CK95 wrote:
I'll admit I was quietly confident going into this game, massive kick in the pants.
I haven't given up on Dow but as sidefx said earlier, in hindsight maybe bringing in both he & Polson in the same week cost us. Cottrell wouldn't have been too bad for us today. Polson looked OK when he got it but that wasn't often.
That second half was just a giant WTF just happened moment, to me. I wouldn't say we had one of our complete lapses but we just looked so one dimensional going in forward. What happened? I can't follow the coaching moves but interested to hear from others like BV what did we do & not do after half time? & did Buckley re-jig their defence or something.
Really, really wanted more from Casboult today.
I thought we missed Mcgovern, needed someone to create & use the ball cleverly & make us a bit more unpredictable in attack.
Got pantsed.
Reading through the pages on everyones takes to what happened, what should have happened and what was expected.
There seems to be a bit to take from everyone.
As far as coaching goes, Teague is not much better than Bolton in the fact they are both one dimensional at times. This is not solely their fault, a developing playing list with a sprinkle of seniors that are not as good as some would rate can do this.
The only obvious change Teague has made since taking over is playing more of the senior players to try and win games. And if a couple of them have a bad day (as they do in all teams) we are exposed, and probably more so given our list of developing players and more importantly the ratio of developing players to senior players. I'm not sure on an exact number but if you look at the filth yesterday they wouldn't have had more than 6 or so developing players in their side, the rest are seasoned (and they would've had less if they could have).
Teague has no plan B, adjustment to plan A etc as the only plan is add experience to win games and until we either get more experienced senior players into the team or the younger ones develop more (which I think they are), we will not be able to match it with top 8 teams when it counts. And as I said at the start of the year when they changed the runner rules, with more experienced players at the end of their careers (e.g. the Lions model), the on field leadership will be better and hopefully it will put an end to these 30pt swings.
However, I do believe that winning the amount of games we have this year and the glimpses of the brand of football we can play, the club is doing all the right things to attract the senior players we need to stand up during games like yesterday. Not to mention the younger players on the fringe that would want to train harder and play harder to get a spot in the team.
I like you CK were slightly confident (even though I knew better, especially after the soft win we had against the Suns) going into this game and I guess the disappointment hit harder than normal also, plus we were playing the filth.
Going forward for the rest of the year, deano has the right idea, it's time to mix it up. Get some more of the kids in, swap some positions (put SPS in the forward line FFS) and see what we have going into the trading season and draft.