on the radio on the way home Fev was copping it, from what i saw at the game every time the ball went to him he had 2 or 3 players. I thought Fev was frustrated like all of us, he still chased and applied physical pressure. I was more annoyed with the effort shown by Stevens, Scottland and Sporn i thought they le there opponet get the better of them.
I actually tipped the kangas, i thought going into this game that supporters and the players were a little to cocky especially when you see members on the blueview trying to predict how much we would win by.

Not Fevs fault when you have 2 opponents and your space is occupied and you can't take contested marks. Fev had no hope

I wouldn't entirely blame Fev - most of our better players didn't have a good game. Our midfield was well held and when they did get the ball, their disposal was ordinary. There were so many kicks to contests where the Kangaroos outnumbered us. This was especially the case with Fev - although he wasn't leading well, everytime the ball was kicked to him and he needed to take a pack mark, he was surrounded by about 3 Roos players. He didn't stand much of a chance and spent most of the second quarter on the bench. However, his body language wasn't the best and he dropped several fairly simple marks on the lead that he normally would have held. These were particularly costly with one in the last quarter resulting a quick goal on the rebound to the Kangaroos.
I don't know any of the statistics but Scotland seemed to be one of our better midfielders. He got the ball quite a bit but his disposal was average, IIRC there were a few handballs to the opposition and some bad decisions but he was better than Campo.

Fev was double and triple teamed and our delivery to him was deplorable. Anyone willing to watch the replay and count the number of aimless bombs into the forward 50?
The commentators were praising Leigh Brown, but IMO his job was made all the more easy by our midfield lobbing the ball into the forward 50 aimlessly.

A Wizard Cup trophy can do that... That's why it is imperative that you keep things in perspective... I'm sure thats what Pagan was saying to the players before round 1.

Tis obviously a hard task to follow...

It was mission impossible for Fev today.Double and triple tagged all day.It was pretty obvious early that north had done there homework.Reckon our coaching staff must have known what was coming.Hey guys ! where was plan B.We cannot continue with the long bombs and expect it is not going to be counteracted.Pretty brain dead sort of stuff for mine.Plan A is great when everything is going right,but when the wheels fall off we need a plan B and a plan C as well.Apart from Kouta,our work around stoppages was deplorable once again.Libba,Elshaug,and Mitchell are all ex onballers and need to put there heads down and try and rectify this part of our game.Sure,Campo,Stevo and Scooter got a fair amount of the pill,but it was only Kouta who was getting the all important 1st touch around the scrimages.Whether you love him or hate him,Brett Johnson is a must for next week.I will concede he has deficiencies,but he is a 1st touch of the pill type player.Getting 1st touch of the bill is numero uno in the modern game.

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Fev would have had every right to crack the sads today. After having a honeymoon the last month, the team let him down with delivery again. And when it was obvious that we would keep kicking it to him, the double (triple etc) tagging started.

And we still kept kicking it to him! sheessh...

Gotta disagree. Fev should run up onto the wing when his game is suffering. He did that in the Wizard Cup and got a few valuable possessions which helped his confidence. How often did he run out onto the wing in this match? not many.

Fev could be the best player in the whole comp - but needs to fight through periods of poor form. It happens to all good players - but Fev has to change his expectations if things don't go well. Focusing on getting a possy on the wing is a lot more positive than complaining about midfield delivery. I hope he towels up that North clown next time they meet. I look forward to that encounter.

Gee tap, I felt he ran up the wing frequently today. Although the possessions didn't eventuate, so along with his teammates his game was obviously down as well.

And I don't think he complained about the delivery. Not in the way we are used to seeing anyway I just think he had a right to today. It was poor, poor, poor.

Considering the amount of pressure on Fev, and the double and triple teaming, I thought he did OK under those circumstances.

The positive is that on any occassion when he missed the ball, he didn't stop chasing, or go for those second efforts.

I reckon this time last year, he's body language would have subjected him to a barrage of abuse on TBV or this forum, had he not continued for the second and third efforts.

I said it to a mate of mine at the game today and I agree with others, we need a foil for Fev, like we had one for Sticks in Pearce. We kept going to him even though he had 2 or 3 opponents on him. You won't win games like this.

No shortage of foils- De Luca, Waite, Morrell (when not needed down back).

Problem is, Blueworld, that even with or without these guys, there must be a Plan B or Plan C if Plan A is not working.

They do this in business, have contingency plans. It should be no different in AFL football, let alone sport.

Shows how far Fev has come when people whinge when he ONLY kicks 3.
How shit is Tarrant then if he only average's close to 1.5 goals a game?

If thats Fevs worst game for the year then he's in for a big one.

The amount of times that the ball sailed over Fev's head it's a miracle he got his hands on the ball enough to kick 3 goals. Either the roo's boys cut up our midfield ie. pressure on the ball carrier or the domes air-conditioner was on too high. Did Laidley have the remote?

Fully agree. I had my doubts, but if Fev can continue to contribute like he did today, when the side was poor, and he was only average (compared to what we've seen in recent weeks), then he's well on his way to kicking a ton.

Agree with most of the posts that the disposal to him and the other marking forwards today was poor.

And Mickstar, I agree that we were poor at the stoppages apart from Kouta. I thought particularly we got murdered at the centre clearances, which are so crucial. But I wonder if we're struggling a little in this area, because we're trying to play some of our better midfielders behind the ball loose in defence?

Also McGrath who showed a fair bit in that role during the Wizard Cup was occupied with shadowing Wells out on the wings. He actually did a good job, although Wells made us pay for some of his trademark brilliance. Perhaps we need to find someone else to play the shut down role on the most dangerous smalls, so we can release him into the centre square?

Spot on Mickstar, Johno would have been handy today. Laidley coached well today and turned the game into a scrap. Roos are great at stopages and that is where we lost.

We have many link players but not many players that are good around the stopages. Perfect day for footy but we rarely got to see Carlton link more than 3 possesions together. It was a scrap and no room for Fev or Whitnall. These guys had room galaore in the Wizzard Cup but today there was no room.

We also allowed Colbert to raom free in the backline for too long.

We need plan b and c. Fev and Lance can't do it every week however having a more dominant midfeild would help.

We were out-flooded.

Fev had little chance. The midfielders seemed to want to see some speccies in the forward line, because there were a lot of wishful thinking lobs into that area.

Fev had a pretty shit game I thought. But so did about 12-13 of his mates.

When Fev hadn't seen much of the ball for the first half I said to my mate that he should actually start on the wing.

Fev's 3 goals on a day where the team looked insipid and he himself had a poor one is actually a fair return. Puts him on track for 66 this season.

Agree that things were made tough for Fev by our delivery and lack of space allowed by the defense. Fev seemed a little down, but he did try to chase and tackle. The main problem we had in the forward area though, was that we couldn't keep it locked in there.

Too often the Roos were able to clear it out of our forward line, and link up down the flanks to unmanned teammates. Why weren't these guys manned up? Or is that an old fashioned concept?

Those two deficiencies lost us the game.

everyone was talking up sav - he kicked four goals.

everyone was saying how shit fev was - he kicked three.

IMO - we didnt play well at all, with bad decision making, bad disposal, and just generally playing really flat where as North probably did everything right, had the bounce go their way a few times as well. Not to take anything away from North - they had a game plan, they did what the game plan was, and they won the game. Good on them.

At one stage in the last quarter one of our long kicks into our forward line saw Fevola vs 5 north players but as Laidley said, he has been studying our game plan for the last 3 weeks so he had plently of time to do his homework. And credit to him and north - the game planed work. But, i think they fact that we played so poorly but still had some chance of stealing the win in the last quarter (look at Sav's & Thompson's goals, both from outside 50's both from deep in the pockets, 8 times out of 10, they wouldnt have made them) is a very positive sign for us.

But a real big positive IMO is this - people see us as a real threat. Sure we lost, but i think it will be a while before you see Lappin, Stevens, Scotland, Houla, Prenda etc.. all get below 20 possessions in the one game.

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