JLT Series. Game on! - Pies v. Giants - All comments please.

[BazBoy]

No forward line or at the least not a effective one and on the way we move ball out of opposition defence a glaring example of our static or slow process

A chain of kicks and hand pass found Varcoe all on his own at CHF so running he kicks long toward goal but GWS with time to set up and three of their defenders could have raffled the mark cos no Pie forwards to take advantage of a very good effort to get ball to Varcoe abiet slow

This was not the only example —- saw no appreciable difference to last yr early season. Time to find a solution

[qldmagpie67]

It's only a practise match but oh boy surely the basic skills required to be a AFL footballer should be there.
I stopped counting at 42 direct kicks under little to no pressure that our players kicked directly to a opposition player
The only upside is there was about 10 players there tonight who won't see AFL this season unless we have the worst injury toll in the history of the game.
Our backline was under constant pressure after quarter time.
Adams isn't a back under any circumstances
Someone explain to me when we're losing the clearances so badly we don't play our best clearance player (statistically) in Adams on the ball but on the HBF
Ok we might have just been mucking around a bit but surely we don't want to pump the Giants tyres up more than we have too.
Yeah there a good team but they had about 6-10 best 22 players out
Just a few individual points
Sidey is smart and creates things why are we playing him a defensive mid role and not forward of the ball or better still in the forward 50 when Cox is dropping marks
Dunn battles so hard but he's going to be beaten by these beasts. He needs help up the field to slow the ball movement down so he can at least have a chance
Stephenson has some skills but needs to improve his match awareness badly and his foot skills need improvement
Daicos & Brown aren't physically ready for AFL still. Can't doubt there desire or effort but there bodies are to easily moved off the ball
Langdon can't play as a key defender he's to slight in frame. He lacks the ability to hit a target beyond 20-25m (he went 1 from 6 beyond that distance tonight) I'll give him a big A for effort and he played OK in a defence under enormous pressure but he's still caught out of position to often (he gets a pass tonight because he didn't have much help around him tonight)
Pendles looked like a guy who hasn't played competitive footy for a long time high he was but he will soon find his feet.
Varcoe was rusty as but he will be better for the hit out as well
Grundy is just improving every time he walks onto the field. Bold statement here but if he shows the same improvement this year as he did last he is my Copeland favourite this early
Cox learn to mark ya big goof. You could have kicked 5 easily tonight
Reid is a player who looks like he's waiting for his body to fail again. He just doesn't seem to be confident in any movement he makes. He's got the skill to be a better than average CHF but his lack of second efforts are a worry
Finally we stuffed around with the ball so badly coming out of defence wasn't funny. Yeah they applied pressure but heck every team will do that and we looked devoid of a idea how to get the ball out of scoring range.
Howe & Scharenberg will help that a lot but unless we learn to get the freaking ball at 80 from goal after a couple kicks and be able to reset our defence we are in terrible trouble
Oh well it's only a practise match right please tell me we were just out there for shits and giggles

[Magpietothemax]

Reading these match reports has filled me with trepidation.

[Albert Parker]

^Watching the game filled supporters with trepidation. It was awful

[Johnno75]

Look it was the first competitive hit out of the season so we need to put it into a bit of perspective but Round 1 is only 3 weeks away and we appear to have a lot of players underdone.

However it appears to be the same main issues that will plague us again in 2018.

Taylor Adams for all the grunt and hard nut that he is (and remember he was 1 vote away from having a Copeland Trophy in his cabinet) I still cringe when he has the ball in D50. He gave away at least 3 goals from poor execution in the back half, I know Bucks tried a few different things last night but there is seriously no point with the Adams experiment off the back flank.

You can have the best system, coaches and plan in the world but if your players can't execute basic skills and continue to give 5-6 charity goals to the opposition week in week out with sh!thouse disposal then we have zero chance of getting up into the top 4.

[MatthewBoydFanClub]

So who are these 6-10 players that GWS had out of their best side? The only two obvious outs were Greene and Scully. Put those two in to last night's side, that GWS side would have smashed Richmond in the GF. People are forgetting that GWS had a worse injury list last year than ours yet still made the prelim.

I'm not saying we were good last night. Some of our field kicking was terrible. We still have a lot of work to do, but some of the comments here are a bit disrespectful to players like Callum Brown, who hasn't had a full preseason, yet still did a few useful things. The three new players all look good to me. Stephenson is going to be a star once he puts on weight. Appleby made a few mistakes but settled in well off the half back line and already, Mihocek shows himself a more intelligent player than Schade. Oxley is a major worry if he has injured his shoulder after playing one practice game and Broomhead still doesn't appear to have it as a standard AFL player.

[Culprit]

^^It was a great hit out and has completely lowered fans expectations. Job Done.

[E]

[didick]

When the coach opens up with this:
"We didn't do the basics real well and our disposal was poor. We got smacked in clearances after quarter time."
Then you've gotta ask WTF have you been doing for the last 5 months??!!!! The basics! The basics!

[What'sinaname]

[mudlark]

[mudlark]

[Stinger]

Was at the game last night sitting 4 rows behind the Pies bench. There wasn't a lot of urgency and the players seemed to be coming on and off as planned, evidenced by the communication between them all going onto the ground.

My observations:

No forward line at all
It's either kick it in high to Cox, Grundy or Reid and hope for a 1% chance of a mark (that they then go on and miss the set shot anyway). Or go in F50 under pressure through a midfield group who can't hit a target from 15m away. Why is Ben Reid being used fwd when he can't kick a set shot 40m?

Stoppages
Get some inside mids who actually know where Grundy/Cox are going to tap it. Admittedly they had the young kids and Maynard in there for the most part for the experience but I lost count of the tapouts to no one or the opposition.

Contested Possession
We are still v good at this, but this alone will not win us football games.

Slow, Slow, Slow
We are STILL a team of plodders. Compared to GWS, all of whom run hard and fast. If the modern game is to play 36 in the middle of two arcs and slingshot forward from a turn over or switch of play, then we are seriously stuffed. 1. we don't have the speed; 2. we don't have the skillz to thread our way through; 3. we don't run into the right space; and finally when we do find space we don't use this as the first option and it breaks down the momentum thus forcing us to kick wide or down the line to a contest.

Backline
I think our back line will match up quite well but I'm concerned by the pace at which opposition can enter our D50. And once in there how easy it is to find 1, 2, 3 loose players due to our lack of midfield presence. Comparing this to our F50 which is usually filled by 16 opposition players standing 10m apart clogging up space.

I think we could be in for a long, long, what could have been, why do we play like this year!

[Dave The Man]

Well that was very Demorlising.

Got Utterly Flogged yes we had quite a Few Non-Best 22 Players but the Looked Miles off.

Stephenson and Daicos where my 2 most Disappointing Players. Daicos was clean with the Ball but Ball Use was Terrible. Stephenson was okay with ball in hand but barley touched and looked very Tentative. Might need to get use to Senior Footy in the VFL before playing AFL.

See Bucks still likes Kicking Backwards and Sideways Still.

Hope for lot better Performance vs Dogs as at the Moment it looks it could be YET another Very Long Season

[Pies4shaw]

Have we caught up, yet? They weren’t that far in front at the end of the 4th quarter.