Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

[Nuggety Back Pocket]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

I totally agree. This is why I said it may be harsh. The anchor probably should go to the MC for selecting Jong just to play on Patty. I like Jong for his hardness but apart from that he isn't AFL standard IMO. He has a big heart but also the worst skills in the league.

Playing Jong on Dangerfield isn't any different than playing Wallis on Cotchin and Mark Murphy. Neither are good enough to match class opposition. You would have to question the MC today with the classic being Stringer to defence.

[soupman]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Playing Jong on Dangerfield isn't any different than playing Wallis on Cotchin and Mark Murphy. Neither are good enough to match class opposition. You would have to question the MC today with the classic being Stringer to defence.

Macaffer is nowhere near Cotchins ability either and he seemed to do alright.

Stringer in defence (and Jones for that matter) was fine. Give him a different task which will challenge them and help us learn something about them. We now know that neither is a key defender, but there is a player we badly missed down there today that was drafted as a ruckman in Roughead, so it does work sometimes. Besides maybe this will help Stringer realise the work that's required of an AFL player and that he can't just wait for the ball over the top.

[G-Mo77]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Bankers

Dickson - Really good today apart from a couple of bad misses.

Murphy - Terrific across HB. We are in the poo when he retires.

Boyd - Putting together some really good games

Anchors

Jones - Sorry Liam I've been a fan but that was dreadful. If he's attempting to be a statue of a forward he did a great job today and his blunders in the last cost us the win. What worries me is how he comes back from this. That chest mark drop alone will make him want to go to another planet.

Young - No good. There I said it. He's no good. Not a KPP, to slow to be a HBF. Good VFL player and we'd be better off if we left him there.

Most of the forwards - Statues.

[soupman]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Bankers:

Boyd: Despite some customary shite kicking he was easily our best throughout the match.
Stevens: Can be haphazard with the footy but adds a physicality many in our side lack and is as good an aerial target as any of our kpp's.
Wood: The player in our side who has gone from having big question marks over his future to being someone we can be confident in being a good long term player the quickest. Really solid defensively and finally getting enough of the ball that he can start to impact games breaking lines offensively.

Anchors:

Jones: Really disappointing. His non-negotiable should be that he is also hungry and presenting. The Carlton match was a good demo of what his bad games should be like. In that match he didn't get much of the ball, but he put on defensive pressure and had a physical presence. Today he looked meek, dropped the chances that came his way and demonstrated that ruck isn't his worst position. I still have faith, but he can't afford to pull out another performance even remotely close to todays, which wa easily his worst for the club.
Our forwardline: A key reason we struggled in the middle two quarters was our forwardline or lack thereof. There was no presenting towards the ball carrier, no movement and too often they ran it out under no pressure. Guys like Crameri, Jones, Gia, Dahlhaus and Hunter let us down here.

[SonofScray]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Hard to dish out too many Bankers today, it was as uninspiring an effort across the board you could imagine in a contest where a few straight kicks results in a win instead of a frustrating loss. Alas, here we go:

Bankers:

Cooney - ran hard, broke the lines and looked dangerous when doing so.
D-haus - kicked goals, worked his way into the game.
Wood - made key spoils and gave us some dash under adversity.

Anchors:
Jones - hurts to say it because I've been a huge backer, but that was atrocious.
Higgins - two weeks in a row he hasn't met the standard he showed early in the season.
Campbell - true to form, blazed into the game for the first 15mins and then went missing.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Higgins - two weeks in a row he hasn't met the standard he showed early in the season.

Couldn't disagree more.

We looked dangerous/got momentum when Higgins was running and receiving the football. I wanted Higgins to push forward late, but overall, I thought it was a pretty good performance. If he's an anchor, you might as well list about 19 other players.

[G-Mo77]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Couldn't disagree more.

We looked dangerous/got momentum when Higgins was running and receiving the football. I wanted Higgins to push forward late, but overall, I thought it was a pretty good performance. If he's an anchor, you might as well list about 19 other players.

Came off with a groin injury as well, played through it but wonder if it puts him in doubt next week.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Bankers:

1. Cooney worked/ran hard. WTF was he doing playing on a wing though at times? Anyway, good game and response after a poor one last week.

2. Wood was excellent. Having a really good season. Very courageous, spoils well, marks well and is getting much more of the ball. Very pleased to see him playing like this.

3. Boyd made a few errors but overall was very good. Some really good handballs, smothers and tackles. Worked hard and is in good form.

Anchors:

1. Jones' game was as bad as I've seen from any player, ever. Terrible work rate is being nice, lack of football nous, poor skill execution... I'll stop there.

2. Young isn't up to AFL standard. Will have the odd good game against mediocre opposition but moving forward he's not in our best 22.

3. Gia - killed on the rebound, missed targets, and the game was simply too quick for him. Not his fault though - MC failed here again.

[SonofScray]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Couldn't disagree more.

We looked dangerous/got momentum when Higgins was running and receiving the football. I wanted Higgins to push forward late, but overall, I thought it was a pretty good performance. If he's an anchor, you might as well list about 19 other players.

And i could name another 19 Anchors. But the thread dictates you get three and I am calling Higgins out for a drop in his standards across two winnable games. He always looks good with the footy because he can be a terrific player. We'd be a better side with a terrific player playing terrific football.

Today was bitterly disappointing. Who were the biggest busts of the day in your view? Like you said, plenty to choose from.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Today was bitterly disappointing. Who were the biggest busts of the day in your view? Like you said, plenty to choose from.

Hard to go past Jones and Young. Even early when we were playing well, the former wasn't involved and the latter looked very shaky. Minson's first three quarters were poor, Griffen's disposal was poor, Talia had some moments to forget (but we simply need to persist).

I thought we only had 5 or 6 solid contributors on the day, and McCartney seems much more upbeat in his press conference than he ought to be IMO.

[SlimPickens]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

I thought we only had 5 or 6 solid contributors on the day, and McCartney seems much more upbeat in his press conference than he ought to be IMO.

Interesting isn't it? We were the dominate team for 50 mins of footy and absolutely flogged for the other 50. I think there was plenty to be positive about, it just gets lost in the pile of turd called the second and third quarters.

[Scorlibo]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Hard to go past Jones and Young. Even early when we were playing well, the former wasn't involved and the latter looked very shaky. Minson's first three quarters were poor, Griffen's disposal was poor, Talia had some moments to forget (but we simply need to persist).

I thought we only had 5 or 6 solid contributors on the day, and McCartney seems much more upbeat in his press conference than he ought to be IMO.

Must have been watching a different press conference to what you did. Thought he looked absolutely devastated myself. What did you expect him to say? It's the coaches job to always stay positive, always be thinking of improving rather than lamenting.

[SonofScray]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Hard to go past Jones and Young. Even early when we were playing well, the former wasn't involved and the latter looked very shaky. Minson's first three quarters were poor, Griffen's disposal was poor, Talia had some moments to forget (but we simply need to persist).

I thought we only had 5 or 6 solid contributors on the day, and McCartney seems much more upbeat in his press conference than he ought to be IMO.

Agree. Young is OK when gets the ball cleanly and space opens up around him with tea mates running in support. Unfortunately, he rarely gets the ball with a clean first touch and the opportunity for him to hurt the opposition the other way gets blown.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Interesting isn't it? We were the dominate team for 50 mins of footy and absolutely flogged for the other 50. I think there was plenty to be positive about, it just gets lost in the pile of turd called the second and third quarters.

Similar trends keep occurring each week, so I'm not sure we're learning/improving. Although there have been positives in every game (minus round one), it's a story of us playing good footy in bursts but ultimately not being able to stop the opposition momentum nor show enough composure in key moments to potentially win games of footy.

So far this season the negatives have outweighed the positives.

Must have been watching a different press conference to what you did. Thought he looked absolutely devastated myself. What did you expect him to say? It's the coaches job to always stay positive, always be thinking of improving rather than lamenting.

Rightly or wrongly I don't think his reactions change from press conference to press conference, so I didn't think he looked devastated at all.

You're right it's his job to be positive, but at some point I wouldn't mind him putting some heat on the group. Nothing over the top, of course. His comments that last week was much worse than this week I don't really agree with. We did blow a 28 point odd lead in quite embarrassing fashion.

Perhaps it's just that my faith is lost.

[Scorlibo]

Re: Bankers and Anchors - Round 6

Interesting isn't it? We were the dominate team for 50 mins of footy and absolutely flogged for the other 50. I think there was plenty to be positive about, it just gets lost in the pile of turd called the second and third quarters.

I'm getting sick of this tendency in games for us to play in spurts. I'm also getting sick of hearing Brendan refer to our down patches as a 'lack of intensity' or 'lack of concentration'. It seems more likely that B-Mac's philosophy of hunkering down when things 'aren't going our way' is flawed in that it gets the whole team thinking about stopping the opposition scoring rather than scoring ourselves. It seems like every game this season has seen us obliterated at one point or another, and not with even a hint that we might score ourselves.

Rnd 1 vs West Coast: Q2-Q3 five unanswered goals.
Rnd 2 vs North: Q4 four unanswered goals.
Rnd 3 vs Richmond: Q3-Q4 five unanswered goals.
Rnd 4 vs GWS: Q1 five unanswered goals.
Rnd 5 vs Carlton: Q2 four unanswered goals.
Rnd 6 vs Adelaide: Q2-Q4 EIGHT unanswered goals.