Shattered.. for the 2nd week!

[kendrick]

I thought after last weeks loss and injury to brownie.. the only thing to put a smile back on my face, would have been to defeat West Coast.. for some reason, i was SO confident this week... i was expecting a very comfortable 6+ goal win...

I am really proud of the way we played the game though.. up against the Top Team in the comp... we really turned it on in the 2nd half.. we keep getting destroyed in the 1st half ..

I love Watching Deledio.. i reckon he is going to be a superstar for us... there were alot of encouraging things to come out of todays game i felt.. but nothing was more heart breaking than hearing that final siren ... i guess you cant win all the close ones...

what did you guys feel were our strengths and weaknesses today?... i really hope we can pick up and win the next month... as it seems the only teams to have knocked us off.. are all teams heading for late september action.. Saints,Dees,Cats,Eagles.. so its not as bad as it seems.. the next month is the true test of Richmond i feel...

if we fall away... then i really dont know where we are meant to go from here..   i just hope.. that one day, Richmond has its turn at the top... everyone else has been their, fallen away..and rebuilt their way back to the top.. yet we havent been there once

anyway... i hate playing the Roos.. and i hate playing at the Dome..  lets hope we play 4 quarters next week!

[JohnF]

Disappointing, but we've won our share of close ones this year so it's not that bad (though its still pretty bad  )

The positive out of today was that nearly everyone tried their guts out.
-Kellaway was a colossus in the backline. Great game, through himself at everthing.
-Ray Hall did some great spoils
-Gaspar did some good things
-Coughlan tried hard
-Tuck battled all day
-Richo was starved of opportunities but still played great given the limited amount of quality ball her recieved
-Deledio will be a star. Will be a very explosive player in a year or two.
-Krakouer did some nice 2nd and 3rd efforts
-Pettifer made a good contribution

Negatives were that we lack skill and it cost us the game

And also..... one incident in particular....

Cambo squibbed it in the dying minutes which gave the Eagles an easy clearance for a goal.

Cambo  is my favourite player but the way he chickened out of that contest was disgusting. Very disheartening to see. 

[Bulluss]

i too have been a Cambo fan over since he became skipper,

today him "squibbed" it on a number of occasions to allow the West Coast and easy clearance.

He must put his body on the line.

[kendrick]

i can still picture that moment in my head..

50mtr line..cambo running towards a contest.. he backed up to avoid a collision.. and they cleared it and ended any chance

[mightytiges]

Agree with all of John's points.

If we didn't realise it before then we would learn today that pressure can cause any opposition to make mistakes. We were flat in the first half and in the end that costed us the game. Once we woke up the Eagles started to make mistakes.

When we stick to Terry's gameplan we play good footy; conversely when stop running, are second to the ball, overpossess with handball and short kick sideways we play like the rabble we were under Spud.

Our skills are not up to scratch. Our backline who were on a whole very good today were generating heaps of rebounds yet once it got to our midfielders and half-forward virtually every final "pass" (I use that term loosely) was grubbered along the ground  . Even when we had the momentum in the 3rd and last quarters kicks and handballs either went over teammates heads or at down towards their ankles.

We got smashed in the clearances which had been a strength of our this year although the Eagles are number in the league in that department.  

Once again a small opposition forward kicked a bag of 5. Geez in the those ball-ups and throw-ins in the Eagles forward line there were only two Eagle players capable of snapping a goal - Matera and Judd - yet we still gave them just enough space to get a kick away.

We are a confidence team. When we are up we get on a roll as the whole team lifts; when things are going against us we drop our heads. The body language in the first half was poor and it showed in our lack of intensity and pressure. Amazing how tackles started to stick when we made an effort!

Chaffey is no tagger. Judd and Cousins got free far too often.

Finally you can't give top sides starts. We've done that 2 weeks in a row.

And also..... one incident in particular....

Cambo squibbed it in the dying minutes which gave the Eagles an easy clearance for a goal.

Cambo  is my favourite player but the way he chickened out of that contest was disgusting. Very disheartening to see. 

I saw that too John. If he had ran straight at the ball he would have got to it first and had a chance to at least get the footy deeper in our forward line. He hesitated and backed out and the Eagles cleared it  .

[the_boy_jake]

American coaches and sports psychologists these days are talking about decision making, the reaction of a player's cognitive system when placed under stress, as the best measure of separating good players from very good ones. In Deledio's case, he seems to have made very few poor decisions in a football match. I don't buy into this "oh the kid is making mistakes but at least he is trying something" that gets bandied about.

-Deledio will be a star. Will be a very explosive player in a year or two.

[WilliamPowell]

-Kellaway was a colossus in the backline. Great game, through himself at everthing.

I thought that Chubba was very ordinary in the first quarter - shocking actually - he was caught "betwixed and between" on so many occassions. He started on that 1st gamer Edwards and showed no accountablity. During the first the Eagles got a lot of very easy possession because of Chubba's lack of accountability

But having said I will give Chubba credit after that terrible start he meanned up and played a helluva lot better and that tackle in the third was awesome inspiring stuff.

Finally you can't give top sides starts. We've done that 2 weeks in a row.

Agree MT but as I said on another thread it wasn't the strart that cost us IMV it was the 2nd quarter and the final 8 minutes of the 3rd when the Eagles got those 3 goals to give 'em a 20 point lead. If Richo had of converted in the third we would have had the lead. Also, you cannot win games of footy by kicking only 3 goals in half - especially when those 3 goals come in only one quarter.

I said it before and I'll say it again I am bitterly disappointed.

Granted in days gone by we would have been smashed by at least 10 goals but we are better team now and to be honest if we had played the entire match the way we played on the second half we would have won that game IMHO - absoulutely no doubt. I will concede it was great how fought the game out and how we came back but I still disappointed - and you know what I haven't felt like that (bitterly disappointed) for a long long time maybe I am getting my old Tiger mongrel back .

[mightytiges]

I thought that Chubba was very ordinary in the first quarter - shocking actually - he was caught "betwixed and between" on so many occassions. He started on that 1st gamer Edwards and showed no accountablity. During the first the Eagles got a lot of very easy possession because of Chubba's lack of accountability

But having said I will give Chubba credit after that terrible start he meanned up and played a helluva lot better and that tackle in the third was awesome inspiring stuff.

We took a quarter and a bit to handle Edwards as leading marking forward even though he's apparently only 184cm tall (91kg though). I guess we got caught out as it was his debut and we didn't know too much about him. I could be wrong but I thought Joel initially started on Edwards but was moved after being beaten on the lead 2-3 times. Kellaway then Razor had a go.

the final 8 minutes of the 3rd when the Eagles got those 3 goals to give 'em a 20 point lead. If Richo had of converted in the third we would have had the lead.

The Eagles should never have got that goal Judd scored against the run of play in the 3rd quarter. The kick-in after Richo's point went straight up the guts to our advantage where Knobel knocked it back towards our goal as he should have done. Problem was we had no one there to crumb  while the Eagles had about 6. They just picked it up as they ran in a wave. Once they cleared our zone we were sitting ducks  .

[letsgetiton!]

i think some are being a bit harsh on campbo1 he was prettyu damn good 4 us, and when he so caled squibbed it , the ball bounced back and put him off balance! second he cannot go in as hard as he used to because he is carrying a chronic shoulder injury amongst other injuries1 his bosy has been bruised and battered over the yrs and his 2 goals were vital 4 us1 the reason we lost was
1/ umpires
2/ tivendale
3/ not kicking the kickable goals
4/NOT HAVING A DEFENDER WHO CAN HANDLE A SMALL GOAL SNEAK!!!!! WE GOT BURNT AGAIN BY A MUTANT!!!

[cub]

Cambo squibbed it in the dying minutes which gave the Eagles an easy clearance for a goal.

Cambo  is my favourite player but the way he chickened out of that contest was disgusting. Very disheartening to see. 

Well Well Well - I was going to mention this and wait for a comeback from You John - That was pretty wussy that one, could of been a 2 goal turnaround.
For all that Campbell's done for the club I just can not cop that sort of stuff

[Tiger Spirit]

American coaches and sports psychologists these days are talking about decision making, the reaction of a player's cognitive system when placed under stress, as the best measure of separating good players from very good ones. In Deledio's case, he seems to have made very few poor decisions in a football match. I don't buy into this "oh the kid is making mistakes but at least he is trying something" that gets bandied about.

-Deledio will be a star. Will be a very explosive player in a year or two.

Even now, because of his amazing confidence and self-belief, when a game has to be won, Deledio never seems afraid to get involved in the play.

As a young and inexperienced player, you could forgive him for wanting to leave the responsibility to others, but against WC, and in other games as well, he really made an impact and his efforts in that last term were awesome for an 18 year old.  From what we’ve seen so far, you would think that he thrives in that situation.