Oh Dear..... | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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Oh Dear.....

ahhhhhhh

great to see the knives are out. While they are, let me put my spin on Fridays game (yes, I did go!).

One word. Pathetic.

-Stafford, Hilton, Johnson and Chaffey were good. Only problem with Chaffey is I think he will get suspended for a couple after his charge. I was right in front of it and it didnt look good.

-Gaspar was OK but for $600,000 still too defensive. A couple of shocking kicks indirectly led to Melbourne goals. Not good enough from the "franchise player".

-A stack of our players looked hopelessly underdone (eg Couglan, Rodan, Ottens etc

-Cannot continuely play Tivendale on or around the ball. He does not find the ball enough to put him there.

-Schulz showed a couple of glimpses. He has huge legs. May be wishful thinking but the size of his legs are in the elk of Carey / Jackovich.

-We are short of a true forward pocket player. I stand by my words of a couple of months ago. We should have drafted Moorcroft. If Rich or Ottens dont mark the ball, there is no one else there. This allows defenses to double team both Richo and Ottens as they know no one else will kick a goal.

-Our game plan is seriously flawed. If we continuesly bomb it long to Richo and Ottens this year, it will be a very long year. We need leads. We need at least 4-5 players presenting options. I watched a lot of the other Wizard Cup matches on the weekend and in all honesty, our game plan looked the worst of all.

-Pettifer???? Dont know. Got some kicks but showed glimpses of his old self.

-Finally (this will bring a smile to Diggler's heart), something has got to be done about Frawley. He has a losing ethic and has a very simple mind. I am starting to wonder whether Frawley is capable of devising game plans more complicated that 'boot it long'

Cheerio
 
Our game plan is seriously flawed. If we continuesly bomb it long to Richo and Ottens this year, it will be a very long year. We need leads. We need at least 4-5 players presenting options.

AMEN to that Tro-boy!! But with such radical left field thinking we are afraid we cant use your ideas here at Tiger land. :( We will just stick with what we know!

READ THE ABOVE DANNY AND THE BOYS AND TAKE NOTE!
 
At least there are some positives that came out of the game. Basically, we couldnt have done any worse so it can only get better.

I assume with Campbell, Blumfield, Zantuck, Holland and perhaps Fleming in the team, we should improve.

However, no matter the quality of the players in the team, if you dont have a game plan, you will not win.
 
As I sat at home furiously sipping on my Cascade's, watching the joke that was the tiges, I wondered aloud to myself; "HOW THE BLOODY HELL DO BIDDISCOMBE, MILLS, HOULIHAN ET AL STILL STAY ON AFL LISTS"

Obviously, when we get Campbo, Blumfield, Hall, Holland, D Kella, these punters will be banished back to Coburg where they belong.

Mills - Why drop Ezra and keep Mills. Just cannot play footy and offers nothing to anybody. Must have photos of Frawleys wife...
Biddiscombe - Looks fit and strong, but still crap. Not mobile enough, not smart enough. At best, he is a back up at half back flank on some skunky half forward.
Houlihan - Ability to be very good, but ....... Kicked a nice goal though.
King - skills have got worse and just get pushed aside to easily.

I heard Stan Alves this morning on Sport 927. Said that the big blokes always took longer to get into the swing of things than the smaller blokes. Richo looked lost but will get better. Otto is a bit of a worry. Looked heaps bigger than last year, so it may take him a few weeks of getting used to carting the extra weight around to become dangerous again. Staff got better as the game went on.

In the end, we got through with 1 minor injury in Krak, and the boys will be better for the run. If they can have 3-4 solid hitouts before rd 1, I will be happy.
 
Says in the paper today Krak will be out for a month!

Also I just remembered an article I was reading the other day about THAT Blumfield drinking incident awhile back. Basically it said that the club didnt punish him but the Chef at the pub would have liked to. Apparently Blumfield(still needs a nickname) left a 'deposit' in the chefs deep fryer.
Just what the deposit was is anyones guess! ::)

Also there was an article that said there may be one young player(who has a history of playing up and partying) that may be facing court soon over an incident with a young woman.
I got a feeling it'd be a Carlscum player but thats a guess at best.
 
tro-boy said "We are short of a true forward pocket player. I stand by my words of a couple of months ago. We should have drafted Moorcroft. "

Couldn't agree more. I'd give Pettifer, Houlihan, and Mills the heave-ho in a second to get one quality roving forward.

I suggest that if Campbell isn't going to play in our new, improved, star-studded midfield, LMAO, he should be put on the forward line. Richmond has about 30 back men at the club. And although Wayne would be perfect for a half back flanker, we just dont seem to kick enough goals to threaten teams. Krakouer and Rodan struggle at times to read the play in the forward line, and as for Mills, Pettifer and Houlihan, they should be deported.

Hopefully Marty McGrath can step up in the next couple years and do some damage for us in the forward line. Blumfield should also help in this department, despite only being a slightly classier Houlihan. It's a serious problem that we can't kick winning scores. I think our backline will be sufficiently strong if we can get Zantuck and Holland back.

How's this for a line up:

FB: Zantuck Gaspar Hilton

HB: Cameron Holland A.Kellaway

C: Johnson Coughlan Tivendale

HF: Campbell Richardson Blumfield

F: Hall Stafford Rodan

Foll: Ottens Bowden

Inter: Fiora, King, Krakouer D. Kellaway
 
Rogers should rove in a run with role, and change with D. Kellaway.
 
Specialist forward pockets are becoming a thing of the past as they are too hot and cold for modern footy. That's why Moorcroft, Burns, etc.. were delisted/traded and who can forget duckeggs Davis' non-performance in the granny last year. A resting midfielder (Campo,Rodan or Krakouer for instance) is a more reliable and valuable alternative.

On friday night both sides tall forwards struggled (Neitz,Richo,Otto) yet Melbourne were able to compensate for it through their midfielders and half forward flankers (Robertson) scoring goals. For that to happen you need to be able to spot up players other than your tall forwards when going forward. Not always ??? bomb it long in hope to a outnumbered contest which plays into the opposition's hands in two ways. Firstly, it's predictable! Not hard for the opposition to triple team Richo or Otto when they know the ball is always :mad: going to be kicked to them. Why worry about anyone else when that's the case. Secondly, as the opposition have a 3-1 advantage in the contest they will on nearly every occasion win and clear the ball with relative ease. Which means none of our midfielders can push forward to crumb because the ball is coming out of our forward line as fast as it's gone in. If they do try to push forward then they leave their direct opponent wide open to receive the outcoming ball. It's a catch 22 situation. Either way you lose. This happened last year and on friday night and makes it bloody hard for us to rack up anywhere near a winning score.
 
I just could not care less about losing on Friday night and I won't care if we lose every pre-season game. Reading between the lines of the noises coming from the Richmond hierarchy before the Melbourne game, they knew that we were going to struggle. We are in heavy training, we haven't tapered for this competition - I'm thankful that we seem to be learning from last year and are making sure that we are relatively fit and ready for the real season, which is still 5 weeks away!
We lacked cohesion on Friday because we lacked run through the midfield which is exactly what I would expect from a team aiming to be at their best in over a month. Add to that the fact that we were missing literally half our normal backline, possibly more depending on where Blumfield settles, plus the obvious rotation of the youngsters (Krak, Pettifer etc) through the midfield suggests that we were pretty much conceding this match from the start.
I'm surprised to see some on this board arguing that we should be aiming to play well in the Wizard Cup for membership sales - that is just sorry claptrap I'm afraid. Let the poor clubs like Kangaroos, Geelong, Carlton ;D ;D, pump themselves up for these games. Let's let the football department get on with preparing us for the real stuff, not worry about how many members we have.
Now the positives:
Gaspar took at step forward from last year - ie he kept Neitz quiet and didn't get injured.
Hilton. Johnson. Coughlan will benefit. It's going to take a few games before these guys 'gel'. Can't expect our new look midfield to just turn it on immediately.
Let's give the boys some time and stop the bizarre roll call of players that 'must go' etc etc. It's February. Sit down.
:mad:
 
Mighty Tiges said :"Specialist forward pockets are becoming a thing of the past as they are too hot and cold for modern footy. That's why Moorcroft, Burns, etc.. were delisted/traded and who can forget duckeggs Davis' non-performance in the granny last year. A resting midfielder (Campo,Rodan or Krakouer for instance) is a more reliable and valuable alternative."

I agree that specialist forward pockets are becoming outdated, but i think there is still room for a competent one. For instance, look at St.Kilda and Milne, or Fremantle with Medhurst and Farmer. I would have thought moreover that Moorcroft was good enough for a part time role in our midfield. With the exception of Rodan, I'd probably take him over the rest of our small man brigade, Pettifer, Krakouer, Fiora, Mills, Houlihan and King included.

Dean3 said "Let's give the boys some time and stop the bizarre roll call of players that 'must go' etc etc. "

It's never too early to be fickle and call for heads to roll, we're supporters, that's our job.
 
You're a breath of fresh air Deano. I was hoping for more entertainment from the game, but a win was irrelevant. This was a practice game and it was a useful tool. We didn't look impressive, but it was a good run and gave us a reminder that we will have to work hard to get into the 8.
 
i hate to harp on this again ghost of jimmy but i watched the 1st qtrf again today and your opinion on johnson is so far off the mark its not funny.
here,s the run down from the 1st qtr:
*biddescombe to jono to king to richo[spilt mark]
*otto drops mark-jono dives-handballs to king-handball to mills goal.
*coughlan drops easy mark-balls spills jono dives-hanballs to tivers to cameron 9 goal.
*centre bounce gathers balls kicks fwd. free kick to krak.
now thats just in the 1st qtr of a pre-season comp.
if that didnt impress you then your a very hard task master.
 
Well it has taken me 3 days to regain my composure after Friday night. I am so glad they didn't have me selling M'ships - I would have to gone searching for people to give refunds  ;D ;D ;D

But seriously ... some very interesting comments.

My observations - now Danny said we were going to experiment but  :-/ :-/ :-/

Bowden in the back pocket on White - er... me don't think so. Now I will admit I am not a great Joel fan but even I felt for him on Friday. Isn't the mid-field the problem ? So why did it take so long for him to put in there. Joel was the only other player (next to Johnno) who hit Richo on the chest. Hell why didn't we just put King on White ;D

Richo  in the ruck - er.... me don't think so. Granted it only lasted about 10 minutes but it was bizarre to say the least. And by the way it didn't work.

Johnson in the forward pocket/CHF - fascinating ::). I must say to those who have queried his performance. Personally I thought he was great. Showed enough to lead me to believe he is going to be a good pick up. But news flash... he cannot do it ALL on his own.

Clearly we were under done. It showed in the way we chased tails all night but my positives......

Cameron - clearly fit again :))) and his run out of the back line was great.

Hilton - first game back in nearly 12 months - terrific. Just needs to tighten up a little. But good run on the backline.

Stafford - blocked the hole well.

Disappointments .....

The result  ;D ;D

Pettifier, Mills & Bidders. The 3 stooges perhaps :-/ :-/ :-/

Despite it all it was only a glorified practice game - lets just hope they are in better condition by round 1
 
Bowden in the back pocket on White - er... me don't think so.
Click to expand...

In fairness to Danny, AK was returning late from a funeral and Joel would've been our next tallest player ignoring Stafford, Richo, Otto and first gamer Shultz.
 
In fairness to Danny, he is mentally handicapped.

I wonder what the hypothesis of Danny's experiment was? Something like: to play as bad as we can and see if we can lose by under 100 points.

Or maybe it was something like this: let's see if the game plan that made us finish 14th last year gets us anywhere this year.
 
In fairness to Danny, AK was returning late from a funeral and Joel would've been our next tallest player ignoring Stafford, Richo, Otto and  first gamer Shultz.
Click to expand...

MT,

I was aware Andy K was late back from his granddad's funeral but I just thought it was a bad match up.

I probably would have gone for Schulz - throw him in the deep end like Daniher did with Ferguson on Richo.
 
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