Your pathways are built off that. If you can't win the ball, the best and prettiest of plans are pointless.
It's not an antiquated strength. Top 3 for clearances this year are the back to back premiers, 2nd and 3rd on the ladder. It's OK to have a strength that you rely on. You just can't fold and totally disarm yourself for extensive periods of time and not expect to be punished.

cats, hawks, gws and pies don't need to win the ball from clearance. they take it off you and run the other way.

also ... i thought our best set up yday was:

Pittonet
Walsh
Jagga
Hewett

and chop out pitto for cripps when he needs a spell. get young to do centre bounces, and then move forward or back, and cripps goes around the ground

one thing I noticed in that last fifteen odd minutes beside their fast hands compared to us handballing to them or to no one is. that they hit the centre bounce (and other ballups/ball ins) contests hard right to the end of the game...did. we?

No one ever mentions Bert Hartkopf any more. Would be a walk up start for Carlton.

Have a look at our games this year Danny and see how often the opposition smother our kicks compared to us. In the Swans game there were a lot. The opposition players commit their body to make the difference. Dive to make the difference. Ours throw an arm up and turn their back. Even Hayward could have tried to throw himself across the boot both times he gave away 50's.
The 2nd game kid has done as many as anyone.
Until those things are important, the players are not fair dinkum.

Hawks are 4th in the AFL for clearances. The rest are currently joining us in the bottom 8.

Beaten 7-10 clearances after the 14 minute mark of the last quarter yesterday. Simpkin with 2 clearances and 5 score involvements in that time. LDU with 6 clearances and 7 contested possessions in the last quarter.
Groundhog day. Same thing happened in the previous games as well.
Clearance, contested footy is the only strength we have as a list. It's not just about coaching. Our list composition currently isn't capable of playing different footy IMO. We can have a forward handball game, high handball metres etc which makes us look great. But it comes off the back of winning the ball.
The reality is our mids are having massive drop off segments in the contest after half time and allowing the opposition to totally disarm us by controlling the clearance and contest. Big scoring blocks in short periods of time. Until our midfield group get some consistency in effort and maintain the rage with their area of strength, the same results will occur.

Good to see Cerra get through the game. Easily the second most clearances for us and 2nd most amount of metres gained. With 5 tackles and 5 score involvements, he'll only get better hopefully.

Random stat for the week? We had 3 goal assists in 4 quarters of footy. The top 2 teams on the AFL ladder average 14.7 and 13 per game respectively.

one thing I noticed in that last fifteen odd minutes beside their fast hands compared to us handballing to them or to no one is. that they hit the centre bounce (and other ballups/ball ins) contests hard right to the end of the game...did. we?

On Harry - why the @#$%&! did he not go into the ruck or even go back when weitering went down, why do our players appear the most inflexible in the league?

Yep, re Hayward, there's a difference between aggression and ill discipline. You can't whack blokes after they've kicked the ball. He did that TWICE, both times resulting in goals to North.
And both times we had momentum which his ill discipline killed off.
Hayward is an experienced player, he is expected to be better than that FFS !!

Beaten 7-10 clearances after the 14 minute mark of the last quarter yesterday. Simpkin with 2 clearances and 5 score involvements in that time. LDU with 6 clearances and 7 contested possessions in the last quarter.

Beaten 7-10 clearances after the 14 minute mark of the last quarter yesterday. Simpkin with 2 clearances and 5 score involvements in that time. LDU with 6 clearances and 7 contested possessions in the last quarter.
Groundhog day. Same thing happened in the previous games as well.
Clearance, contested footy is the only strength we have as a list. It's not just about coaching. Our list composition currently isn't capable of playing different footy IMO. We can have a forward handball game, high handball metres etc which makes us look great. But it comes off the back of winning the ball.
The reality is our mids are having massive drop off segments in the contest after half time and allowing the opposition to totally disarm us by controlling the clearance and contest. Big scoring blocks in short periods of time. Until our midfield group get some consistency in effort and maintain the rage with their area of strength, the same results will occur.

Good to see Cerra get through the game. Easily the second most clearances for us and 2nd most amount of metres gained. With 5 tackles and 5 score involvements, he'll only get better hopefully.

Random stat for the week? We had 3 goal assists in 4 quarters of footy. The top 2 teams on the AFL ladder average 14.7 and 13 per game respectively.