Review Banners Bangs Big, Bye Bulldogs

[Madas]

I gotta tell ya - waking up, the day is much brighter and have some pep back this morning!

It’s better when we win
Amazingly I was on the couch cheering like a nut after categorically writing off Freo for eternity last week.

This lot will do that to you

 

[Madas]

Has Voss just stamped Sturts passport?


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Sturt had no place in that team
Good selection by Longmuire
I’m going to go as far as to say his selection in the Derby made the team worse rather than better

So to all the Sturt lovers , instead of coming at me , focus your attention on getting aboard the Copper Simpson train

 

[Dockeroo]

It was a really important and enjoyable win in the end. I can’t help but agree with the posters who felt a bit concerned overall though.
For me the game confirmed we are a 7th to 11th level side this year.
A number of players played at a level that is not realistic to expect every week yet we still struggled to put them away.
Fyfe, Banfield, Serong and Treacy will all do well to play better individual games in 2023 and it’s reasonable to assume there will be some regression to the mean in all of these guys over the coming weeks.
So others will need to fill the void by stepping up and playing 10/10 football for their relative ability.
The guys I think there is more in are:
Frederick
Jackson
Brayshaw
Darcy

Guys like Pearce Clark young and Ryan were decent and on point with their form all year.
Mistakes from some role players hurt us at times. We can improve a lot with decision making immediately after a turnover. Numerous occasions there were 3 or 4 freo players out and open after we’d just won the ball back and we somehow managed to butcher the scoring chance.

Also some of the dogs misses were beyond belief in the third. Sometimes it’s just your night. It wasn’t in Adelaide. That’s footy.

4-3 after 7 games is a fair reflection of where we sit overall I reckon. We should be hunting for 7th or 8th if things go well from here.

Thank god Treloar is not a docker btw. My mental health could really not deal with a ball butcher by foot like him in purple.

 

[Taylor]

I loved watching Cooper Simpson celebrate the goal he set up like it was his own first goal at AFL level.

Caleb Serong

3

Caleb Serong

Age

23

Ht

180cm

Wt

87kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

13.0

3star

K

7.0

3star

HB

6.0

4star

M

1.8

2star

T

3.6

5star

CL

2.6

4star

D

13.0

3star

K

7.0

3star

HB

6.0

3star

M

1.8

2star

T

3.6

4star

CL

2.6

4star

D

13.0

4star

K

7.0

3star

HB

6.0

4star

M

1.8

2star

T

3.6

5star

CL

2.6

5star

does stuff like that. It's a known metric of elite team mates.

 

[Taylor]

For me the game confirmed we are a 7th to 11th level side this year.

Perhaps, but we did have one AFL key defender against the Dogs who have FOUR 2m tall marking targets ahead of the ball at times.

They should have been bombing it long to marking contests all night.

 

[Dockeroo]

Also our restarts after an opposition behind are not good enough. Surely this is something coaches can easily fix?

Watching the ball returned with interest so often inside 50 within 10 seconds of Luke Ryan’s restarts was so annoying. Better teams will ruthlessly exploit this flaw. Cox would help enormously here when he’s back.

 

[estibador]

Smidge of recency bias in this.

Sturt could easily of had the sort of game Voss had last night.

I don't think so. Voss already appears to have a more well rounded game to me.

Sturt only ever gets on the end to finish the work of others, hence the persistent Fritsch-lite comparisons. He has this uncanny knack of disappearing so completely in-between that I honestly forget he's playing sometimes until he bobs up again. Voss actually won some important contests and set up teammates last night.

 

[Madas]

Also our restarts after an opposition behind are not good enough. Surely this is something coaches can easily fix?

Watching the ball returned with interest so often inside 50 within 10 seconds of Luke Ryan’s restarts was so annoying. Better teams will ruthlessly exploit this flaw. Cox would help enormously here when he’s back.

The lack of overlap from kick outs was frustrating
They need to get Clarke more involved there

 

[Bicco]

Very important win in the context of the season. Overall not a great win. Dogs really aren't all that. They kicked 2.7 in the 3rd, a better team will be more ruthless. Some fantastic individual efforts. Banners and Walters having an impact is so important. Treacy has a good vein of form. Our midfield continues to be very strong, they definitely lifted after last week.
Next week to me is the same as this one, a game we must win against a team out of form. Just have to get it done.

 

[mattis117]

It was a really important and enjoyable win in the end. I can’t help but agree with the posters who felt a bit concerned overall though.
For me the game confirmed we are a 7th to 11th level side this year.
A number of players played at a level that is not realistic to expect every week yet we still struggled to put them away.
Fyfe, Banfield, Serong and Treacy will all do well to play better individual games in 2023 and it’s reasonable to assume there will be some regression to the mean in all of these guys over the coming weeks.
So others will need to fill the void by stepping up and playing 10/10 football for their relative ability.
The guys I think there is more in are:
Frederick
Jackson
Brayshaw
Darcy

Guys like Pearce Clark young and Ryan were decent and on point with their form all year.
Mistakes from some role players hurt us at times. We can improve a lot with decision making immediately after a turnover. Numerous occasions there were 3 or 4 freo players out and open after we’d just won the ball back and we somehow managed to butcher the scoring chance.

Also some of the dogs misses were beyond belief in the third. Sometimes it’s just your night. It wasn’t in Adelaide. That’s footy.

4-3 after 7 games is a fair reflection of where we sit overall I reckon. We should be hunting for 7th or 8th if things go well from here.

Thank god Treloar is not a docker btw. My mental health could really not deal with a ball butcher by foot like him in purple.

This is what's great about bigfooty, some are worried that is our ceiling, others like myself believe that was just the beginning. Our mids can sustain that, Darcy will only get better, and Treacy I'm not putting a ceiling on him, I would bet he plays a few games even better this season.

We're still building, Fyfe is getting to peak fitness, just wait till Darcy, Chapman, Amiss, and Switta are producing their best on top of what we saw last night.

Of course things can derail our momentum, but we're building some.

 

[Dockeroo]

Very important win in the context of the season. Overall not a great win. Dogs really aren't all that. They kicked 2.7 in the 3rd, a better team will be more ruthless. Some fantastic individual efforts. Banners and Walters having an impact is so important. Treacy has a good vein of form. Our midfield continues to be very strong, they definitely lifted after last week.
Next week to me is the same as this one, a game we must win against a team out of form. Just have to get it done.

Agreed this is a Richmond VFL team almost. Unacceptable if we cannot win next week.

 

[apuchar]

He was very good on the wing and half forward. Gives us some versatility.

 

[Footskill]

Very important win in the context of the season. Overall not a great win. Dogs really aren't all that. They kicked 2.7 in the 3rd, a better team will be more ruthless. Some fantastic individual efforts. Banners and Walters having an impact is so important. Treacy has a good vein of form. Our midfield continues to be very strong, they definitely lifted after last week.
Next week to me is the same as this one, a game we must win against a team out of form. Just have to get it done.

Dogs have alot more bite. Can be dangerous but flaky. Tigers are toothless but it's these types of games we need to be switched on for and has been our downfall historically.

 

[Cobbler]

I don't think so. Voss already appears to have a more well rounded game to me.

Sturt only ever gets on the end to finish the work of others, hence the persistent Fritsch-lite comparisons. He has this uncanny knack of disappearing so completely in-between that I honestly forget he's playing sometimes until he bobs up again. Voss actually won some important contests and set up teammates last night.

Possibly… probably.

Put it this way. If you swapped players from last round to this round Voss would’ve had ZERO impact against the Eagles.
Sturt would’ve (as he has done in his history) hit the scoreboard last night.

Both were products of game style.

 

[Footskill]

Interesting pov from dog supporters. Although they do put the heat on their team alot still don't rate us, calling us hacks who they shouldn't have lost to. It was far from an upset and going in I thought it was 50/50

 

[cardamon]

It felt like there were a lot of times where he took a step too many and had his kicks affected by oppo contact to his body because he took so long. Not sure if that's the deal with all of them but there were definitely a few that ended up being Shallow i50 turnovers where he should've gone a lot deeper

Yeah but without him we don't win i think, fyfe and serong (also great) have the 52 handballs between them, Young tries to kick every time and i think was one of our best driving mids

 

[freo84]

Interesting pov from dog supporters. Although they do put the heat on their team alot still don't rate us, calling us hacks who they shouldn't have lost to. It was far from an upset and going in I thought it was 50/50

Their form has been worse than ours...not sure how they view us that way

 

[s_wd6]

Smidge of recency bias in this.

Sturt could easily of had the sort of game Voss had last night.

When we play attacking football Sturt will be of benefit.

Sturt was incredibly unlucky to play in the game where most of our team didn’t show up.

That said, Sturt has had years to grab an opportunity and you do need to change over the list.

I’d love to see Sturt get a block of 5 games to be sure. I really think he has something to add, but that may be based on pure blind faith.

Voss is like a wrecking ball though. Everytime he tackled or bumped a player they fell to the ground.

 

[s_wd6]

Very few teams want the ball transitioning through their ruckman. Typically skills are poor and decision making average. There aren’t many teams like the Bulldogs. Darcy has to get fitter no doubt, but his strength in the actual ruck contests was awesome.

Absolutely. Smashed around the ground but we completely dominated clearances. Serong doesn't get 17 without Darcy.

 

[Quazar2]

Voss is like a wrecking ball though. Everytime he tackled or bumped a player they fell to the ground.

I think it's a valid point. Voss is a Big Bogan and with that comes natural aggression. See ball, get ball! Sturt feels a bit more mellow, too mellow; more a calculated 'thinking man's' forward. Probably where Sturt just falls back in the pecking order because he doesn't quite show the intensity required, but I'm hopeful he can still 'make it'. Who knows...

 

[sumavich]

Personally, I think Fyfe may even get better. He's worked out his clearances now his body is up to it.
Against the Toast he had 13 clearances, huge number, but probs a bit misleading. They weren't effective.
Last night his 37 possessions was with less clearances, but much more effective.
He's got an elite footy brain, so understanding how his body fits in to the midfield is going to be critical.

 

[Dale147]

 

[s_wd6]

I really don't think enough has been said about how well our defence held up last night. Dogs had five guys over 190cm when Bont floated back there. Meanwhile we had Pearce and Chapman who hasn't played AFL in over a year for the majority of the game. How they didn't dominate I'm not sure, but we saw how much Darcy benefited from us being undersized.

Also Freddy back cannot be understated. His kicking i50 is arguably the best in the team and he kicks goals. We really missed him the last few weeks.

 

[oldgoat]

Was sitting nearly behind where Cooper put on the jets. The lateral cut inside, accelerating, taking a bounce, running straight at the goals and then sizing it up and perfectly chipping over the top was just top shelf.

I'd been talking him up to my mate on the way to the game basically said you can see as soon as he touches the ball he's just got it. The way he moves, the step, decision making and execution. I looked at him after that and said "see what I mean" and my mate who's a pretty good judge of thoroughbreds just nodded, yep.

We have one here. Unfortunately the Debbie downer voice in my head keep saying he'll get dropped for Switta while JOM holds his spot. Hopefully not. I know you have to manage the young ones but Simpson just screamed belongs at the top level and he's best 22 already for me.

Most things have been said but one thought I had was the difference between tonight and the game last year was Fyfe and Bont basically swapped. Bont had a shocker by his standards and Fyfe was BOG. His first quarter was unbelievable. One touch with everything and his vision and execution was as good as its every been. He setup or had a hand in practically everything good in that first and we had some of our best chains of positive ball movement and forward connection for the year.

Serong was insanely good.

So good to see Chappy back and I thought Clarks game was underrated.

Where are we in the premiership window?
Are we now seeing the last pieces dropping into place for a serious push in 25?
For instance Simpson, Voss and Draper have just staked their powerful claims to be part of the package.
On top of growth in every line.
The new guard is stepping up.
We can feature in finals this year, can win finals this year.
There's 300+ more games experience to put in to the team this year.
Developing nicely.

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

I really don't think enough has been said about how well our defence held up last night. Dogs had five guys over 190cm when Bont floated back there. Meanwhile we had Pearce and Chapman who hasn't played AFL in over a year for the majority of the game. How they didn't dominate I'm not sure, but we saw how much Darcy benefited from us being undersized.

Also Freddy back cannot be understated. His kicking i50 is arguably the best in the team and he kicks goals. We really missed him the last few weeks.

Someone made that point about record with and without Freddy during the week and after that game I can see it 100%. Wasn’t even his best game but just the speed and positioning is so important in transition. Think Simpson could have similar impact if allowed to play each week