Freo match thread

[mightytiges]

One query I have though, can someone please explain to me why when the opposition kicks out, they seem to have a free run all the way down the ground to their F50?  I don’t know how often this happens, but it seems really noticeable in games at times.  Couldn’t imagine why we would intentionally allow that to go on, time after time, unless it’s just bad manning up by our players?  Instead of letting them kick out, we might as well just start play from their F50 line.

You would need to hold up the kick-in and play a zone defence to prevent that. Problem is if the ball moved quickly from the kick-in which is likely under the new rule and it gets past the zone then their forward line is open. I think there's a bit of truth in your last sentence TS. Give up ground and make it difficult for them to enter their forward 50 then hope to catch them on the counter.
 

There were passages of play where it resembled more a rugby scrum and you just had to wait for the ball to spill out before either side could gain an advantage.  Neither side gave an inch.

Blame the umps for that. Took them an eternity to blow the whistle for ball-ups.

I’m sure our players will look forward to getting onto the MCG in front of a home ground.

In the past when coaches have said they want their fans to turn up and give the interstate teams a taste of their own medicine, I thought it was just a bit of theatre.  But after last night’s game, makes you realise what they mean.

Now we have to wait till....... whenever the next time we play them at the 'G whenever that is thanks to not playing every side home and away  .

[Tiger Spirit]

You would need to hold up the kick-in and play a zone defence to prevent that. Problem is if the ball moved quickly from the kick-in which is likely under the new rule and it gets past the zone then their forward line is open. I think there's a bit of truth in your last sentence TS. Give up ground and make it difficult for them to enter their forward 50 then hope to catch them on the counter.

Maybe I’ll catch on soon MT.  Thanks for that.  Explains what I wanted to know.

One other thing, does this seem to happen more often against certain teams, or it’s just rough of the green kind of stuff?

[mightytiges]

You would need to hold up the kick-in and play a zone defence to prevent that. Problem is if the ball moved quickly from the kick-in which is likely under the new rule and it gets past the zone then their forward line is open. I think there's a bit of truth in your last sentence TS. Give up ground and make it difficult for them to enter their forward 50 then hope to catch them on the counter.

Maybe I’ll catch on soon MT.  Thanks for that.  Explains what I wanted to know.

One other thing, does this seem to happen more often against certain teams, or it’s just rough of the green kind of stuff?

I would need to check pro-stats but from memory the doggies are the best at going "coast-to-coast" from full-back and scoring. So yes some sides are much better at it than others. Going by the teams we've played I would say the Swans were the best at defending against a quick kick-in. They were quick to man-up which made it harder for us to get a kick-in. Mind you we didn't make it that hard for them with our lack of harding running for each other.

The simplest solution to avoiding the opposition kicking-in quickly and going the length of the ground is to kick the ball between the two big sticks in the first place. Polo and Hyde missed two very gettable shots which directly resulted in Freo goals. The old 2-goal turnaround. Joel stepping over the line and then kicking it OOF with two of his kick-ins resulted in another 2 goals for Freo. Add Cogs' dropped mark, Razor's brain implosion and Gas' fumble that's 3 more. Then add the dodgy umpiring (Polo's mark not paid, Medhurst's goal that was touched, Sugar's goal that was touched over the line) and that's 10 goals all up. It only takes a few crucial mistakes to make a huge difference to a result.

[Tiger Spirit]

I would need to check pro-stats but from memory the doggies are the best at going "coast-to-coast" from full-back and scoring. So yes some sides are much better at it than others. Going by the teams we've played I would say the Swans were the best at defending against a quick kick-in. They were quick to man-up which made it harder for us to get a kick-in. Mind you we didn't make it that hard for them with our lack of harding running for each other.

I’m not prepared to go back and watch the game again just yet, as it would just be opening up festering wounds, so I’ll have to go from memory, but it seemed to me that there were times we made it too easy for Freo, when they were kicking out. The thing was that it seemed to come from nowhere all of a sudden.  The frustrating part was that I think it happened about 3 times in a short space of time and we didn’t seem to switch on to it.  But for the majority of the match our players seem to stick to their guns pretty well.

The simplest solution to avoiding the opposition kicking-in quickly and going the length of the ground is to kick the ball between the two big sticks in the first place. Polo and Hyde missed two very gettable shots which directly resulted in Freo goals. The old 2-goal turnaround. Joel stepping over the line and then kicking it OOF with two of his kick-ins resulted in another 2 goals for Freo. Add Cogs' dropped mark, Razor's brain implosion and Gas' fumble that's 3 more. Then add the dodgy umpiring (Polo's mark not paid, Medhurst's goal that was touched, Sugar's goal that was touched over the line) and that's 10 goals all up. It only takes a few crucial mistakes to make a huge difference to a result.

I think that all shows we’ve still got lots of work to do.  That game was good experience for the players because if we’re going to be a good side then they’ll be in that situation many times in the future.  With experience, hopefully we'll get a better result.

[WilliamPowell]

Got to say I am a lot calmer now than I was last night after the game - sleep is a wonderful thing

My demeanour was not helped last night by those feral Freo fans. And BTW they are stupid

But I maybe calmer but I am no less bitterly disappointed than I was last night.

Freo did not win that game we lost it.

The only word I could think of last night on the long flight back (with the majority of the team I might add) was

UNACCEPTABLE

7 minutes to go 14 points up you shouldn't lose.

I agree the umpires were terrible but in the last 7 minutes the umpires were not responsible for...

* Mark Coughlan dropping a chest mark 15 metres out from the Freo goal that resulted in the Carr getting a goal.

* Ray Hall's brain explosion

* Poor skill errors and decision making coming out to the back half in those final 7 minutes which included...

* trying to pinpoint passes to one on one contests when a 50 metre kick down the line would have served us better

* Joel Bowden running forward 60 metres out and having an empty goal square because Tambling and Simmonds are leading to a pocket and then kicking it to... Tambling who had 2 opponents

Gee I feel better now  

Did Hall actually run too far, is it how many steps or how far you travel in distance?

Distance travelled. Ray got himself into trouble and should have conceded a behind. He took the mark. He then took 2 steps off the line and was called to play on, then he went 3 steps forward, 5 back, 4 sideways and then ran without bouncing for about 8-9 steps. That's close to 20 steps in my book.

I will give credit to Freo when we tried to slow it down they played man on man and it stuffed us and some of blokes didn't know what to do. From that they will learn