There's a lot of crap on the rest of this site, and without sounding condescending, some of it is just emotional claptrap.

While there is room to be emotional, let's sit down and look at where we went wrong.

1. Midfield Pressure (or lack thereof)

Our midfielders are amongst the worst defensively I've seen. Players in that side could not play one-on-one football. I don't care if Stevens had 30 possessions, I don't care if Camporeale had 32 possessions, half of them were cheap kicks. There was very little defensive pressure applied by these two in particular. Stevens did better and tried to get his own ball but Camporeale, my blood pressure is rising...

2. Team Play

What do I mean? The inability of the team to string bits of play together was very disappointing. Players seemed very selfish, with a few exceptions - namely Simpson, Waite, Lappin, French and Thornton. The midfield was particularly poor, players heard footsteps and succumbed to pressure, even when there were no players around.

3. Half-Forward Line

We lack a CHF and that was glaringly obvious, forward line failed to create a contest at ground level and this was painful to watch. We also kick it to big packs where the Tigers just ran it out in numbers from HB. Why do all our players lead to the same flank/pocket??? This just creates numbers at a contest to our DISADVANTAGE.

That's at least 3 - in that order of disappointment.

I thought the following were disappointing for various reasons:

Houlihan - did not deliver with his usual precision, seemed more flustered than usual, and his awful left foot turnover in the first quarter was really quite poor.

Johnson - did not win the ball at all and caught on the rebound with his pace. Foot disposal was worse today than normal.

Camporeale - chased easy kicks off HB, not damaging enough with his possessions. I don't care if he had 32 possessions, how much damage did they do?

Stevens - Ditto. Though he was less guilty of playing for easy kicks. Desperately needs support.

Koutoufides - defensively is very easily exploited. His man runs off him and he's reluctant to chase. He might win the ball well at the clearances but today he was quite poor, particularly defensively.

Positives

There were a few today, in that our younger players were the ones that stood up to some extent.

Simpson - best game for our club, worked hard all day, ran to create links, provide blocks, went for the ball, but no support - his kick that went astray was because there was no one to kick it to and he was under immense pressure. Where was the support? Selfish play from others, nothing he could do. Hit targets by hand and foot, something very few could do today.

Waite - Tried hard but too much was left to him. Disposal by foot needs to continue to improve.

Thornton - Showed what leadership was about when disgusted at losing contest, made awful clanger but that is rare from Bret.

Lappin - tried hard but again overwhelmed.

We need players who want to make it, Denis could do better than dropping a big name player in order to show that chasing cheap kicks and not playing for the team is unacceptable.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Your hatred of campo is clouding your judgement very badly.

Saw him make one big mistake in the third quarter letting Pettifer(?) loose around the forward 50 after a contest and letting him kick a goal, but apart from that he played better than 90% of the team.

Stevens did better and tried to get his own ball huh, he looked pretty even with campo today to me. That is a worry because campo is not an inside player. Kouta and johnson, should be leading the contested possies stats.

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The voice of reason. Thanks CC. I could not agree with you more. I will be VERY interested to see where our team management goes from here.
Thanks and Go Blues!

It's not hatred Jar, it's the fact that his possessions were not damaging at all. Numbers don't mean a lot, how many times did he push forward from HBF and try to run the ball and create options.

Stevens was similar. These guys were playing wide of their opponents and with Richmond mopping up at their HB line they were caught out, their opponents had far more impact than their combined 62 possessions.

Rebound 50's don't mean much either (I know you'll dig stats up) because the way the ball came out of there was atrocious.

And that ring-a-ring-a-rosie with Houlihan (IIRC) at HBF where they lost 20m handballing to each other and only got away with it because of a careless free kick against a Richmond player, that was ridiculous.

Camporeale wasn't the only passenger today. All the midfielders were guilty of not running forward in numbers to try to negate the Richmond run off HB. Absolutely no pressure coming out for Newman, Deledio, Gaspar and co.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

I thought Campo was pretty good...

Some people are just pure and simple anti-Camporeale. 32 possessions on one leg? What does he have to do. He's not the reason we got thumped. Some people are never satisfied and never will be.

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Formerly Blues-Back2003.

Not sure why Scotland gets off in terms of criticism poor defensive pressure. His entire game plan operates on giving his man the slip and making space. When it works its brilliant.

The flipside is that he is quite often miles away from his man when the ball is turned over.

Was it just coincidence that our best game of the year in terms of manning up and putting pressure on opposition (the Port game) we were missing both Scotland and Campo.

CC,

Agree Stevens and Campo's possessions were mostly from the back half

We could've used their disposal up when we entered the 50.

I think it reflects our lack of skilfull players when Stevens and Campo have to go back to ensure we don't turn it over every single time we leave the defensive 50 (although it did happen a lot today)

2005 - when Camporeale led tackles that was good, but his tackle stats this year have been extremely disappointing.

4 tackles this year (not including this week)! Sorry, but when he led the tackle stats last year that was a lot better, this year, his defensive work has been poor. His 32 possessions weren't damaging today.

Ponkie, I agree on Scotland, defensively he's a liability.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Small forwards killed us again, Brown and Krakeour as always doing the damage.

Thought T-Bird did well in the 50-50's with Richo. He couldnt do anything about the ones on the lead, but did well not to get outbodied when the ball was kicked long

so,
The question is what changes should/ can be made?
who were our worst today?
Did anybody see the magoos?

i am with you on this one Clem

My blood was boiling with Campo as well surpirised he got that much of the ball. must have been many cheap disposals as from what i saw he didnt tackle / chase / wasnt accountable and also shared in the poor disposals and decision making ... though he wasnt alone IE Kouta / SCOTLAND / Johnson.

i not to harsh on Simpson or Walker ect as they still young but the above 4 are all considered Senior players

Only Stevo out of the above 4 could be given a pass mark at least he contested and put in which he does most weeks.

Simmo might've done well but his opponent was Krakeour who kicked 5

Need someone like Chris Newman to be another back pocket option along with Carrots

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

pretty good overview CC

I only heard the radio and can believe that Campos kicks were ineffective.

However before you throw the baby out with the bath water he did have 9 contested posssesions (second to stevens on 10).

Havind said that our midfield clearances and defensive efforts would have to be significant concerns for DP.

Clem my comment about the anti-Campo bias wasn't directed solely at you it's just something that appears to rear its head without fail every week, win, lose or draw.

I just think that some people will NEVER be satisfied no matter what Campo does. He was playing on one leg today remember.

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Formerly Blues-Back2003.

There is a report from Mickstar over on the Bullies page now.

Apparently Bentick, Davies, Bowyer, Clarke and Diggers among the best.

I think Sporn and Deluca should probably get a rest.
Fev is back, and maybe Bentick needs a chance to prove himself.

Fair enough summary Clem.......I'll be more blunt, no grunt in the midfield, lack pace, too many light bodied players and have not had a decent forward who can take a overhead mark since Kernahan.
The list has too many Indians and not enough Chiefs.......with Fevola out we cant kick enough goals and have no game plan....

As far as I'm concerned, our midfield let us down today. Our backline tried & did well under the circumstances but I think that our midfield need to be more accountable. If stevo had 10 & campo 9 uncontested possesions, who is not putting in, doing their bit defensively?? Is it Kouta? To me today Kouta looked tired & like someone who is past it. Now I love Kouta so to say this is quite hard as I know exactly what he means to this team, but he is our captain & I know that getting the ball is great but we needed defensive pressure & he did not apply it. Neither did Scotland. If Pettifer can get easy kicks like he did in the first quarter then that is a discrace. Scotland is better than that. I thought he was terrible today.

I know that I have only singled out 2 players out of the whole team who were woeful but I know that they are capable of so much more & I also think that they escape criticism on this site when perhaps they should not. I know what Kouta is capable of but I am concerned that he may be tired at such an early part of the season..


Also, on a side note, I saw 3 quarters of the bullants today & noticed that davies & clark had their own ring a ring a rosie for most of the 3rd quarter. They stuffed it up more than they were successful & need to lift if they think they will get a game in the 1's. Juzzy had a lot of the ball but he did not use it as well as he should have. Russell for me was the stand out. Very exciting and skillful!

Lack of run, lack of numbers at the contest, appalling disposal, is what killed us, not indivual players. It was a shockingly poor team effort and one I suspect that Dennis will address during the week.


For what it is worth, I rated Campos game as being a lot 'harder' than Nicks, wonder how come Campo got all bandaged up after a 1st quarter incident.

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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

Agree Mark, not saying that Kouts & Scoots cost us the game at all. It is a team effort, or as it was today, a lack of team effort. But I still say that our midfield was not accountable, nor did they play defensive football when they needed to.

Agree on Stevens....has become a tad shy of the contest and looking for the real easy receive. Campo's game was reasonable...we know how he plays and what his role is...I thought Campo at least looked interested....maybe Stevens is carrying an injury..has no urgency in his game.