Blue Vain wrote:
Hibbo wrote:
I thought Jones done more fwd than Hendo vs Tigers.
I think Hendo needs to go back. I think he plays better there and I think he's more comfortable there.
Play Rowe fwd. And if our game plan is to bomb it then Casboult needs to play. Let Jones play as a third tall like Mick & Wiley said all preseason.
Did you? Do you also see Hendo chasing Smiths man downfield several times while Smith trailed 20 metres behind?
Or wasn't that in the TV screen? Its not a criticism of Smith, he's just not fit enough.
Liam Jones needs to understand his responsibilities don't only apply when the ball is within 5 metres.
Our problem is forward pressure. We can't win enough one on one contests up forward which enables our opposition to zone off. Too often players like Houli and Batchelor were running offensively before the Tiges had even won the ball. 31 uncontested possessions between 2 defenders!
People on this site talk about cheating players. Richmond cheat infinitely more than our players. We're just good enough to punish them for it.
The outcome is Houli, Batchelor, Hunt and co run the ball up the ground with no pressure and hit up their forwards with ease.
Yet you and others are advocating we send into defence the only forward we played who could win a one on one or chased to apply pressure.

BV while you're bang on about the lack of effort by some at forward pressure acts, you're also overlooking that some of the forwards need to be ahead of the play.
Hendo did not win his share of 50-50s on the night; 0 marks inside 50, 1 contested mark. Yes the pressure acts were nice but he kicked 2 points and had one goal assist for the evening. I honestly think he's getting in the way right now because if he was close to an elite forward he'd have 3 goals to go with 6 marks and those blokes out of breath would be front and square with less miles in the legs because they know exactly how he'll look to bring the ball down.
We don't have that level of organisation in the forward unit and he's supposed to be the leader of it. He can @#$%&! off and go somewhere his attributes are weapons instead of hindrances that engender our entire midfield unit to push too far up the ground so when we do turn it over, Richmond only have to nail a simple 40 m pass to have a free run at their own 50.
That he and the forward unit don't have the confidence of the midfield enough to prevent them all rushing forward to provide link up options without much purpose or team play hurts our ability to shut down Richmond's rebound. So is it the forward structure in personnel, tactics, the confidence in it from midfield or the support offered from midfield?
I think it's a little bit of everything, but when your supposedly best forward gets spoiled so easily it's hard to sit back and do nothing as all your I50s count for nothing.
Here's are the statistical truths of last night:
- Our traditional prime movers spent the least amount of time on ground
- No one took more than one mark inside 50 or one contested mark for CFC all night
- We won the time in possession battle comfortably (55% to 45%) but lost total possessions by 30 (the gap was as much as 40-50 at points)
- We only lost the I50 count 46-54
- Almost all of Richmond's extra disposals came from uncontested ball wins
- Richmond only had one more mark I50 (12-11), but importantly won the constested mark count 13-7; their mark I50 count was also concentrated around key targets, while we had no players with more than 1 for the whole match
So the supply dried up and got patchy but we didn't have a consistent target who was taking grabs. Hendo was the focal point yet was neither marking in the clinches or providing ground ball for others; in fact, they were providing ground balls for him.
He doesn't have a @#$%&! clue what he's doing at the moment and that's on him and the coaches. Does the defensive basics right but if he took the aerial load his mates would help with forward pressure just fine by virtue of being at the fall of the ball more regularly and having more gas in the tank.
cimm1979 wrote:
If the rest of the team had worked as hard as Henderson did last night we would have won.
I suppose kicking 14.22 would have been a winning score.