Rnd 17 - vs Bulldogs at SCG, 7:50 PM, Friday 8 July 2022

**wolftone57** · 7th July 2022, 09:08 AM

Originally Posted by Maltopia

Abysmal effort vs the Bombers and the Bulldogs will overtake us on the ladder if they win.

Poor vs the Bombers:

Fox, Gulden, Papley, Florent, Lloyd, Rowbottom, Rampe, Mills, McDonald, Campbell, Blakey, Stephens.

Bring back Clarke for Campbell, and Cunningham if fit for Fox. Almartey for Reid.

Season is on the line here.

Amartey looked injured in the reserves. He probably will miss out even thoufmgh he deserves to be picked on form. I did not think Fox poor. Nor Florent. He was one of the few players thst was actually trying something, with no help from the maggots. That running too far was totally bull@@@@.

Poor were: Mcdonald, Campbell, Stephens (does not seem to be able to put 2 together), Reid, McInerney, Mills (13 disposals is simply not good enough), Hickey (was well beaten by Draper and only had 18 HO). Hickey being thrashed is why they got so many clearances. We still set up with a loose on the defensive side and allowing them the same. If you lose the rucks and their rucks are hitting to the spare man you get smashed in the clearances. Which is just what happened.

Then there was the lack of pressure from the forwards and mids. Thry got left behind because they were too far on the attacking side and when we turned the ball over we were all offside and they were able to get loose players everywhere. The overlap was infuriating to watch. The fact is we TURNED THE BALL OVER TOO Much. We panicked coming from defence and turned over. On our fast runs we handball Ed when we should have kicked and turned the ball over. We were our own worst enemy. This is against a bottom 4 team. If we do the same this week and our skills are down we will get flogged.

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**Roadrunner** · 7th July 2022, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by H2F

We still let Essendon back into the game with 5 straight goals before we kicked ourselves out of it in the 3rd.

Correct. We switched off mentally, and I put the blame on our senior players who should have slowed the game down after their 2 goals.

As for Wicks- just not good enough for the first team, same as Bell. Rather give a go to another kid as we’ve tried these two often enough. AFL level is elite- to challenge for top 4 you need every player with above average talent.
No use kidding ourselves in this regard- we’re not their yet.

**Roadrunner** · 7th July 2022, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by AB Swannie

It bewilders me when fans think that selection should be based on appeasing young players in the 2s so that they don't leave the club. For someone to be appeased and given a go in the 1s, someone else has to be dropped to the 2s. It's a nil sum game. Just pick players who deserve it and who give us the best chance of winning. The only time I would go away from this selection policy is when we are no longer in the hunt for a top 8 position and it may be beneficial to give some young players a development opportunity while senior players manage niggles or go for surgery. We aren't there yet so pick the best team and beat the Bulldogs.

FWIW, I have been a bit of a critic of Wicks before. However, I do see some correlation between our best performances when he is in the team and playing well. Therefore, I'll put my hand up and admit that I've underrated the role of the pressure forward. Campbell needs time to develop as a future midfielder so I would drop him and play Wicks for the rest of the season.

He may have been ok in a couple of games but in others he was awful. Please forget him- we need to look elsewhere!

Agree the role can be useful, but we need players who can do it week in week out. This is the coaches’ job, surely.

**SwanSand** · 7th July 2022, 11:20 AM

We struggle against teams who play one on one defence rather than zone defence - eg Suns, Dogs. Essendon did that efficiently last game. We were fraudulent with our positioning with most of our midfielders forward to their respective players especially in that last quarter.

I am hoping that the vision will be damning and this will get rectified this week. The issue would be our contested ball this week. The whole focus like against Melbourne should be winning the contest and the rest will take care.

Clarke may help if playing in midfield but I doubt that Horse will play him there. Will he shut down Calaeb daniels - doubt it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Bell or Wicks back for this game.
Cunningham for Fox is certainty.
Campbell replaced by a pressure forward - ? Bell ( even though I hate him at AFL level)