Post Match - Pies v. Eagles. All comments here please.

[grims]

I was wondering in the last quater why not bring mckee into the ruck? Josh did great in the ruck but looked spent, gardiner looked tired aswell so maybe mckee might have done alright.

[bokka]

I thought hotpies ideas about forward setup wrer intereesting, seems to me the team ought to be drilled for a number of different setups like that that could be switched to at any time - I suppose you can overdo it though and confuse the players but a few alternative combinations give fresh options when not going well. I'm sure MM will have a different midfield plan next time they play toast, will learn from the experience. Seem to be a lot of very quick midfields going around these days and need to have setups to counter this esp at start of game.
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Re Josh and gArdiner one telling statistic: Gardiner born July 79, debut 1997, Josh born Jan 82 debut 2000 - so Gardiner has 3 AFL years on Josh (and 2.5 planetary years) that's a very big difference in footy. I was listening and Josh was winning tap after tap in the 3rd, mostly resulting in clearances. Looks to me that he is getting there and probably will be a ruckman after all and probly a champ at that - if not this year then next.

I hate to say it but it was probably a great character builder for Toast who rallied after seeming to be psyched out by us for most of the game - but also potentially a character builder for woods also and big learning experience. Especially need to take that step to being the sort of team that nearly always does kick the pressure goals and the ones that bury the opposition, and play out last minutes strongly on pure adrenalin if necessary. I thoguht we were deflated by those many bad misses in the last and you can't let that happen to your mind.
All in all obviously disappointing, but extremely encouraging signs for the rest of the season, I reckon it is coming together.

[AnthonyC]

Disappointing.

I could say a lot of things but it wouldn't count for much.
They were better than us, that's all there is to it.

[Fatui Ataata]

Do ya think anyone could teach Leon to rove to numbers 20 & 23?

With Leon's natural attributes, it must make someone like Daics pretty damn frustrated watching him. Sure he gets scragged a bit but sheesh! How often does the ball come out of our forward line twice as fast as it went in? Molloy fights hard but needs to call for a taxi, Rupe is good but inconsistent (perhaps being the No 1 scapegoat doesn't help).

Front & square, its not rocket science!

Dids needs to lift also - we desperately need a small opportunist forward that hurts the opposition on the scoreboard. Our general kicking for goal bar v Adelaide has been shite all year and cost us 2 games.

[piepower]

Do we have a ruckman in our group of players because until we get one we are going nowhere . Mckee gets beat in the ruck 9 times out of 10 which means we don,t get first use of the ball. Thats our no 1 priority to get a bloody ruckman.

[Pied Piper]

Hi Magpie fans,

As bad as the loss was - and we definitely should have held our nerve in that last quarter - I actually thought there were a lot of positives to take out of the game. Leon's return was very encouraging - OK, he didn't kick a goal, but he had a direct hand in at least four others and he was always dangerous. Cole reminded us of why his debut last year was so exciting. Rhyce Shaw looks finally to be gaining in confidence and he is thrilling to watch when he's on the run. Lokan was OK again. All these guys still have plenty to learn, but will only get better with more game time.

Fraser played his best game of the year so far, and got us back into the game after McKee was comprehensively beaten early. Remember that he and McKee were up against the number one ruckman in the competition, serving it up to an awesome midfield. We barely laid our hands on the ball in the first and last 10 minutes of the match and for that thank/blame Michael Gardiner. McKee holds his place by being an excellent link-man around the ground while doing his best to nullify more skilled tap ruckman - at the moment he's looks to have lost a little confidence. As for Josh, his best years are well and truly ahead of him.

Again, our senior players were all good - Rocca continues to do the inspirational, Buckley is Buckley and Licuria is approaching last year's form. Tarrant of course is in brilliant touch apart from needing to make more of the opportunities he creates - if he maintains this kind of form he'll be in the hunt for the Copeland, and he is still a long way from his peak. Some players (Didak notably) need to lift, but it's to be expected that young players will go through troughs, even players as gifted as he is.

So - all that said - why did we lose? Put simply, we came up against an absolutely red-hot team who got the jump on us badly at the business ends of the game. When you think about it, we haven't had great timing lately: Sydney and Essendon also played arguably their best games of the year against us (I'll admit we were also at our worst against the Dons). But you have to give some credit to the opposition, too.

If there's a problem overall, I think it's a lack of overall maturity in the side. There's still a wide gap between our few seniors and the wealth of young talent. Robert Walls had one thing spot on - we can improve this year and NOT make the grand final as that gap closes. I'm looking for the side to get better as the year goes on AND to be stronger still in 2004/2005 which will be the real "window" years for a premiership. Barring injury, look for dominant years from Fraser, Tarrant and Rocca, while the second-tiers will be well advanced and Buckley will still be good enough to lead.

Don't panic Magpie fans. We need to retain a sense of perspective and stick by the team: the best is yet to come.

Wow, that was a long debut post wasn't it? I'll try to be more succinct...

The Weed

[chalky]

Nice vibe weed. Plenty of positives. Just what we need after a disappointing loss. We certainly had our chances to put them away and seal a great victory, but lacked a bit of luck/poise.

Backline was our strength all through 2002. Changes in personnel and form dips have us really battling to hold teams this year. Presti out will not help. Other forward setups are now stretching us. The boys will have to dig deep.

piepower, ruck debate done to death in other threads. Got to GF with McKee, Fraser,Rocca and third man in. Don't blame them for losses now.
Team needs overall lift in confidence and belief and to play the entire game out not just a few quarters.

[bokka]

Having at last seen the game last night I have a different opinion now.
– First of all I didn’t see Gardiner as being particularly dominant, not even in the first 15 minutes particularly.
I thought their early burst was due to their particular skill of fast breakaways from and through packs. However this is a fairly one dimensional skill which opposition sides will soon “work out”. This was exacerbated by our “slow start” – and my impression is our slow start is due to trying too hard to have an offensive fast start rather than starting off concentrating on shutting them down with pressure tackling etc – our tackling early and defensive pressure was luke-warm.
But for most of the game we clearly beat them I thought.
The best game in the ruck I’ve seen for Josh, and starting to threaten again as a forward option. I think he will be a very good ruckman forward by the finals.
The last 15 minutes were not like the first. We were at least breakiing even in the midfield – it looked like where we ran out of puff was in defense, and in particular there wasn’t a proper match-up for Embley, I think Logan or Lonie was on him, he was too tall and our defenders misjudged the carry of incoming balls on at least 4 occasions (not just at the end) resulting in easy marks and goals to Embley and others = game over (15 point victory). No doubt this had a lot to do with loosing Presti who has excellent mark/punch judgement. But I thought MM erred in the match-ups especially on Embley. Especially in the last he should have brought either McKee (who I don’t remember sighting in the last) or Molloy onto Embley. I still don’t know why Molloy isin’t used more down back as I’m sure he could be very effective and the variety would possibly inspire him. I think that single move would have won the game for us. And could have rotated some other fresh legs into defense. Obviously it’s arrogant to criticise MM as he did a great job overall, but that’s armchair coaches for you.
The other aspect is lack of composure snapping for goal, hopefully this is being addressed.
I am mystified why people were critical of Leon’s game he was an excellent small forward. I particularly liked his strategy of hurried kicks from packs just aimed at space in front of goal, this resulted in a number of goals, I’ve been wishing they would do this for years. Unfortunately he perhaps employed the same kicking style when kicking for goal!
Also criticism of Woewodin’s game is misplaced IMO, he contributed pretty well from limited opp’s. The other thing is he was getting heavy attention every time i saw him and this of course opens up opportunities for our other players. On last week’s game if that was a “poor” woey game he should be a permanent fixture. Didak unless he starts making bad mistakes probly should be also sinced he's always dangerous, and Williams looked threatening all the time also as a forward.
Brodie was OK but was caught a couple of times too often. I don’t recall anyone who was woeful but surely there’s room to bring in McWhitlam soon.
Shaw seemed reliable and has great presence, Lokan developing. If our second tier smalls can develop a bit more polish etc by the finals we will be a big chance.