04-16-2019, 06:35 AM
(04-16-2019, 06:13 AM)jeza link Wrote:The issue we've got right now we've had for a very long time. As soon as we cross the centre with the ball in hand the players' brains go into neutral. I don't like our forward structure - we never seem to be able to get short passes to a teammate inside 50. It is always long bombs where we rely on a contested mark or a crumbing goal. Both are rare.
Even when we do have the easiest of easy opportunities finally present itself - Dow finds a way to kick it 5m over Gov's head from a 15m pass.
Our use of the ball has been an issue on this scale for the past 3 coaches so I'm not sure how to fix it at this point. You can't just blame this coach or these players as it has been like this for so long.
How Cripps, under no pressure, having taken a mark could possibly choose to spear a long bomb at Gibbons in the last quarter will forever go down as one of the most difficult decisions to get my head around ever.
SPS and Fisher are reliable enough with ball in hand kicking short but then its hard to find any of our other mids who kick the ball well on a consistent basis...
Dow, Cripps, Murphy, Ed, Polson, Gibbons, Garlett, Setterfield and Kennedy are not players I would want kicking for my life, Obrien is meant to be a good kick and has a good style but doesnt kick under pressure well enough so being a forward and expecting reasonable delivery is hit or miss a lot of the time. Couple that with some brain dead decision making as you suggested and its hard for our forwards to get the ball unless its by individual effort. Docherty and Williamson are missed as you have pointed out previously but we probably need two more mids with elite kicking skills to turn the odds in our favour.
If Adelaide continue to implode I'd be having a crack at Matt Crouch, plus Tomlinson and Coniglio from GWS...we wont get them all but we need that extra class, we just have too many blue collar butchers....