by valleys07 » Sun Jul 13, 2014 6:18 pm
Fecking hell.
Nothing is more disappointing than watching your side’s season spiral out of control. I wrote top spot off after the showdown, and wrote top 2 off after last weekend. Will port make the top 4? Looking at our form at the moment, as well as our run home, worst case scenario being we could very well be looking at an away elimination final. Completely staggering.
Where do you start with today? I honestly can’t find any positives outside of our captain.
The negatives. There were plenty.
1) Absolutely belted in the key statistics. 50>41 in the centre clearances, 159>126 in contested possessions, 78>70 in tackles, 49>41 in hitouts, 60>50 in I50’s. Is this workrate? Is this fitness (surely not!), is this errors at the selection table? Is it selfishness? Is it our structure? Is it our game plan? Ill throw that to the masses.
2) Out of the key stats- our tackling today stood out for mine as a massive disappointment. Normally an indicator for a loss is a spike in tackles. Our wins this season have seen us average 69 tackles, a loss sees us average 76. Alarmingly our opposition averages 68 tackles when we win and 81 when we lose. Not only has our run and spread been countered, but we are being belted in close. My gripe is when we do tackle of late, its soft. The amount of times Richmond were able to brush us off and generate attacking forays was hard to watch. FFS wrap the arms and grind them into the turf!!!! Whilst on tackling- another disappointing aspect was seeing us mindlessly handballing when tackled to awaiting Richmond players- id rather see us hold the footy in, get done holding the ball but at least giving our defence an opportunity to re-set, rather than putting the poor blokes under the pump by un-characteristic handballs.
3) Our midfield. What the bloody hell is going on with these blokes at the moment? Aside from Boak, and probably Wines today, we were smashed in there- absolutely smashed. Ebert has hardly had a piece of it for the best part of 2 months, the Sydney game his only exception. Hartlett fades in and out of games way too often for my liking, Cornes hasn’t been as prolific as what he was early in the season (both offensively and defensively), and Polec might as well apologise to the port faithful, saying he got the wrong ground today, such was his 1st half impact. What was our major strength between rounds 1-13 is now our Achilles heel. Concerning is an understatement
4) Selections. By crikey we need a few more talls into this line-up. Give this team something Ken. I know people will see this as making excuses, but its reality- we do not have the KPP depth to cover Jacko and Bob. Jonas cannot consistently perform against players 15cm taller than him, Hombsch is battling hard (no secret he dominates as the floating tall), O’Shea is absolutely not a KPD, and Westhoff costs our side invaluable KPF presence by spending so much time across half back. Injuries are killing us, but we need to look at brining in Clurely, Butcher or Shaw in the coming weeks- just to offer a tall target, make our defensive transfer more potent, just to offer us something. Mitchell is not offering us anything at the moment, Sam Gray about the same. In my opinion, as of right now- selections are not working.
My top 5:
Travis Boak- Our Skipper. What a rich vein of form this bloke is in. He has registered 39,22,33,30 and 26 over the past 5 weeks and is just putting this team on his back almost weekly. For the love of god Ebert, Polec, Hartlett, Cornes- Give the guy some support!! AA squad lock for mine. 39 touches (21 contested), 8 clearances (6 centre clearances), 6 tackles, 5 I50’s and a goal. The complete midfielders (and captains) game.
Daylight
Robbie Gray- Battled hard for little support up forward, finishing with 4 goals. Has dropped a little over the past 3 weeks, but I thought he at least offered us some inside contest, and outside run today. 15 touches, 4 marks, 2 I50’s rounds out a solid performance.
Matt White- Did his absolute best to offer us outside run and carry over 4 quarters, and kicked just about the goal of the year in the last. Copped some extra attention from his old team mates and handled it well I thought.14 touches and 3 I50’s with 2 goals.
Ollie Wines- Did his best inside along with Boak today- but we were belted on the outside. 25 touches (11 contested), 6 clearances, 4 tackles, 4 I50’s and a goal. Really needed to capitalise on his hard running with finishing on the scoreboard. A couple of easy misses a blight on his day.
Hamish Hartlett- After the top 4 it’s a blanket over the rest. Hamish got on the end of a couple of good attacking movements and finished with 21 touches (10 contested), 4 tackles, 4 I50’s and a goal. Well down on what we know he can produce though.
To say we need Bob and Jacko back in this side is an understatement. At least something to arrest the slide. We play Melbourne at AO before the bye, then a run home consisting of Collingwood, Sydney, GC, Carlton and Fremantle will really test the nerves of our supporter base. If we lose to the demons, top is toast. Given that we should be in line to get Bob back for the Collingwood clash- a win against the Demons will keep that top 4 candle flickering..
I’ll still hold hope.
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HOGG Shield 2015 Division I Premiers.
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