2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

[Missing Dog]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

I still believe If Griif had hit up His pass to Koby Stevens early in the 3rd qtr Koby would have had a easy set shot 30m out would have got us to a 20pt lead our confidence would have increased and the Bombers would have dropped even more.We really should have won this game .This type of win would have done wonders for Our Season and for the confidence in this group which looks like it has forgotten how to win.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

Not too much I want to comment on as most of it has been said. Our concentration lapses are still killing us, as is the amount of work we need to do to generate a shot on goal. We looked a lot better in patches last night than we have at times, with more players willing to work ahead of the ball carrier to create options. At times we were really able to lock the game down too which helped.

Still a lot of work to do, and whilst I'm not at all happy with the result, we appear to have improved on last year.

[Bornadog]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

Typically if you are giving away some height as Talia was you can exploit other aspects of the match-up but Talia comes up short in that as well. He is physical but lacks a bit on the athleticism and skills front. We need to give him more opportunities but I can see why he was being held back earlier in the season despite the many calls for the MC to play him regardless.

I agree that we don't have a lot of options. Roberts has a bit more height but like Talia he lacks skills and pace. I guess we could roll the dice with him but maybe Talia is the better option. I could be talked out of that though.

At the three quarter time, Macca took Talia aside and was giving him some advice one on one along the boundary, away from the main group. These guys are still young and developing, and hopefully Talia can step up in the next few years.

[MrMahatma]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

We keep hearing this week in/week out, but what changes? The buck stops with him. There has been no progression.

We persist with playing a loose man each week, and every week, the opposition's loose man does more damage - which IMO is due to the incompetence of our forward line. (eg. Jones and Williams have little football nous).

You don't think we've improved at all this year over last?

[Bornadog]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

You don't think we've improved at all this year over last?

Other than the West Coke game, we have been very competitive and capable of winning every game. 12 months ago, we were not even getting close.

[soupman]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

Completely agree with AR's analysis, I think we just about nailed the matchups and side and it was clearly our execution going forward, not lack of or inferior personnel that killed us in the end.

I was very sceptical with the inclusions of Williams and JJ, but Tommygun was brought into the side clearly to try and drag Hooker and Fletcher out to the wings and stretch their defence, and they needed a defender to cover Picken's move to the midfield and a scrap as JJ has been, the remaining defenders have been even less inspiring and thus JJ was brought back in much earlier than he really should have been.

Last night I thought that is the most lacking in confidence and risk averse I've seen us. We looked noticeably tentative and aside from Higgins, Dahlhaus and Boyd didn't really have anyone willing to take risks and back themselves in. That play where Griffen stuffed up the kick to Stevens and then the resultant second chance highlighted it for me, Griffen of last year runs to 60 and kicks an awesome running goal. There was the space for it and he has the kick, he just didn't look to back himself in to finish an already very good play.

Unfortunately Murphy struggled to get in the game which is half of our quality run gone and JJ as one of the other key runners only ran into trouble. Thankfully Higgins pushed deep and really gave us something to use coming out of defence. I would have liked us to look to use the middle more and also run it up the ground. Our forwardline really struggled to be a target in the second half so we should have forced the issue and run it forward forcing both our forwards and their defenders to reposition themselves at short notice opening up gaps. As it was we would slowly get it to half forward and send a high ball into an alreadysettled and set up Bombers defence.

Even our all too familiar handball hot potato game would have done something. It worked a few times when Higgins ran forward and while it does mean a bit of stress as player get and give the ball in the 1 second before they are tackled it was actually really effective last night at releasing a runner and probably should have been used more against what is not a strong tackling side instead of trying to hit up average options with Essendon's plethora of rangy defenders manning them up.

[GVGjr]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

At the three quarter time, Macca took Talia aside and was giving him some advice one on one along the boundary, away from the main group. These guys are still young and developing, and hopefully Talia can step up in the next few years.

But would you agree his form does give us all an insight about why he wasn't played earlier in the season? A lot of people were questioning the MC decision on the non selection of Talia but even allowing for his age he just hasn't shown much so far.
I'm not being critical of him but he is being played because we don't have a lot of other options at the moment.

I agree we need to stick with him but he does have to start getting some runs on the board.

[azabob]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

You do realise Boyd shut Watson out of the game. Watson had to be moved forward in the 3rd quarter.

Without being there, from the TV It looked like Liberatore / Stevens went head to head with Watson.

[chef]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

You don't think we've improved at all this year over last?

I agree, we couldn't do these sorts of efforts this time last year.

[always right]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

Without being there, from the TV It looked like Liberatore / Stevens went head to head with Watson.

You're right.....I think we're just puzzled that you had Boyd as a non-contributor. Thought he continued his strong season form so far.

[azabob]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

You're right.....I think we're just puzzled that you had Boyd as a non-contributor. Thought he continued his strong season form so far.

Happy to be wrong about Boyd being a non-contributor. I hate watching the footy on the TV. You only see 5% on what is actually going on.

[always right]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

Happy to be wrong about Boyd being a non-contributor. I hate watching the footy on the TV. You only see 5% on what is actually going on.

Losing the captaincy may have been the best thing for Boyd. He is back to career best form.

[boydogs]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

We were up to our eyeballs in it in 2009 during a prelim and ended up playing the same way we did in the last quarter as we did today.

I was thinking the same thing. We were dominating possession and inside 50's but couldn't spot up a target and were getting outmarked when bombing it in. Our kicking to advantage in general needs a lot of work. We only seem to have 2 gears, a 30m chip pass to a player in space or kicking long to nowhere in particular. Watch Pendlebury's inside 50 entries and you will see him go long to 1 on 1's to the forward's side of the contest.

Higgins, Murphy & Gia are good at this, Boyd, Griffen & Cooney are not. We need to do better than 50 inside 50's for 9 goals

[Hotdog60]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

I think Stringer will develop into a strong mid fielder. There were some signs last night when he got up the ground that he has poise and some good evasive skills.

[EasternWest]

Re: 2014 Game Day Round 7 - Essendon V Western Bulldogs

I'd even like us to ask Jack Riewoldt, "how does 750,00K sound?"

I know you're angry right now, so I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that.

I think Stringer will develop into a strong mid fielder. There were some signs last night when he got up the ground that he has poise and some good evasive skills.

He's got a ways to go, but he's clearly got a lot to work with. I remain bullish about what he's going to give us long term.