Post Match. Pies down to Bombers. All comments, please.

[RudeBoy]

After a few days mulling it over, I'm convinced that Buckley's coaching was in no way responsible for our loss to the Bombers. The simple fact is our playing list lacks depth, and in the absence of De Goey, Elliott, Howe, Greenwood and Mayne, we filled the side with a bunch of kids in Macrae, McCreery, Rantall and Kelly, as well as a 3 game veteran in Murphy. Despite us hitting the front in the last quarter, these kids, especially the midfielders, completely ran out of legs and we were simply overrun towards the end, as we were against the Lions.

Until we get games and some physical strength and conditioning into these kids, we are going to struggle to win many games, regardless of the opposition, and regardless of who our coach is.

[David]

^ That's a great point, Rudeboy. For me, there's not much point in posters demanding that Buckley "play the kids" every week and then turning on him when he does and we lose a relatively close game mostly on account of it. Even with the players we had out through injury, we could have fielded a more experienced team on Sunday and, who knows, might have ended up with a different result if we had done so.

[thesoretoothsayer]

Essendon also have significant injuries.
They are also playing some young, inexperienced players.
They won. We lost.
A couple of weeks ago we played fewer kids against a really inexperienced team (GWS) that had travelled interstate.
They won. We lost.

I'm not claiming those losses are Buckley's fault.
What I am saying is, let's not start excusing every loss with "but we're playing the kids".

[David]

The thing is, it wasn't a particularly compelling excuse until the Essendon game, because we weren't really playing the kids until then (or, one could argue, the week before against West Coast*). Here's a list of how many games' experience members of our squad had before last Sunday:

Jay Rantall: 0
Will Kelly: 1
Finlay Macrae: 1
Nathan Murphy: 2
Beau McCreery: 3 (2, really, given he spent the first one as a glorified emergency)
Trey Ruscoe: 6

You can add to that list:

Darcy Cameron: 12
Isaac Quaynor: 20
Jack Madgen: 26
John Noble: 27

That's already nearly half the side (ten players) with under 30 games' experience. Compare with Essendon's seven:

Archie Perkins: 3
Nik Cox: 5
Harry Jones: 5
Brandon Zerk-Thatcher: 13
Brayden Ham: 20
Nick Hind: 26
Will Snelling: 27

Basically, the two sides would be roughly comparable if you took three experienced players out of their line-up and replaced them with three playing their first or second matches. That's a significant difference and it's hard to deny that it would have had an impact on the final score.

*The difference was actually even starker against West Coast – while we 'only' had eight players with less than thirty games' experience in that match, the Eagles had just three.

[jatsad]

To say that Buckley's coaching was not to blame is taking a very limited view.
I'm not saying it was solely to blame but taker just these 2 factors into consideration:

1. Madgen on Tippa
2. Strict refusal to man up allowing the bummers to waltz their way out of the backline constantly. Cost us the game against Brisbane if you remember. This has happened all year. Zone defence is dead now thanks to the on the mark rule. But clueless can't see it.
3. His constant favourites playing when offering nothing - Thomas - Brown - Madgen - Hoskin-Elliott - Mayne. None of these would be considered at any other club yet all 5 play in our team. Mayne was out this week injured or he would have played.
4. Too hesitant to take the game on - this must be an instruction otherwise why wouldn't they
5. This hesitancy breeds a lack of confidence in skills therefore could be a reason the kicking was so poor

Just my views.

[K]

[Pies2016]

The classic fall out from playing a very young team is to not run the game out.
I don’t think you can have it both ways. You either play kids and accept the team will likely fall away at the end of every qtr and particularly the last qtr.
Or you play those mature age players who continue to disappoint but can at least still cover the ground in the last qtr.
Either way, we are a fair way off it. Although, at least one of those options does have some light at the end of the tunnel.

[Jezza]

[Geek]

[Abdul The Bull]