is only another week or two away.
Street mentioned that one of the great things about Rocket is that if he gives them a spray it's forgotten about 5 mins later. Gave me the impression that he thinks the coach does not hold grudges. He made mention that the coaches box can get a bit spirited with with a few things flying around.

Now to the game. Very poor effort with very few good signs.

Hargrave's return from injury was very encouraging and Higgins was full of class and promise. McDougall contested well, held a couple of decent marks and laid a number of very good tackles up forward. Boydy tried hard but wasn't quite on his game.
Gilbee was very good early but made some mistakes in the latter part of the game. Gia was in and out of the game. Cross racked up a good possession rate but he wasn't nearly as effective as we come to expect. Eagle ran riot in the last quarter.

As AAD commented on Wight over committed himself to a couple of contests which resulted in the ball rebounding into the forward line. Ray's vision and decision making was very poor tonight and too often ran into trouble.
The team as a whole had problems with the 20mtr rule and time and time again kicked the ball too short to a team mate who was told to play on by the umps.

The Lions made the most of their chances and appear to be as fit as any team in the competition.

Very good summary GVG. Would add that I was disappointed with our tackling. If we have worked as hard as has been suggested it wasn't apparent to me that it has as yet had any impact. Also worried that our supposed speed advantage wasn't in evidence.

Thought they pretty well beat us at our own game.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

Every list is going to be quicker this year - I still feel we hold the trump cards though for combining the run and carry with the skill. We just needed our full list playing.

[Max469]

Re: Game Day - Bulldogs vs Lions (NAB round 2)

Thought they pretty well beat us at our own game

This is exactly what I said to the people I was with on Friday night.


If this is how we were to play in season - we would have something to worry about. But the NAB is always a chance to find out where we are going and who we are - both the good and the bad.

The bad hit us big time.

They probably thought it was going to be an easy game - why not a lot of supporters did - but there is no easy game.

Humility is a wonderful tool - they now know there is still a lot of work to be done and the returning players will be a bonus.

There were good signs from Higgins, Shaggy and Doogs. Confidence will help a lot the players.


My concern is so many people are expecting so much from Darcy - they are putting so much pressure on him to be our Saviour - please let him get back into the game before we expect big things from him.