Review Dees v Westhorsham Port - the Good, Bad and Teal

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The biggest concern for me is that it's starting to look like we're going away from the things we should have learned last year.

Injury management
Trac and Salem shouldn't have played last night. They both looked a long way off it for much of the game. In hindsight, we probably should have rested Grundy last week too (Gawn and Grundy reversed their usual numbers for time in the middle last night).

Midfield spread
Including last night, our midfield spread for centre bounce attendances has looked like this (for the main players, and minus the rucks)

2023 Average (inc last night)
Clayton Oliver 82.8
Jack Viney 64.0
Christian Petracca 62.4
Tom Sparrow 40.7
James Harmes 27.5
James Jordon 20.4
Kysaiah Pickett 17.9

Last night only
Clayton Oliver 91
Jack Viney 77
Christian Petracca 64
Angus Brayshaw 36
Kysaiah Pickett 14
Alex Neal-Bullen 9
James Jordon 9

That's the concern going forward for me, but IMO we lost mostly due to our issues with dealing with pressure in defensive 50. Port had 18 tackles inside 50. Bryne-Jones averages around 1 tackle inside 50 per game, last night he had 7. Ground balls inside defensive 50 remain a massive issue I reckon, and the panic seems real when we keep seeing our key forwards deep at that end of the ground. Lots to sort out there I reckon.
 

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IMO we lost mostly due to our issues with dealing with pressure in defensive 50.

The entire momentum of the game/the game was decided on the back of clearances. Shocked that you dont identify this as the issue.
 
The entire momentum of the game/the game was decided on the back of clearances. Shocked that you dont identify this as the issue.

Firstly, I was talking about the mix in the middle, we won the centre clearances.

Secondly, as above, Port had 18 tackles inside 50, well over their season average. Clearly they had a plan to expose our defence with forward pressure and ground ball gets, areas we are weak this year.

As I've talked about a bit, with plenty of evidence to back it up, we don't play a clearance focused style, all the stats tell you that, but we don't want to be losing clearances badly either. We rely heavily on pressure due to that, and our pressure wasn't at the level last night. Losing the disposal count by over 30 but also losing the tackle count is simply not good enough.

Despite winning the centre clearances, we lost the inside 50 count, which is against the trend for us being the number 1 team in the league for that particular stat. So the pressure, particularly the post-clearance pressure was poor given it's a key pillar of our style.

All the above is backed up by the stat trends and the stats from last night's game. It's not 2006 anymore, it's not all about "win the clearances" and "just kick it long!".
 
hypothetically, if I was coach next week and I did the following, would people really care?
  • Harmes as a a full time tagger. At least it shows some defensive purpose.
  • Kozzie in the middle for 10-15 minutes a quarter. Sub him out if he gets gassed for all I care.
  • May to change up the kickouts, hell even do the odd torp straight down the guts.
  • Brayshaw to be dropped and told he can return when he's dropped 5kg.
  • Joel Smith to play in the forward line and told to jump at everything like a mad man.
  • Grundy to get dropped and see if Gawn can rediscover his AA form. Gawndy ain't working.
  • Blake Howes, Woewodin to debut, see how they go.

like honestly, surely people just want to see Goodwin think outside the square. If we're going to play poorly, play poorly by trying something new.
I like all those suggestions.

Don't know if Howes or Woey are ready yet, but it would be great to have Howes up forward when he is.
 
The biggest concern for me is that it's starting to look like we're going away from the things we should have learned last year.

Injury management
Trac and Salem shouldn't have played last night. They both looked a long way off it for much of the game. In hindsight, we probably should have rested Grundy last week too (Gawn and Grundy reversed their usual numbers for time in the middle last night).

Midfield spread
Including last night, our midfield spread for centre bounce attendances has looked like this (for the main players, and minus the rucks)

2023 Average (inc last night)
Clayton Oliver 82.8
Jack Viney 64.0
Christian Petracca 62.4
Tom Sparrow 40.7
James Harmes 27.5
James Jordon 20.4
Kysaiah Pickett 17.9

Last night only
Clayton Oliver 91
Jack Viney 77
Christian Petracca 64
Angus Brayshaw 36
Kysaiah Pickett 14
Alex Neal-Bullen 9
James Jordon 9

That's the concern going forward for me, but IMO we lost mostly due to our issues with dealing with pressure in defensive 50. Port had 18 tackles inside 50. Bryne-Jones averages around 1 tackle inside 50 per game, last night he had 7. Ground balls inside defensive 50 remain a massive issue I reckon, and the panic seems real when we keep seeing our key forwards deep at that end of the ground. Lots to sort out there I reckon.

Great post. Sums everything up imo.


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The Good:
No positives. Maybe getting back into a winnable position.

The Bad:
Van Rooyen for being slow to get rid of the ball. That's 3 weeks now where's he's been slow in the mind with his disposal. Not to mention the 2 dumb free kicks.
Tom Mcdonald
Jack Viney
sliding around taking peoples knees out. Know the rules mate.
Lack of defensive pressure
1st, 2nd and 4th Quarter.
Grundy
Giving Port shots on call after the quarter time siren, the half time siren and 3/4 time siren.

The Ugly:
The umpiring.
Goodwin not putting anyone on Butters.
I actually think the Magpies are not missing Grundy one iota, his last two seasons with us were poor form and long injuries.
 

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Grundy really wasn't bad, was certainly better than Max. At one point he was our only clearance mid and was following up the ruck contests as first tackler. He is not, and has never been, a strong contested mark. If that's what we recruited him to do, then Grawndy will fail.
 
All the above is backed up by the stat trends and the stats from last night's game. It's not 2006 anymore, it's not all about "win the clearances" and "just kick it long!".

I didnt say anything about kick it long did I? In fact im a massive hater on kick it long in general. How about win a clearance and hit a target?

That being said, if youre ever going to kick it long, out of the centre clearance would be the time to do it given the 6/6/6 rules.
 
Speaking of the 6/6/6 rules, why do us nuffies seem to give away a free a week at least to this?

Young side. Still plenty of learnings.
 
Tom McDonald wasn’t the worst out there.

Does he make the side better? JVR pushed up the ground coz TMac is there. Tell me he couldn't have done what TMac did last night if he was the deep forward. Probably doesnt give away those two free kicks in defense either.
 
Does he make the side better? JVR pushed up the ground coz TMac is there. Tell me he couldn't have done what TMac did last night if he was the deep forward. Probably doesnt give away those two free kicks in defense either.
The JVR at half back move was big brain stuff from Goody. Hard to see where it went wrong.
 
The JVR at half back move was big brain stuff from Goody. Hard to see where it went wrong.

If he was the deep forward he wouldnt have been there. Cant believe we have him doing the Petty donkey work. Absolutely ******ed stuff. Playing talls for the sake of a stupid structure that makes us worse. Fritsch was the best hit up option high last night.
 
Good: Rivers, kid is a gun, tall, moves well, courage, can use it well, monster kick of the footy, steal for pick 32 or whatever it was. Really impressive this season!
Wait for him to be dropped for not following the system by breaking lines through the middle before hitting a leading target on the chest, instead of bombing long down the wing.

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We got everything right in 2021; peak Gawn, May and McDonald for half a year with Brown in peak form come finals. The smaller forward brigade was really aggressive as was our defenders.

Cliff is coming for some elder statesmen.
The cliff is coming for several - I agree with you there. But I still feel like we should be contending this year, but the effort and intensity isn't high enough. Last night was a perfect example. Poor in the first half, and then suddenly they flick the switch in the 3rd and they completely outplay the opposition. Then in the last quarter, the same level wasn't maintained - all due respect to Port for the comeback, of course. But we have a superior team to Port, even with certain weaknesses. We just didn't will it to a win like we would have 2 years ago. Gawn allowing himself to be hassled, and his teammates allowing him to be hassled felt emblematic of the lack of mongrel in our team this year. We haven't even played a lot of the better teams yet, so it's going to be a confronting time ahead.
 

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